Drones: disembodied aerial warfare and the unarticulated threat
Drones: disembodied aerial warfare and the unarticulated threat
复制标题
无人机：无形的空战和未明确表达的威胁
DOI：
10.1111/1468-2346.12069
复制
发表时间：
2013
影响因子：
4.5
通讯作者：
DUNN D
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
DUNN D
奥巴马政府在阿富汗、巴基斯坦和也门有争议地使用无人机，使这个话题成为政治和学术讨论的热门话题。虽然到目前为止，大多数争论都集中在大型武装飞行器的法律、道德和审慎使用上，但本文试图解决这项新技术创新的潜在更广泛影响。这篇文章认为，无人机构成了一种新的颠覆性技术，不仅仅是因为它们被用来实现一种新的反恐形式。相反，它认为无人机对西方构成了一种新形式的恐怖主义威胁，而这种威胁目前还没有得到充分的分析、阐明和低估。造成这种低估的部分原因是，人们没有意识到即将展开的无人机商业用途的规模和范围。现在的技术创新意味着无人机将能够完成目前由小型飞机和直升机完成的许多工作，而且更便宜、更容易——此外还有许多其他新应用。这种廉价和容易获得的技术的扩散将使其应用于恐怖主义很容易实现和难以反击。无人机突破传统防御的能力，以及对构成合理威胁的既定概念的能力，是一项迄今未受到重视的挑战。本文试图挑战这种自满情绪。
The Obama administration's controversial use of drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen has made the subject a hot topic of political and academic discourse. While most of this debate has focused so far on the legal, ethical and prudential use of large armed aerial vehicles, this article seeks to address the potential wider impact of this new technological innovation. The article argues that drones constitute a new and disruptive technology not just in the way that they have been used to enable a new form of counterterrorism. Instead, it argues that drones pose a new form of terrorist threat against the West which is at present under-analysed, unarticulated and underestimated. Part of the reason for this underestimation is the failure to appreciate the scale and scope of drone use for commercial purposes which is about to unfold. Technological innovation now means that drones will be capable of many jobs currently performed by small planes and helicopters, but more cheaply and easily—in addition to many other new applications. The proliferation of this cheap and easily available technology will make its application for terrorist use easy to achieve and difficult to counter. The ability of drones to penetrate traditional defences and established conceptions of what constitutes a plausible threat is a challenge which so far has gone unheeded. This article seeks to challenge that complacency.