Remote warfare and the legitimacy of military capabilities/ Jack McDonald

Military power relies upon military capabilities, generated by organisations, infrastructure, and defence establishments. This paper highlights the importance of remote warfare to research on the transformation of military power in the contemporary world. It draws attention to the relationship between military capabilities that enable states to intervene in physically distant conflicts and their political legitimacy. It argues that remote warfare is best understood as a family resemblance of legitimacy problems associated with military capabilities, rather than a category of warfare, set of tactics, or strategy. It then identifies a framework for understanding the varied types of legitimacy problems associated with remote warfare: remote warfare consists of a set of problems that examine how military capabilities affect the ability of states to act without violating international norms, governments to act without violating domestic constraints, the ability of governments to control their exposure to interventions at distance, and their ability to avoid responsibility for the consequences. The importance of this approach is highlighted by the way that it helps to explain the importance of controversies over military infrastructure used to support interventions and therefore highlights the importance of work on remote warfare for the wider study of military transformation and military power.

REMOTE WARFARE, MILITARY POWER, MILITARY CAPABILITIES, NEWARTICLS