Revisiting the remoteness of remote warfare: US military intervention in Libya during Obama’s presidency

Watts, Tom; Biegon, Rubrick

doi:10.1080/14702436.2021.1994397

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 41 publications

(55 reference statements)

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“…Since the last years of Barack Obama's presidency, the focus of US defence planning has shifted away from counterterrorism toward strategic competition with the "revisionist" states of China and Russia (The White House, 2017, p. 25;2022, p. 8). This has not only altered post-9/11 practices of "remote" military intervention (Biegon & Watts, 2022;Watts & Biegon, 2021), but the overarching direction of US foreign policy. As encapsulated in the 2022 National Security Strategy, there is bi-partisan agreement that "[t] echnology is central to today's geopolitical competition and to the future of our national security, economy and democracy" (The White House, 2022, p. 32).…”

Section: Russiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Prospects for the global governance of autonomous weapons: comparing Chinese, Russian, and US practices

et al. 2023

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Kallenborn, 2021). The CEO of the system's manufacturer STM maintains that the use of autonomy in the Kargu-2 is primarily restricted to navigation, and that "[u]nless an operator pushes the button, it is not possible for the drone to select a target and attack" (Tavsan, 2021). Despite this ambiguity, the incident has been widely portrayed as the first battlefield use of autonomous weapon systems (AWS), often colloquially called "killer robots" (see Mizokami, 2021;Stanley, 2021;Vincent, 2021).AWS are defined as "any weapons that select and apply force to targets without human intervention" (ICRC, 2022). 1 Militaries throughout the world have demonstrated 1 In this article we generally refer to autonomous weapon systems (AWS). AWS are not a specific category of weapon. Rather, we understand AWS as being any type of weapon system which utilizes machine autonomy to select and apply force without immediate human control or intervention. While some autonomous weapons integrate AI elements into their critical functions, they may not all necessarily be based on AI technologies. We will only employ the term lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) when specifically citing the discussion at the UN CCW, as this is the official term which states parties have used as part of this debate. The term "killer robots" is also commonly

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Section: Russiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Prospects for the global governance of autonomous weapons: comparing Chinese, Russian, and US practices

et al. 2023

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Section: The Evolving Military Response To Transnational Terrorist Gr...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Relying on a set of more "remote" practices of military intervention throughout the Middle East and Africa, the Obama administration pursued a lighter-footprint approach (Krieg, 2016;Watts & Biegon, 2017). The most controversial of these practices was the widespread use of drones to conduct reconnaissance operations and carry out targeted strikes against militant leaders, supported by Special Operations Forces (SOF) deployments and "train-and-equip" programs (Tankel, 2018b;Watts & Biegon, 2017). Throughout the Middle East and Africa, the Trump administration has intensified the use of multiple methods of more remote intervention to "defeat the terrorists who threaten America's safety, prevent future attacks, and protect our national interests" (The White House, 2018, p. ii).…”

Section: The Evolving Military Response To Transnational Terrorist Gr...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In foregrounding the notion of a means-ends calculus in debates on change and continuity, we advocate greater sensitivity to the ways in which shifts in policy are subsumed to more deeply-rooted objectives that, in foreign policy terms, tend to outlast specific presidential administrations. 2 This article aims to refresh earlier debates on the continuities in US foreign policy (see for example, Kolko, 1988) by extending political-economic considerations to the particularities of the Trump presidency, the emergence of more "remote" modalities of American military intervention (Watts & Biegon, 2017), and US counterterrorism strategy in an age of renewed great power competition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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When ends Trump means: continuity versus change in US counterterrorism policy

Biegon¹,

Watts²

2022

The Trump Presidency

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This article utilizes a historical materialist informed framework to analyse change and continuity in US counterterrorism policy. Although Donald Trump's "America First" discourse conveyed a "new" approach to counterterrorism, in practice his administration has largely reinforced pre-existing tendencies, expanding the military campaigns against ISIS and al-Qaeda. In accordance with America's longstanding objectives in the global south, which centre on stabilizing existing patterns of capitalist political-economic relations, the US continues to police transnational security challenges "from below". The article calls for increased sensitivity to the means-ends calculus in American statecraft. It argues that tactical shifts at the policy level (the means) should be situated in relation to historical considerations and the structural and material factors (the ends) that impact US foreign policymaking across presidential administrations.

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Beyond the neoconservative legacy in American counterterrorism policy: from George W. Bush to forever war

Biegon

Watts

2023

Int Polit

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More than two decades after the 9/11 attacks, the militarised approach to counterterrorism initiated by the George W. Bush Administration remains firmly in place. Growing frustration with these actions has prompted debates on ‘forever war’. This article traces the origins of ‘forever war’ to the interplay of neoconservatism and conservative nationalism in the George W. Bush Administration, which aimed at preserving American primacy through the cultivation of overwhelming military power. The Administration’s support for the revolution in military affairs contributed to the development of a more remote counterterrorism approach, which helps explain the continuities in US counterterrorism policies across the latter Bush administration as well as the Obama and Trump presidencies. By helping embed a ‘common sense’ understanding that further 9/11-style attacks could only be prevented by enduring and aggressive military action against transnational terrorist organisations, neoconservatism shaped the evolution of American counterterrorism policy. The specific influence of neoconservatism must be qualified and contextualised, however, because the strategic commitment to primacy had wider support within the Bush Administration.

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Revisiting the remoteness of remote warfare: US military intervention in Libya during Obama’s presidency

Cited by 8 publications

References 41 publications

Prospects for the global governance of autonomous weapons: comparing Chinese, Russian, and US practices

Prospects for the global governance of autonomous weapons: comparing Chinese, Russian, and US practices

When ends Trump means: continuity versus change in US counterterrorism policy

Beyond the neoconservative legacy in American counterterrorism policy: from George W. Bush to forever war

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