Schulzke, Marcus. "The Morality of Remote Warfare: Against the Asymmetry Objection to Remote Weaponry". Political Studies, Vol.64, No.1 (2016): 90-105.

Schulzke, Marcus. "The Morality of Remote Warfare: Against the Asymmetry Objection to Remote Weaponry". Political Studies, Vol.64, No.1 (2016): 90-105.

• Since their deployment, albeit in small numbers, during the First Persian Gulf War, precision-guided munitions have resulted in a revolution in warfare due to their ability to accurately strike military targets over long distances without placing the firer at risk. They use has become increasingly common, particularly through the development of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones (90).
• Although the use of exposed soldiers and soft targets will have to continue to sustain a wide variety of military operations, the continued use of remote weaponry raises the possibility of asymmetric war where one technologically inferior side is exposed to attack, while the other technologically superior force has only very limited exposure (92).
• There have been debates over the morality of precision-guided munitions and drones, with critics claiming that they make warfare easier, making governments more likely to violate traditional standards of just war or saying that the inability of enemies to retaliate makes them unfair. Others say that these weapons make it easier to reduce casualties, and are thus more moral than other types of weapons (90-91).
• Paul Kahn argues that killing during wartime is only justified under self-defense in conditions were enemies are able to harm each other. This means that when one enemy cannot hurt the other, the condition is no longer one of war and it ceases to be just to use violence (94).
• This view could be rejected because of its narrow definition of war to only include situations were enemies are mutually threatening. If this proposition is rejected, then Mr. Kahn's argument does not make sense (95).
• If one accepts Mr. Kahn's view of just war as being based on mutual threat and self-defense, then a much larger category of military personnel must also be excluded from combatant status. Support personnel and soldiers not actively fighting also cannot be justly targetted because they cannot pose a threat. Mr. Kahn does not endorse this full view, making him wrong and an intellectual coward (95-98). This is a bad argument because it does ridicule Mr. Kahn's narrow definition of legitimate combatants in a roundabout way by accusing the author of intellectual cowardice; the actual arguments raised are never addressed. 
• Suzy Killmister argues that the use of remote weapons because it forces the targeted country into a situation where its only options are to surrender or to attack illegitimate targets, like civilians, because there is no way to target the actual military force (98-99).
• Ms. Killmister assumes that all remote weapons are intrinsically asymmetric, but this is not the case. Instead, they are only asymmetric against some enemies and in some circumstances (99).
• Ms. Killmister assumes that forcing a state to surrender is immoral because it deprives that state of a means of self-defense. This being immoral is not supported. If anything, forcing an enemy into a position where they can only surrender is an essential part of any war (99-100).
• It could be argued that the greater ability of remote weapons to force surrender could be abused by unjust states for unjust reasons, but that is true for any weapon. Moreover, that would only make those state immoral, not the existence of remote weapons or their use for just purposes (100).
• Jai Galliott admits that drones are more precise than other weapons, but contends that they are essentially unfair and force enemies to adopt terrorist tactics to compete. He argues that drones are distinct in that they absolutely remove any risk to their operators, making them totally unfair and more unfair than regular planes (101-102).
• The example provided by Mr. Galliott of a F22 fighting primitive tribesmen being more moral than a drone fighting those tribesmen is stupid. Both cases are completely without risk for the pilot and the physical presence of a human does not make it more moral (102).
• Mr. Galliott further argues that the use of drones is immoral because their lack of exposure to risk means that the technologically dominant state always has a safe alternative to war, making it impossible to wage a just war (102).
• This is an incorrect application of just war theory, as there is no correlation between the access to a weapon and a state's conduct prior to war in seeking peaceful solutions (103).
• Like all weapons, remote weapons can be deployed in accordance with international law and general moral principles or they can be used to commit war crimes. The question of the morality of these weapons is therefore more focused on their usage than on their nature (93, 104).
• That being said, remote weapons have a far greater capacity than most weapons to be used in a limited fashion that respects human life and limits damage. Operators of remote weapons are more able to think out their actions without being under threat of violence and are thus more likely to act in moderation. This is even more true for drone warfare (93).
• Since the use of remote weapons is not intrinsically immoral, their usage must instead be subject to other moral considerations. Their ability to reduce military and civilian casualties is admirable and is morally positive (104).