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Joel Fagerberg

09 December 2014

Advanced Research Seminar in Social Science

Karen Gover and Mirka Prazak

Applying Foucault to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: An Analysis of the United States Drone

Program Abroad

I. Introduction

Thousands of miles lie between Drone operators in the United States and those they aim

to strike abroad. The former are cushioned by the infrastructure of the United States’

military­industrial complex. They are stationed at operations desks in sleek, high­security

buildings scattered mostly throughout the South West of America, watching live feeds from

UAVs flying over regions­of­interest halfway around the world. No armor is necessary for these

soldiers, but they wage war nonetheless. Multiple screens display full­motion, high­definition

video alongside pertinent weather reports, providing a staggering array of visual information to

coffee­sipping observers. With the capacity of UAV cameras increasing thanks to the ARGUS

system (officially unveiled in 2013), any screen in the operating room may be responsible for 65

windows of live video from just a single Drone (Paul Szoldra Drone Spying Capabilities are

About to Take a Huge Leap 2013). Detailed, scalable images from multiple angles are now

available to every operator in the room as they surveil territories and populations beyond U.S.

borders. An arsenal of Hellfire missiles are also at their command, with most Drones providing

not just surveillance, but also striking, capabilities.

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On the other side of the ARGUS system’s 1.8 gigapixel camera may be anyone within the

scope of the United States’ fleet of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Taking Mamana Bibi of the

Ghundi Kala Village in North Waziristan, Pakistan as a memorable example, targets may even

be innocent civilians picking okra with their grandchildren (Amnesty International Will I Be

Next? 7). Used to seeing Drones overhead, Mamana and her grandchildren were going about

their daily routine when Mamana was hit by two Hellfire missiles in the middle of the afternoon

on October 24, 2012. (ibid 18). Just minutes later, a second round of missiles were fired, landing

only nine feet away from the first strike. Nine members of the Bibi family, who had just arrived

on the scene upon hearing the initial blast, were injured as well (ibid 20). The family home was

also destroyed. In light of all of this destruction and suffering, no official explanation has been

provided for the initial strike on Mamana Bibi (ibid). Pakistani officials have suggested this was

a case of mistaken identity, and the U.S. has not acknowledged the incident.

The story of Mamana Bibi, matriarch to a family of local educators, is just one of many

tragic examples of civilian suffering under the reign of Drone warfare abroad. In the case of Bibi

and many others outlined in reports such as Amnesty International’s “Will I Be Next?” US

Drone Strikes in Pakistan, the strikes that claimed these innocent lives were brought to fruition

through the efforts of a dispersed network of operators and advisors. The Hellfire missile that

ended Bibi’s life was triggered through the combined decision­making capacities of a number of

United States military and intelligence persons. In the main Operations Room of Creech Air

Force Base for example, a single operator is entangled with his co­workers in real­time

monitoring of any number of the available visual feeds. The operator, in the case of pursuing a

strike, will also be in dialogue with military advisors and lawyers scattered throughout the

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United States. Amidst all of these human actors is the Drone itself: the central piece of

technology through which surveillance and striking are both realized.

In many contemporary cases of both support for and critique of the United States Drone

program abroad, many scholars are rushing to articulate and control the ethical implications of

this technology. Calls for international forms of regulation and spirited defenses of the CIA’s

targeted killing program alike display a fascination with the ethical dimension of Drone

technology. This fascination relies on stabilizing concepts that would otherwise have to be

analyzed prior to asking ethical questions. However, there are variables concerning the

theoretical and practical aspects of UAVs which cannot be controlled, no less made ethically

reliable. Operators and their communications, Drones and their functioning, targets and their

representations: these aspects of the UAV network are repeatedly presented in the light of

certainty under which the randomness of their characteristics whither. Whether it be through

Daniel L. Byman’s assumption that Drone technology is low­risk, or Jai C. Galliot’s plan to

regulate UAV use in a moral fashion, both sides of the Drone debate show a tendency to assume

that the variables which make up UAV networks may be definitively characterized and

controlled in the service of ethics (Daniel L. Byman Why Drones Work and Jai C. Galliot A

Response to Strawser).

In response to this aforementioned tendency, the perspective of Michel Foucault may

shed light on some ways in which to analyze Drone technology in a more dynamic fashion. In a

1978 interview, Foucault identified his perspective in comparison to those who seek to stabilize

variables in their analyses. He stated that his role as a thinker and writer was instead “...to raise

questions in an effective, genuine way, and to raise them with the greatest possible rigor, with

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the maximum complexity and difficulty so that a solution doesn’t spring from the head of some

reformist intellectual or suddenly appear in the head of a party’s political bureau” (Michel

Foucault and James D. Faubion Power 288). Foucault’s viewpoint differs from Byman, Galliot,

and many other intellectuals in that it displays a desire to point out the instability of a system

while refraining from proposing solutions. One individual who may be said to challenge the

stability of concepts in a Foucauldian fashion is Ann Stoler, whose work in colonial studies

(though not directly related to Drones) outlines a desire to agitate the assumptions which underlie

seemingly given concepts in her field. In her lecture at Bennington College this fall, Stoler spoke

of Foucault’s “ethics of discomfort,” articulating her commitment to challenging the “virtually

self evident” concepts we take as ready­made when studying issues of colonial power (Ann

Stoler Imperial Duress: Concept Work For Our Times 2014). This commitment, as she made

clear in her lectures, helps to reveal both the familiar and obscure considerations which

contribute to the definition and utility of any given concept.

Applying this type of concept work to the debate surrounding U.S. Drones abroad,

Stoler’s Foucauldian perspective may allow the UAV network itself to be addressed as the

unstable apparatus that it is, highlighting the numerous variables which come to define and

mobilize its elements. One could see that the interaction of these elements results in a

multiplicity of outcomes, thus displaying them in the tension of their “maximum complexity”.

Borrowing from Stoler’s Foucauldian work, one may say that “The analytic challenge is to work

productively, if uneasily, with and across this tension” (Ann Stoler Imperial Debris 195). This

approach, though not considered broadly enough, is notable in the work of some contemporary

scholars. Writers such as Ian Shaw, Derek Gregory, Allison J. Williams, Torin Monahan, and

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Tyler Wall are bringing various levels of instability back into the analytic scenario, challenging

the assumptions which underlie much of the Drone debate. By turning away from an immediate

desire to pinpoint an ethical functioning for UAV technology, these scholars show a Foucauldian

(especially in Shaw’s case) awareness of the tension which underlies concept formation. Instead

of simplifying in service of solutions, they are pointing out how UAV networks themselves are

too complex to definitively control, as are the ethical implications of their use.

Therefore, the task at hand for those approaching the U.S. Drone program abroad is to

remain on guard against conceptual assumptions regarding all facets of the UAV system and its

functioning. To remain on guard against these assumptions is to remain attentive to the powerful,

political capacities of Drone technology. The types of intelligence and military missions which

are made possible by Drones ultimately rest upon the functioning of a dynamic, interwoven

network of information and decision­making. From this network arises forms of knowledge and

governing that must be interrogated with the the aforementioned instability in mind. Therefore,

instead of seeking to defend or improve the functioning of Drone technology in stabilized terms,

the opposite is necessary: one should see the elements of a UAV network as destabilized, and

thus continually question the forms of knowledge and governance which they are making

possible.

II. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: A Genealogy

UAVs have secured an integral role in the United States’ governmental practice. The

development of this role, and the various characterizations of that role which populate public

discourse, are emerging as sites for powerful knowledge claims as to the relationship of UAVs

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with our past, present, and future. What this means is that the story of UAVs ­ where they come

from and where they are leading us ­ is being built and battled over. One must thus question the

present and past together in order to adequately interrogate Drones as an emergent cornerstone of

the United States’ foreign policy. As President Obama moves to make Drones the face of our

bootless response to ISIS and other contemporary threats, this thesis moves to interrogate this

form of warfare, beginning with its historical development (Firmin DeBrander Drones and the

Democracy Disconnect 2014).

Although they have not always been such a controversial cornerstone of U.S. military

action, the story of Drones does not start with the last decade, or even two, though it may seem

that way given their sudden emergence in contemporary media. Instead, it stretches back to even

the 19th century, and arguably even further. There is no “origin” from which the current use of

UAVs by the United States has sprung, but instead, various events which have contributed to

their emergent uses. This claim points to a major concept in Michel Foucault’s work, one which

will help make clearer the historical orientation upon which this thesis is based: genealogy.

Foucault writes in his essay “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” that “A genealogy...will never

neglect as inaccessible the vicissitudes of history. On the contrary, it will cultivate the details and

accidents that accompany every beginning” (Michel Foucault Nietzsche, Genealogy, History 80).

Foucault is not focused on defining a beginning cause. He is instead looking at which historical

concerns surround various, potential beginnings. Therefore, genealogy does not confuse itself

with a search for origins: it concerns itself with developments within the historical body as a

fluctuating abundance of events (ibid).

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Though a thorough genealogy of Drones is beyond the scope of this essay, the spirit of

genealogy runs through it. The spirit of genealogy is summed up nicely by Rabinow and Rose

when they write:

“If Nietzsche’s genealogy of morals was an attack on Christendom and European complacency, Foucault’s genealogies have a different point of attack and use different techniques. But what they share is the concern to disturb and trouble our own conventions ­ whether of truth, of politics, or of ethics ­ through a gray and meticulous labor of detail on the paths that we took ­ and the paths that were not taken ­ in putting together the objects, subjects, and values that seem so natural and precious to us” (Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose Foucault Today 9).

This is the attitude with which this thesis will approach Drone technology in the present.

Through a labor of details regarding the past which speak to the number of intersecting paths,

one may come to see that emergent uses of Drones have many tangled precedents. This aim

resonates with Foucault’s goal in Discipline & Punish: to be not simply interested in the past, but

to be interested in “...writing the history of the present” (Michel Foucault Discipline & Punish

31). The history of Drone technology thus must be a history of its present use. This will help

ensure that one sees the emergent uses of UAVs as based on an unstable collection of precedents,

keeping with the larger Foucauldian perspective that drives this thesis.

The tendency to characterize modern day Drones such as the Reaper or the Predator as

unprecedented technologies is understandable, though mistaken, given the advancements with

which they are very much intertwined. However, to view contemporary UAVs as unprecedented

technologies is to forget that one must question the present and past together. Shaw echoes this

sentiment when he writes “The advent of the Predator drone does not signal a clearly identifiable

“break” with the past, despite this being a tempting narrative” (Ian Shaw The Dronification of

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State Violence 2014). The Drone is an emergent technology, but it is not indebted solely to our

current technological and social conditions.

The precedent was set for the UAV models of today as early as 1896. As Kenneth Hough

notes: “On May 6th, 1896, Samuel Pierpont Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian and an early

pursuer of heavier­than­air flight, launched a steam­powered drone dubbed the Aerodrome No. 5

(Latin for “air runner”) over the Potomac near Washington, D.C.” (Kenneth Hough 2013). It

took flight twice but for no longer than 90 seconds per flight (ibid). Nonetheless, some of the

discourse around this event resonates with the excitement and horror expressed over today’s

UAVs. Hough recounts how “...the Daily Herald of Delphos, Ohio speculated the drone

combined with a ‘dynamite thrower’ as conceivably ‘the most powerful engine of war known to

civilized man.’” (ibid). The Boston Globe followed up on this: “surmising hostile Aerodromes

might even “make war so terrible, that the national troubles of the future will be settled by

arbitration.” Little followed in the way of significant developments for UAVs in the next decade,

but this imaginative capacity for unmanned warcraft would be sparked once again as the

twentieth century soon brought forth new international military challenges.

With World War I under way, UAVs would enter back onto the aviation scene with

Elmer Sperry’s Aerial Torpedo. This model utilized a gyroscope stabilizing mechanism invented

by Sperry that was successfully tested in 1914 (John D. Blom Unmanned Aerial Systems 45).

Sperry was contracted by the Navy soon thereafter in 1917 through Secretary of the Navy

Josephus Daniels’ Naval Consulting Board, a group of private scientists and engineers headed by

Thomas Edison (Hough 2013). Sperry’s six models were not successful enough for deployment

and the Navy terminated the program in 1922 (Blom 45). Alongside Sperry’s model was the

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Kettering Bug, a model designed by Charles Kettering in 1918 of which the army ordered 100

models. However, difficulties with the landing mechanism prevented its deployment in battle

(ibid). Despite the relatively low­achievements of these two models, they are important markers

in the history of Drones. The Sperry model was the first successfully flown UAV built with

military application specifically in mind, and the Kettering Bug would be the first mass­produced

Drone (Hough 2013).

Predictably, the onset of World War II would bring with it the next wave of UAV

innovation after the stagnant 1930s. The German V­1 and V­2 systems, though only successful a

quarter of the time, were costly and confusing for the Allies to defend against (Blom 48). Their

use made such an impression on the Allied forces that, as Blom notes “In 1944, engineers in the

US built an American rocket based on pieces of V­1s” (ibid.) Although the JB­2, as it was called,

did not see action in World War Two, there was no denying that UAVs had officially staked their

claim in the military world from this point forward (ibid). The viability of the technology as

proven by the Germans made UAV technology difficult for the rest of the world to ignore.

The Cold War, and particularly the bloodshed in Vietnam, would bare witness to the

growing importance of Drones in the United States’ military mindset as well as a marked

increase in their capabilities. As Ian Shaw notes:

“One of the first jet­propelled drones was the 1955 Ryan ‘Firebee’, a target drone that was later developed into the Ryan ‘Firefly’ and ‘Lightning Bug’, which was used for intelligence­gathering missions over Vietnam, China, and North Korea in the 1960s and early 1970s” (Ian Shaw The Historical Rise of the Predator Drone 2012).

With UAVs finding their place in the Cold­War era regime of surveillance, Israel was busy

setting in motion the next wave of Drone technology in the context of their own operations. A

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PBS Timeline of UAVs mentions that, from the late 1970s and through the 1980s, the Israeli Air

Force “...pioneered several important new UAVs, versions of which were integrated into the

UAV fleets of many other countries, including the U.S.” (PBS 2002). Two models in particular,

the Scout and the Pioneer, left a significant mark on the United States’ approach to UAVs. The

Scout, with its small size, fiberglass frame, and consequently low radar signature, was extremely

difficult to shoot down while also boasting capabilities for transmitting real­time, 360­degree

surveillance information (ibid). Following the development of the Scout in 1978 was the Pioneer,

a Drone so successful that the U.S. acquired over 20 of them, making that batch “the first small,

inexpensive UAVs in the modern American military forces” (ibid). These lightweight,

highly­capable surveillance UAVs would be the norm into the 1990s, with other models like the

Israeli Firebird in 1996 and the American Pathfinder in 1997 continuing to push the technology

to new heights (ibid).

The transition from surveillance to offensive tactics regarding Drones began in earnest

with the Predator model. Following a long string of developments beginning with a prototype

model designed in 1981 by an Israeli engineer named Abraham Karem, the Predator is the final

manifestation of over a decade’s worth of remodeling. Starting with the Albatross in 1981 and its

unique ability to hover longer than other Drones, and continuing on through the increased visual

resources of the Amber and the GNAT, the Predator “was first tested in 1995 when [they] were

deployed to the Balkans under Operation Nomad Vigil and Operation Deliberate Force” (Ian

Shaw The Dronification of State Violence 2014). The Predator would remain the United States’

main UAV for surveillance throughout the Clinton Administration, with intelligence operators

benefiting from its wide communication range (ibid).

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The aforementioned trend towards offensive Drone capabilities continued during the

Bush administration with the arming of Predator Drones following the events of 9/11 (ibid). By

October 7th, armed Predators were flying over Afghanistan, with the first strike taking place

shortly thereafter in February of 2002 (ibid). From this point forward, armed Drones became an

essential part of the United States’ military approach. By September 2008 the United States Air

Force had amassed 110 Predator Drones, with similar models such as the Reaper adding

additional unmanned air­power to the fleet (Blom 108). Today, the U.S. Air Force is training

more pilots for UAVs than traditionally piloted aircrafts (Mark Bowden How the Predator Drone

Changed the Character of War 2013). Since the Bush presidency, President Obama has embraced

Drones as part of the backbone of his actions abroad. As Peter Bergen notes: “...under Bush there

were 48 CIA drone strikes in Pakistan. Under Obama there have been 328...under Bush there

was only one CIA drone strike in Yemen. Under Obama there have been 99” (Bergen America’s

Wartime President 2014).

The present use of UAVs by the United States shows no sign of slowing down. Even as

rumors arrived just over a year ago suggesting that the CIA’s covert Drone program in Pakistan

was winding down, these reports were proven wrong by the summer (Peter Bergen and Jennifer

Rowland Did Obama Keep His Drone Promises? 2013). Despite even Pakistani officials boasting

that they had convinced Obama to cease the UAV strikes, by June of 2014, the Drone violence

would recommence (Farooq Yousaf Drones, Pakistan’s Worst Kept Secret 2014). A total of

sixteen strikes have been carried out by UAVs in the war­torn territory of North Waziristan since

then (ibid).

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With ISIS garnering significant amounts of United States military attention, it appears

that Drones will continue to stay at the forefront of Obama’s policies abroad. Just this past

October it was announced that Turkey will be allowing a U.S.­fronted coalition to fly Drones

from from their Incirlik air base (Worldbulletin News Turkey Okays U.S. Drone Strikes Against

ISIL 2014). Discussions between Turkey and the United States in lieu of the ISIS threat have

centered heavily around the question of which type of aircraft will be allowed to fly out of

Turkey and for what purposes. With surveillance operations already underway with help from

the Turkish government, the dialogue appears to be turning its focus to the topic of armed

aircraft. Turkey is only willing to let UAVs carry out these missions for now, with manned

aircraft remaining out of the question (ibid). Once again, it’s clear that Drones and their

distinction from manned aerial vehicles are set to play an integral role in yet another United

States military operation.

III. Drone Technology Today: The Unstable Apparatus

The targeted killings carried out by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles against populations

abroad today on behalf of the United States encompass a dynamic field of actors. The Drone

itself, the UAV network operators, and their targets, are all a part of the scene of the execution.

Considering the vast scope of the UAV Network, Foucault’s notion of the apparatus may be

useful. Foucault spoke in a number of his lectures at the College de France of “...grasping the

movement by which a field of truth with objects of knowledge was constituted through...mobile

technologies” (Michel Foucault Security, Territory, and Population 163). His work in Discipline

& Punish had already established this precedence, as he followed the history of law not just

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according to texts on legal theory, but according to a history of the ways in which societies

related to crime through material and linguistic rituals. In short, he expanded his field of inquiry

to include more than just the prescribed, narrative, and theoretical explanations ­ this is where the

notion of the apparatus takes root particularly in regards to this thesis.

The term apparatus refers to a collection of texts, practices, descriptions, categories

beliefs, material resources: its limits are indefinite. As Joseph Rouse writes: “Foucault would go

on to emphasize the heterogeneity of the alignments (dispositifs) that dispose power. They

include not just agents but also the instruments of power (buildings, documents, tools, etc.) and

the practices and rituals through which it is deployed” (Joseph Rouse Power/Knowledge 106).

He relates this back to Foucault’s quote from his lectures, stating that “Knowledge is established

not only in relation to a field of statements but also of objects, instruments, practices, research

programs, skills, social networks, and institutions” (ibid 110). Thus we see that Foucault’s

analyses concern not just discourses, representations, or material processes, but rather, collective

networks of people, ideas, and materials.

As Rouse points out, analyzing an apparatus usually entails analyzing the instruments of

power themselves, the “tools” if you will. The Drone itself is a tool which connects the operators

to their targets through a specific technological modality. Patrick Lichty explains this point in his

analysis of Drone technology, writing that:

“...the operator­node views the ‘sighted’ object through a framing of the drone camera, part of which is controlled by pattern­acquisition algorithms. What results is an augmented ‘cyborg’ sight in which the mise en scene is given the illusion of being sharpened by the technological regime of the drone’s technological systems. It is a line of flight that travels along of three nodes in a network of gaze; the operations site, the programmatic framing node of the drone­object which then redirects the gaze to the objective, transforming it from a house, person, or loved one to a target or objective” (Patrick Lichty Drone, Camera, Weapon, Toy 2013).

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The Drone is an integral point, or “node” to use Lichty’s language, within the UAV network.

However, it is the specificity with which Lichty makes this point especially illuminating. The

Drone’s pattern­acquisition algorithms actively take part in the scene of execution by helping to

construct that scene. From the level of mundane yet advanced technological functioning arises a

simulated “shared” space for the operators and the target. As the Drone flies over its target, it

actively constructs a new visual representation of the scenario below for its distant operators. In

doing so, it renders a representation of the target and its context which appears sharpened in its

accuracy by virtue of the technological achievement involved. This happens despite the often

tragic mistakes which still occur within this techno­aesthetic illusion of certainty.

The Drone­of­choice for U.S. military operations in the 21st century has been the

Predator, a 1,130 pound Unmanned Aerial Vehicle with a wingspan of 55 feet and a length of 27

feet (Ian Shaw and Majed Akhter The Unbearable Humanness of Drone War in FATA, Pakistan

1492). It is employed mainly for armed reconnaissance missions, “...carrying two, laser­guided

AGM­114 Hellfire missiles” (ibid). Similar to the Predator is another General Atomics product,

the Reaper. This UAV was designed to improve the Predator’s payload size, altitude ceiling, and

top airspeed (Timothy Cullen The MQ­9 Reaper Remotely Piloted Aircraft 41). It has “...four

air­to­ground missiles, two 500­pound bombs, and Raytheon’s improved MTS­B sensor ball”

(ibid). In general, it is a step up from the Predator in every category, with a length of 36 feet, a

wingspan of 64 feet, and a weight of roughly 500 pounds (ibid). Their names mark them as

examples of a distinctly destructive and domineering technology. As one U.S. Air Force General

noted, the Reaper moniker “...captures the lethal nature of this new weapon system” (Tyler Wall

and Torin Monahan Surveillance and Violence from Afar 242).

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As significant as Drones themselves are as the material anchor for facilitating a shared

virtual space between operators and targets, one must look also at the ways in which Drones are

but one node in the network. The UAV network, as an apparatus, relies on the daily presence of a

human element as well to guide operations. Alison J. Williams uses the term assemblage when

discussing UAV networks, a similar term to apparatus, writing that “We can only uncover the

complexities of this situation by considering the military aircraft as an assemblage that blends

human and machine elements to produce one combat entity” (Alison J. Williams Enabling

Persistent Presence 384). Williams develops this concept further, alluding to the gradations of

human­machine characteristics which make up these assemblages, or apparatuses. She writes

that these systems are “...both human and machine, but also neither only human or machine”

(ibid). What she means is that the combination of human and machine creates a new combat

entity which cannot be said to be wholly human, nor wholly machine, yet displays elements of

both.

The complexity of this apparatus is evident when one looks at the expansive network of

operators which contributes to UAV systems. In the case of the United States Air Force,

operators are “...embedded in an extended network that includes not only troops and Joint

Terminal Attack Controllers...but also senior commanders, mission commanders, and military

lawyers...and data analysts and image technicians” (Derek Gregory From a View to Kill 194).

The expansiveness of this network is truly staggering, as Gregory notes:

"Currently 185 personnel are required to support one Predator or Reaper Combat Air Patrol: 59 are forward deployed in Afghanistan for Launch and Recover, 43 are based at Creech [Air Force Base in Nevada]…and 83 are involved in processing, exploitation and dissemination…When the staff agh the [Combined Air Operations Center] are added to the list, a remarkable number of people are able to be in direct or indirect contact by voice, video, or internet relay chat" (ibid 195).

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The UAV network is comprised of many individuals contributing through their technological

connections to the scene of execution. Therefore, the question of "who" is involved in the strike

takes on even more fragmented connotations: the Drone itself is not only entangled with a human

element, but a human element that is dispersed and multifarious.

The fragmentary nature of these systems is made more evident when one considers the

implications that arise from this aforementioned dispersion. Cullen’s words are interesting to

consider in conjunction with Gregory’s analysis: “The credibility the crew had with ground

commanders, with the terminal controllers that supported them, and with the rest of the USAF,

related directly to the timeliness of crew’s support, the quality of their video, and the accuracy of

their weapons” (Cullen 118). UAV networks are comprised of many individuals working

together to comprise a total image of their target, its context, and its destruction. This means that

there are not only spatial complications, but also plainly interpersonal and technical ones as well,

adding more variables to Drone warfare.

In order to enter this unique, virtual space of the Drone technology, a clearer impression

of a typical UAV network is necessary. Timothy Cullen’s report on the MQ­9 Reaper provides

some key insights into the ways in which these networks function (although he focuses his

studies on a training center at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico). He describes a

discontinuous system of video feeds and manual controls, which required operators to

“...coordinate and distribute data among a hodgepodge of display and input devices” (ibid). This

“hodgepodge” process through which a total image of the UAV network’s target, its context, and

its destruction are realized renders the target as an image on a screen. The drone’s stare,

embodied by the grid displays it produces for its operators, brings to light a re­spatialized realm

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of warfare in which the target and it’s position are reconfigured using sensors and variable signal

quality. Gregory describes the invasive and disjointed characteristics of this scenario by looking

at the technical aspects of the Predator drone, the United States’ most popular UAV. He notes

that “The multi­spectral targeting system provides real­time full­motion video (FMV) at 30

frames per second; its field of view is restricted, however, and observers complain that zooming

in is like looking through a soda straw” (Gregory 193). It is from this voyeuristic yet ultimately

disjointed perspective that target and its environment comes to be displayed on the screen.

With the target and it’s position now assembled, the screen becomes the cinematic setting

of the battlefield. The strike does not happen in the United States, nor is it only experienced

within the space where the target is actually located. It is executed by the operator through a

visual display that stands in for physical space. Spatial conditions are, therefore, defined

according to the distance between the operator and the screen itself. Gregory notes how those at

the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada insist that “...they are not further away at all but only

‘eighteen inches from the battlefield’: the distance between the eye and the screen” (ibid 197).

These new spatial conditions replace the basic geographic distance between operators and their

targets.

Within these new spatial conditions, the quality of the screen display becomes a

significant point of consideration. Gregory turns his attention in this direction, looking at factors

which shape the quality of the screen display such as signal noise and the limitations of certain

sensors. In describing an attack in which killed 23 civilians, Gregory shows just how unstable

these new spatial conditions are. He begins by noting that “The noise in the network was

compounded because video­feeds were of variable quality, and the Predator crew had to rely on

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infrared sensors in the half­light until they could switch to ‘Day TV’; even then the weather

intermittently muddied the image stream” (ibid 201). In this unstable situation, the operators

were, in fact, drawn in by their closeness to the screen­based battlefield despite the evident

obstacles encountered in the successful construction of that battlefield. Gregory details the events

as follows:

“Still, the Predator crew did not hesitate to identify ‘tactical movement’ and individuals holding ‘cylindrical objects’ that they believed (in fact ‘hoped) were rifles. When the sensor operator commented that it was ‘weird how they all have cold spots on their chests’ the pilot explained that ‘it’s what they’ve been doing here lately, wrapping their [expletive] up in their man dresses so you can’t [positively identify] it’. In the absence of a positive identification, the JTAC warned them of the Rules of Engagement, but the sensor operated insisted that the truck ‘would make a beautiful target’.” (ibid).

The desire to identify a “beautiful target” is complicated by the lackluster quality of the

information provided. This represents how Drone technology problematizes warfare according to

new spatial and visual conditions: it introduces new variables that engage the operator in an

ultimately distorted battlefield.

Establishing a single location, or just a few, to describe the functioning of UAV networks

aimed at targets abroad would be severely inadequate. The collapse of the basic geographic

distance, and a substitution for it of a battlefield eighteen inches away from the Drone operator’s

face, reveals the fundamentally transformative aesthetic that UAV technology presents. This

transformation is brought to fruition through a system that is not completely stable. Ultimately,

this means that even the reconstituted spatial conditions of the screen­as­battlefield cannot be

taken simply as a fixed location for interactions between UAV networks and their targets abroad.

Thus establishing a definitive criteria for the behavior of Drones, operators, and their targets

would also be severely inadequate. Exactly where these two points come to intersect, and the

19

identity of those involved in that intersection, cannot be pinpointed: instead, conditions

reconfigure themselves according to the UAV network’s functioning with regards to both its

technological and human components.

It is from this distorted battlefield that the target is made visible at all to the operators.

The operators, and the intelligence support they are offered, then come together to develop the

identity of the target and its context further. The combination of a reserve of surveillance

knowledge and a screen give birth to the target. This relates to the Foucauldian idea of

subjectivication, a term which refers to the ways in which one is shaped in real­time as a subject.

Rabinow and Rose write that: “The human being, from this perspective is not so much an entity ­

not even an entity with a history ­ than the site of a multiplicity of practices or labors” (Rabinow

and Rose 15). The human being does not display essential characteristics which can be easily

identified. Instead, the human being’s characteristics are determined by efforts to seek out and

define those characteristics, such as those made within American UAV networks to identify and

target individuals abroad.

One may see the clarity with which Foucault approached this concept in his writings

under the pseudonym Maurice Florence. At one moment he insists that one should “...circumvent

anthropological universals to the greatest extent possible, so as to interrogate them in their

historical constitution” (Maurice Florence Foucault, Michel, 1926 ­ 317). This is why the notion

of subjectivication found strong expression in Discipline & Punish as well. His critique of the

modern prison system focused significantly on the methods of identity control and identity

building which complimented other, material means of punishment. As he wrote: “...it is this

whole technology of power over the body that the technology of the ‘soul’ ­ that of the

20

educationalists, psychologists and psychiatrists ­ fails either to conceal or to compensate, for the

simple reason that it is one of its tools” (Foucault Discipline & Punish 30). The subject for

Foucault is certainly not a given. It is, instead, another unstable factor in the apparatus. George

Canguilhem makes this clear when he states “Foucault uses the term ‘anthropological sleep’ for

the tranquil assurance with which the contemporary promoters of the human sciences take for

granted, as a preordained object for their progressive studies, what was initially only the project

of constituting that object” (George Canguilhem The Death of Man or Exhaustion of the Cogito?

90). Foucault refuses to fall into the same “‘anthropological sleep,’” turning instead to see how

the subject is constituted as an object of knowledge by discursive and non­discursive practices.

One must be wary of slumbering through a description of the Drone’s target as well when

approaching UAV technology, lest one end up overlooking the experience of individuals and

populations in areas such as Pakistan and Yemen. These targets are caught up directly in the

mechanisms of UAV networks, yet they are unable to witness these processes: the characteristics

of people­as­targets are determined by the largely invisible functioning of Drone technology.

The Drones may be visible overhead, but the operators and intelligence officials are, of course,

faceless. As a result of this scenario, those in UAV patrolled areas have little recourse towards

these systems. Gregory poignantly mentions how the sensor operators and pilots in the

above­mentioned tragedy immediately relinquish responsibility for their mistake, remarking that

there was no way they could tell from their position whether or not their targets were civilians or

not (Gregory 202). However, their heated deliberation with the JTAC clearly reveals a desire to

identify a “beautiful target.” The spatial and visual characteristics of Drone technology

subjectivize the target in a virtual space. This does not happen always as a reflection of their

21

actual identity, but according to a more complicated process. Considering the UAV network as

an apparatus made up of both mechanical and human elements, and considering its targets as

subjectivized by operators in virtual space, the complexity and instability which underlies the

U.S. Drone program abroad cannot be overlooked. This is a key point for understanding “where”

the interactions between UAV networks and their targets take place, and “who” may be said to

take part in these interactions.

IV. Criticisms of the Contemporary Literature

In seeking to identify the actors and outcomes of UAV networks with certainty, the

complexity which underlies the functioning of the United States Drone program is glossed over.

Such a program is not a precise mechanism to be ethically calibrated: it is a messy system with a

morally ambiguous relationship between operators and targets at its core. With the Foucauldian

concepts of apparatus and subjectivication in view, one may now approach the contemporary

literature with a more critical eye. In their zeal for ethical justifications and regulations,

contemporary scholars do not fully acknowledge the complications of dispersion which

characterizes any given UAV network, nor do they fully acknowledge how difficult it is to

identify the moral standing of the network’s participants on a consistent basis in such a setting.

One may see how participants in the current debates surrounding the U.S. Drone program

abroad fail to see the difficulties in achieving definitive ethical goals by looking at the work of

both Jai C. Galliot and Bradley Jay Strawser. Strawser’s approach is to defend the use of UAVs

as an obligation for those who are engaged in just war as a means by which to minimize harm to

their own troops. He writes: “...we should desire that the just warrior be well protected from any

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possible threat that this enemy might proffer ­ protection that the UAV affords” (Bradley Jay

Strawser Moral Predators 358). As a counter response, Galliot identifies an asymmetry in the

level of risk that the use of UAVs create, since the operator’s livelihood is protected by vast

distance. He then expresses support for a solution to this problem regarding the moral equality of

combatants, in order to more accurately attend to the concept of a justified act of war. Galliot

calls “...for the military dominant state to self­impose stronger requirements on its own

application/s or consideration of just war principles…[for] the stronger state to meet higher

standards of epistemic certainty” (Jai C. Galliot A Response to Strawser 64). In both cases, the

focus of these analyses of Drone technology are on its functioning with regards to an established

moral relationship between combatants, a relationship which they believe to be possible in the

context of unfolding Drone warfare.

The means by which Strawser and Galliot both undertake moral comparison of

combatants and the justness of war imply that such concepts are essentially consistent and may

be established with certainty despite the instability which characterizes any given UAV network.

Strawser’s views on war and the relationship between combatants is simply too binary. Without

challenging the concept of just war as a whole, which is beyond the scope of this essay, an

important point still remains. Strawser is essentially asserting that operators and targets are

automatically subsumed under the categories of moral or immoral by virtue of their position

within a larger, properly calibrated schematic of a definitive ethical relationship between both

sides. Galliot does not respond to this flaw in Strawser’s argument, but instead, tries to reorient

the standards for what it means to wage a just war with Drones in one’s stable. He still assumes

that the morality of combatants can be measured, even calibrated, when it comes to Drone

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warfare according to rules that function on a macro­level. This stabilizes the Drone Operator and

the target’s relationship in such a way which does not account for the dynamism of their

characteristics and interactions, as made evident by the numerous variables that affect the

formation of the screen­as­battlefield on a moment­to­moment basis.

Similarly to Galliot and Strawser, the debate between Daniel L. Byman on the one hand,

and Megan Braun and Daniel Brunstetter on the other, relies upon stabilizing the UAV network

in order to solidify their moral functioning. Byman’s support for UAVs overlooks the many

ways, faulty, malicious, unreported, and otherwise, in which Drones may carry out missions

according to technological and human impetus that is incongruent with the data upon which he

focuses. He states that: “...the data show that drones are more discriminant than other types of

force”(Daniel L. Byman Why Drones Work 2013). This assumes that Drones function in a

predictable and proportional way along with their operators, a claim which is immediately called

into question by reports such as the aforementioned Amnesty International publication. Braun

and Brunstetter only partially challenge Byman’s belief in a definitively moral state of Drone

warfare, arriving at their central point that “If drones’ capacity for proportionality is to be fully

actualized, this will require synthesizing disparate proportionality standards to form a coherent

policy” (Megan Braun and Daniel R. Brunstetter Rethinking the Criteria for CIA Drone Strikes

320). Although they push back upon Byman’s confidence in the proportionality of Drone use in

the present, Braun and Brunstetter still aim at stabilizing UAV networks through a process of

calibration that is ultimately naive. As they write: “...achieving ethical drone operations requires

a more calibrated moral framework” (ibid). Calibrating this moral framework assumes that one

can control and purposefully affect such a complex and potent apparatus, made up of both man

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and machine, as the UAV network. Thus Byman, as well as Braun and Brunstetter, are simply

not providing a dynamic enough account of the interactions between operators, Drones, and their

targets.

Following more of the contemporary literature, one sees that a strong focus on the

potential for just war and ethical use remains at the forefront of many analyses. In the work of

Ronald Arkin, there is a notable sense of optimism regarding potentially ethical use of Drone

technology. He writes that “...for a variety of reasons, it may be anticipated, despite the current

state of the art, that in the future autonomous robots may be able to perform better than humans”

(Ronald Arkin The Case for Ethical Autonomy in Unmanned Systems 1). Arkin goes on to list a

number of characteristics that UAVs display which make them candidates for better performance

in the battlefield than humans. These characteristics largely concern the reliability of Drone

technology as well as a series of claims which seem to detach the Drone from the messy, often

difficult world of human­machine interactions.

The confidence which lies behind Arkin’s viewpoint is troubling: it reduces human

beings and Drones to isolated models of stable cognition. The Drone can work this way in battle,

the human being often works this way in battle, thus the Drone is better and it’s only a matter of

time before we find a way to use them so that they can wage war for us in an ethical manner.

One may note a similar point of view in the writing of Jürgen Altmann, as he writes: “Given

political will, the dangers from armed UAVs can be contained using established methods of

(preventive) arms control” (Jürgen Altmann Arms Control for Armed Uninhabited Vehicles: An

Ethical Issue 15). Such a simplified approach to the future of UAVs does not fully consider the

fact that UAVs and human beings do not and cannot operate as separate, clearly defined

25

cognitive systems which can then be calibrated ethically. They work together to carry out Drone

strikes as part of an unstable apparatus. Whether it is through decisions operators must make in

real­time, through flaws in the technical functioning of this (ultimately) man­made technology,

or through the abstracted notion of preventive arms control, the unreliable human element will

never be totally isolated from Drone warfare. The technology will never achieve a state of

autonomous ethical perfection: such a dream is a dangerous distraction from the present­day

problems that Drones currently present to us.

V. A Foucauldian Response to the Contemporary Literature: Discipline, Biopower, and

Governmentality

A Foucauldian response to Byman, Galliot, Altmann, and others who seek to stabilize

and/or calibrate variables within the UAV network may find its footing in three major concepts

from Foucault’s body of work: discipline, biopower, and governmentality. In these concepts,

Foucault seeks to point out the methods and products of unstable systems without proposing

solutions for improving their functioning. For example, in Foucault’s genealogical account of the

modern penal system, he does not take the characteristics of criminals to be fixed concepts that

the modern penal system accurately defines. Instead, he speaks of “...the emergence of a

systematic knowledge of individuals, through connected practices of surveillance, confession,

and documentation” (Rouse Power/Knowledge 97). This is what discipline is: a form of power

that works by developing a reserve of knowledge about individuals through discursive and non

discursive means. It is carried out through an apparatus, and it results in the subjectivication of

individuals.

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As Foucault writes, the discipline ‘fixes’ because it is able to “...characterize, classify,

specialize; [it] distribute][s] along a scale, around a norm, hierarchize individuals in relation to

one another and, if necessary, disqualify and invalidate” (ibid 223). In the context of Drone

technology, Foucault’s concept of discipline may shed light on the ways in which targets are

subject to practices which come to define them. This would be a more nuanced approach than

that of, say, Galliot or Strawser, who take the category of the target to be either a stable element

in the UAV network or one which may be stabilized in a properly calibrated system. Instead, one

may see modern­day Drone warfare as initiating a means of classification from above which

carries with it potentially lethal consequences.

Applying Foucault’s idea of discipline, one may see how the unpredictable individual

known as the target becomes a calculated representation within the UAV network. One could

trace the ways in which the apparatus of Drone technology subjectivized Mamana Bibi, an

innocent grandmother picking okra in her garden, eventually identifying her instead as a target.

Moreover, Foucault’s approach to instances of discipline does not culminate in a prescriptive

proclamation: he does not try to tell those in the modern penal system how they should come to

define criminals in a “better” way. This means that we may continue to see the target’s

characteristics and behaviors anew each time, rather than suggesting ways in which to achieve

greater epistemic certainty as Galliot suggests.

Foucault’s concept of biopower is related to discipline, but it directs itself towards

populations instead of individuals. This is useful for looking at UAV networks as well, with their

constant surveillance of numerous individuals bounded within territories of interest. Whereas

discipline works to define the individual in terms of a system of knowledge, biopower works to

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define the population in terms of a system of summary reserve of knowledge gained about those

individuals. As Foucault writes in History of Sexuality, “Governments perceived that they were

not dealing simply with subjects, or even with “people,” but with a “population,” with its specific

phenomena and its peculiar variables” (Michel Foucault History of Sexuality 25). He also

explores this concept in his lectures titled Society Must Be Defended. There he states that

“Disciplines...dealt with individuals and their bodies in practical terms ­ now a new body, a

multiple body with so many heads that, while they might not be infinite in number, cannot

necessarily be counted” (Michel Foucault Society Must Be Defended 245). This further

complicates Strawser and Galliot’s debate. Their analyses do not reach this realization regarding

the larger focus of UAV networks: that their targets are not just individuals that may or may not

be properly identified, but populations as a whole. Whereas discipline may show how targets are

individually turned into seemingly stable elements of the UAV network, biopower may show

how targets are individually monitored as part of a larger aim. This larger aim is to define the

characteristics of a population in order to gain knowledge for justifying targeted killings on a

mass scale, thus threatening not just individuals, but entire groups.

The focus on population displayed through biopower, as well as discipline’s focus on the

individual, point to the fact that UAVs make possible the visibility and vulnerability of both

single subjects and large groups. What this means is that the population and the individual are

defined by the UAV network itself as the screen­as­battlefield is constructed. There are no stable

characteristics of the population nor the individual, but rather, characteristics which are identified

and collected through technologies such as Drones. To try and suggest how one should try to

identify these characteristics better would be to miss the point. Just as he avoided this type of

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declarative solution­giving in relation to individuals when discussing discipline, Foucault’s does

not prescribe “better” forms of biopower. Populations and individuals do not have essential

features which may be more accurately apprehended: these features are only established through

the systems of knowledge that technologies such as Drones make possible.

As is evident from the complex web of relations between Drone Operators and their

support systems, understanding the identities of UAV network targets becomes a matter of

understanding the the techniques and methods in which they are caught up. The work of Ian

Hacking is useful in moving towards a deeper understanding of this process; particularly his

essay “Making Up People,” which explores the relation of forces that contribute to systems of

identification. He writes that:

“I do not believe there is a general story to be told about making up people. Each category has its own history. If we wish to present a partial framework in which to describe such events, we might think of two vectors. One is the vector of labeling from above, from a community of experts who create a ‘reality’...Different from this is the vector of the autonomous behavior of the person so labeled, which presses from below…” (Ian Hacking Making Up People 168).

This provides us with a helpful model for approaching an understanding of just “who” is

involved in the targeted killings carried out by UAVs, a model to which we will return. It

signifies the fact that Drones and their operators form a “community of experts” that label the

“autonomous behavior” of those on the ground from above.

As Hacking explored the relationship between experts above and raw experience below,

he was effectively clearing the way for a conception of how targets are identified by UAV

networks. His notion that “...numerous kinds of human beings and human acts come into being

hand in hand with our invention of the categories labeling them” applies directly to the situation

with regards to targets abroad. (Ian Hacking Making Up People 170). Through the creation of a

29

category for targets of UAV networks specifically, an identity has been constructed that, without

that category, would simply not exist. This is a fact of the technology itself: without a screen to

display the target, there is in effect, no “target” of which to speak.

A similar thread may be picked up in the work of Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison,

who employ a concept known as “working objects” in order to articulate how representative

technologies create “objective” categories. In their article “The Image of Objectivity,” Daston

and Galison call attention to the task all representative technologies face: “...to make nature safe

for science; to replace raw experience ­ the accidental, contingent experience of specific

individual objects ­ with digested experience” (Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison 85). In the

process of making “nature safe for science,” these technologies must select “...standardized

working objects, for unrefined natural objects are too quirkily particular to cooperate in

generalizations and comparisons” (ibid). All visual technologies must grapple with this issue of

selecting working objects, Drones included.

Contained within the selection of working objects is also the selection of what counts as

nature, the “standard phenomena of the discipline” (ibid 86). Furthermore, this selection also

requires that one answers the question, as Daston and Galison raise, “from which viewpoint?”

(ibid). Hence visual technologies, in their necessity to standardize reality for the viewer, also

standardize a viewpoint from which to apprehend that reality, giving rise to categories of identity

which reflect a given techno­aesthetic, culturally inflected viewpoint. Wall and Monahan

explicitly refer to an issue of this sort in relation to Drones specifically:

“Drones may perform predominantly in the discursive register of automated precision and positive identification of known threats, but in practice, these surveillance systems and their agents actively interpret ambiguous information that continuously defies exact matches or clear responses. In the process, UAV systems may force homogenization upon difference, thereby reducing variation to functional categories that correspond to the needs and biases of the

30

operators, not the targets, of surveillance” (Wall and Monahan Surveillance and Violence from Afar 240).

Drones and their operators must come together to find working objects that represent the

complicated reality of that situation which is being surveilled. This leaves targets to be identified

according to the unstable conditions of UAV networks.

As Drones fly over the homes of millions, they are not just threatening or taking in

information about individual targets and collective populations. UAV networks reconstruct the

visual and spatial conditions of the territory being surveilled, as was explored in section III of

this paper. The land upon which the population lives becomes an object of knowledge for the

Drone just as much as the target at which it’s Hellfire missiles may be aimed. In the North

Waziristan region of Pakistan, for example, UAVs do not only surveill the actions of people. Part

of surveilling the actions of people is surveilling their movement. Where a target is located, how

they are moving, where they may hide, and other spatial markers are just as important as the

supposed identity of the target. Taking in information about whole territories, Drones provide

their operators with a wealth of data regarding topography, infrastructure, and the like.

This leads us to Foucault’s idea of governmentality. Foucault describes governmentality

as “the type of power...which has led to the development of a series of specific governmental

apparatuses on the one hand, and on the other to the development of a series of knowledges”

(Michel Foucault Security, Territory, Population 144). In a sense, discipline and biopower are but

types of governmentality, with other objects of interest beyond individuals and populations also

coming into view for the United States government. Mitchell Dean elaborates on the concept

further, referring to “...the technologies through which governing is made practicable and the

forms of rationality ­ understood in a substantive rather than normative sense ­ that render

31

domains and problems of government thinkable and analyzable” (Mitchell Dean Risk, Calculable

and Incalculable 26). UAV networks, through their combination of biopower and discipline, are

apparatuses which make “problems of government thinkable and analyzable.” It is therefore not

enough to try and ethically perfect the relationship between operator and target. One must also

consider that American UAV networks, in all their instability, are enabling an entire regime of

intelligence and violence abroad. Such a regime cannot be reduced to questions of arms control or

the relationship between combatants. It is not just warfare that Drone’s are waging. They are also

bolstering the capabilities of the United States to govern from afar.

As the United States Drone program gains information about individuals, entire

populations, and the land upon which they roam, it is successfully making many focuses of

governance visible and vulnerable all at once. As Thijs Willaert writes, governmentality

“dissolves the distinction between territory and inhabitants” (Thijs Willaert Postcolonial Studies

After Foucault 158). Analyses should thus focus on Drone technology as a resource through

which the United States it is able to visualize and acquire knowledge about individuals,

populations, and territories abroad through the threat of both mass surveillance and widespread

violence. Such capabilities on the part of the US speak to the necessity of considering UAVs in

ways which many others such as Strawser, Galliot, Byman, and others simply do not include in

their work. A potently critical analysis of the United States Drone program abroad must set its

sights on more than just a morally justified relationship between military personnel and their

targets by taking time to question the elements that make such a relationship possible in the first

place. In doing so, one gains a more nuanced understanding of what Drone technology has

32

enabled for the United States in its military endeavors, arriving at a place from which a more

cogent critique of the US Drone program abroad may be formulated.

VI. Conclusion

As the United States continues to carry out extensive military operations through

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, the contemporary landscape of analysis must adjust according to the

complexities which characterize the technology. The significance of the United States Drone

program abroad lies not in a hypothetical state of morally justifiable use, but in the power of

governmentality which arises from such an apparatus. These UAV networks work to make

individuals, populations, and territories abroad both knowable and strikeable. The apparatus of

Drone technology, a combination of the UAV and its human support elements, disciplines the

targets, exercises biopower upon their populations, scans their territories, and thus enacts specific

governmental powers that are not captured in the prevailing focus on potentially ethical uses as

noted throughout much of the contemporary literature.

Simply put: the future of the United States Drone program cannot be neatly addressed

according to an ethical plan for their deployment. Referring back to this paper’s Introduction

Section, perhaps it is not the role of the academic (or anyone at all) to tell our society how to

move forward with UAVs. However, it is my belief that there is a role to be played by each and

every one of us in terms of keeping a sharp eye towards the development of Drone technology

and the various discourses and practices which will continue to pop up around it. Therefore,

instead of closing the conversation with a prescription for how Drones should be used in the

future, I will close it with the following Foucault quote in mind:

33

“I would like to facilitate a whole social project, a work within and upon the very body of society. I’d like to be able to participate in this work myself without delegating responsibilities to any specialist, including myself ­ to bring it about that, in the very workings of society, the terms of the problem are changed and the impasses are cleared” (Foucault and Rabinow 288­289). Let this thesis stand as an effort to initiate a change in the terms of the problem, as an attempt to

move an inch of clutter from the impasse, when it comes to the use of UAVs by the United States

today and tomorrow.

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