Abstract

The article reflects the discourses surrounding the military use of drones in the context of their employment in Afghanistan and Waziristan in the last two decades with a special emphasis on its necropolitical dimensions. It does so by first summarizing different critical accounts of a single well documented case in Afghanistan, underscoring historical continuities between drone warfare, state terror and air power. Second, the article puts a special emphasis on relations on the ground such as ambiguous legal constructions enabling the use of lethal force, and the weaponization of Pashtun culture for the purposes of different governments.