Predator Empire

Abstract

This book explores the rise of the Predator Empire, the name for the contemporary “dronified” U.S. national security state. Moving from the Vietnam War to the “war on terror,” it investigates how changes in military strategy, domestic policing, and state surveillance have come together to enclose the planet in a robotic system of control. It argues that we are witnessing a transition from a labor-intensive “American empire” to a machine-intensive Predator Empire. Following philosophers such as Hannah Arendt and Peter Sloterdijk, the book argues that the nonhuman environment directly influences who we are, and therefore goes beyond considering drone warfare as a purely military concern. The rise of drones present a series of “existential crises” that are reengineering the spaces of violence, domestic policing, and even the character of modern states.