The Remote Warfare Paradox

Liberal Western democracies are increasingly resorting to remote warfare to govern perceived security threats from a safe distance. From the 2011 NATO bombings in Libya, the US Africa Command military training of soldiers in Niger, or the US-led coalition against IS in Syria and Iraq, violence is exercised from afar. Remote warfare is characterised by a shift away from boots on the ground. It involves drone and air-strikes, while on the ground military training teams assist local forces to fight and die on behalf of Western interests. Violence is thus exercised and facilitated, but without the ‘exposure’ of Western military men and women to opponents in a declared warzone under the condition of mutual risk. In our paper we outline the key drivers behind the Western turn to remote warfare, and think through the consequences. We foresee that this move to remote warfare will make Western liberal democracies not less, but more war prone in the “post liberal order”. This is the remote warfare paradox: the military violence executed ‘in our names’ is so remote and sanitized, that it becomes uncared for, and even ceases to be the defined as war.