Separazione e contaminazione : il doppio volto della guerra dei droni

The increasing use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for military purposes - commonly known as drones - has attracted the attention of several scholars and disciplines. While the ethical, juridical and political implications brought about by the extensive use of drones have been investigated, the consequences for the changing nature of warfare remained overlooked. The paper investigates the possible effects that drones might have for the coming forms of war. It stresses the contradictory character of armed drones: on the one hand, they show a clear ambition of containing and surgically confining the locus of war and, on the other hand, they jeopardize the main limits and restrictions of warfare. The analysis focuses on three aspects on which such a contradictory nature might affect the form of war: the battlefield's space, the timing of armed attacks, and the reciprocity between belligerents.