We Kill Because We Can: From Soldiering to Assassination in the Drone Age.

• Author: Yolcu, Furkan Halit
• Position: Book review

By Laurie Calhoun

London: Zed Books, 2015, 392 pages, $14.36, ISBN: 9781783605477

Drone usage has been a hotbed of discussion in International Relations and Military Studies for the last decade. Drone warfare itself has been rapidly transforming through a process that started with the implementation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to the battlefield. The idea of utilizing drones evolved from the perception of UAVs as eyes up in the skies that are cheaper and more versatile than piloted vehicles, to AWACS, to cold-blooded assassins that terrorize wherever they fly.

This transformation has entirely changed the codes of war on foreign soil. Implementation of UAVs in counter-insurgency and counterterrorism operations has also widened their zone of influence, since this incorporates intelligence agencies to the scheme.

Laurie Calhoun provides a seminal contribution to the debate over United States' weaponized drone usage by investigating this phenomenon within three layers. The utilization of weaponized UAVs, which is the "most-recent paradigm-shifting military innovation" according to the author, produces a vast number of controversies, as civil, military, and intelligence personnel are polarized on this issue (p. xi). The book mostly covers the moral and humane aspect of drone usage, summarized in the process of finding the threat and fixing the issue, thus finishing the operation. Accordingly, the book is divided into three sections addressing the usage of drones entitled "Find," "Fix," and "Finish." The author takes the readers with her on the inquiry of finding the lacunas and issues in weaponized drone usage, and exploring how these deficiencies are natural results of these issues, while proposing a solution as to how malpractice in drone use can be terminated.

In the first part, the author finds the problem to be the mere understanding of utilizing weaponized drones and their domination of recent military operations. She emphasizes that weaponized drone usage has become the "only game in town," i.e. the preferred approach, although there have been many cases of false strikes and collateral damage. The domination of UAVs on the battlefield also solidified the "kill don't capture" bias of military minds almost transforming it into a doctrine. She points out the fact that military commanders always perceive developments through the lens of lethality (p. 19), and that this type of perception lays the ground for killing instead of capturing...