Alessandra Nisch
Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of ...

President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.

Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of Applied Friction

UAV

The Psychology of Killing with Drones: #Reviewing On Killing Remotely

The Psychology of Killing with Drones: #Reviewing On Killing Remotely

To date, moral injury remains a syndrome, that is, a group of symptoms lacking clear definition or cause. Phelps exemplifies a possible way ahead in On Killing Remotely. In terms of quantifiability, Phelps makes room for analyzing a new arena for moral injury without stretching the term past its breaking point. In terms of severity, Phelps clarifies that stakes can be high without involving immediate personal danger, thus opening up discussions of comparable scenarios with the potential to morally injure. In terms of technology, Phelps distinguishes between kinds of unmanned or remote aerial technology, sketching a taxonomy and noting the unique stressors of each tool or mission.

#Reviewing Is Remote Warfare Moral

#Reviewing Is Remote Warfare Moral

Is Remote Warfare Moral? Weighing Issues of Life and Death from 7,000 Miles by Joseph O. Chapa is a thoughtful and necessary contribution to the literature on RPA warfare. The book’s biggest contribution is that of a primary source from a seasoned veteran and RPA instructor in the United States Air Force. The book also elucidates some of the ambiguity surrounding RPA warfare.

#Reviewing On Killing Remotely

#Reviewing On Killing Remotely

While the intense psychological burden borne by the soldier engaged in battle is not in doubt, understanding what specific factors exact the greatest toll, or how the willingness to kill relates to battlefield outcomes, remains ripe for exploration…Wayne Phelps’s addition to this literature seems to be a direct continuation of Grossman’s work, and Phelps pushes the same thesis as Grossman—that warriors do not naturally want to kill—into the field of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPAs).

#Reviewing Asymmetric Killing

#Reviewing Asymmetric Killing

Neil C. Renic’s Asymmetric Killing is a thoughtful, if imperfect, assessment of the morality of riskless war. Within the skeptical academic discourse surrounding unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), authors either deflate the virtue of the men/women who employ such weapons, inflate the influence of technology on the operator or decision-maker, or conflate asymmetry and moral wrongness. Renic grapples, to some degree, with each of these aspects of the topic using a systematic, historical, and balanced method.

Looking Back to the Future: The Beginnings of Drones and Manned Aerial Warfare

Looking Back to the Future: The Beginnings of Drones and Manned Aerial Warfare

Making predictions about the future is an impossible task, in particular when the focus is on technologies at their beginning. History is riddled with false prophecies, be they either exaggerations or understatements: from predictions that a technology will end war once and for all—like the telegraph or nuclear weapons—to such understatements as Watson’s famous prediction that there was a global market for only five computers. It is tough to judge whether changes are ground-breaking, or only appear so from the close proximity of a contemporary. At the same time, people throughout history have ignored fundamental changes happening before their eyes, as changes took time to unfold or initially only concerned a limited area.