The Silence of Violence: The Remaking of Modern Aerial Warfare
By Franzie Schatzl and Mayya Chaykina
Unmanned aerial systems have reshaped the conduct of war without corresponding changes to the legal
architecture that governs it. Today, conflicts are fought from afar, mediated by screens, algorithms, and
the persistent terror of drones. This form of warfare is simultaneously more precise and less visible than
conventional warfare. The familiar principles of distinction, proportionality, and accountability remain
formally in place, yet the “invisibility” of these systems, alongside the rise of the digital panopticon and
technocratic ideologies, has transformed how violence is both experienced and obscured. This intensifies
asymmetries and deepens accountability gaps, while simultaneously reshaping civilian life under the sky.
The civilian consequences are already documented in contemporary conflicts. In Ukraine, the UN Human
Rights Monitoring Mission documented at least 395 civilians killed and 2,635 injured by short-range drone
attacks between February 2022 and April 2025. The victims included people travelling in private cars and
buses, walking, cycling, delivering humanitarian aid and evacuating civilians and travelling to clearly
marked ambulances. The UN found that attacks appeared to involve intentionally targeting of civilians and
could thus amount to war crimes.
Existing International Legal Framework
A legal framework regulating unmanned aerial systems and cyberwarfare has been laid out by various
instruments, including soft law and jurisprudence as a whole. The second Tallinn Manual on the
International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations, in particular, has identified certain existing rules that
govern such military operations and provided commentary.
The application of existing rules of international law, even in the absence of explicit provisions addressing
drones and new means of aerial warfare and cyber operations, can be affirmed by the Nuclear Weapons
advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice. The Court considered that “the intrinsically
humanitarian character of the legal principles in question [...] permeates the entire law of armed conflict
and applies to all forms of warfare and to all kinds of weapons, those of the past, those of the present and
those of the future." As affirmed by the Tallinn Manual, the already-applicable general rules determine the
lawfulness of new methods and means of warfare.
A Tallinn Manual case study demonstrates this in the context of an unmanned combat aerial system
which is armed with cluster munitions. In such a context, a state must comply with its existing obligations,
such as whether it has ratified the Cluster Munitions Convention. Thus, the use of drones and unmanned
aerial systems, even though they are novel technology, must take into account existing international
obligations under both treaty and customary law.
Indeed, the attribution of international responsibility for a cyber-related act to a state is based on the
existing customary international law of state responsibility. A breach of an international legal obligation
applicable to a given state, performed by an unmanned aerial system, may still be attributable to a state
under international law and invoke that state’s international responsibility when its military or intelligence
agencies commit the wrongful acts in question. This may also be the case where a non-state actor is
effectively controlled by the state.
Grey Zones and Civilian Protection
Other components of the field continue to exist in legal grey zones, especially when semi-autonomous
and autonomous systems of aerial warfare are used in committing certain violations of international
humanitarian law. These violations may raise new questions in the law of armed conflict and international
criminal law. Although individuals are criminally responsible for war crimes that they commit, ascribing this
responsibility remains difficult in increasingly autonomous weapons systems. The systems themselves do
not possess the legal personality required to attach responsibility, for those where control is autonomous
or semi-autonomous. The question remains of whether to attribute this responsibility to the manufacturer,
the operator, or someone else in the command chain. Aerial systems that are autonomous or semi-
autonomous have largely removed decision-making from humans. For instance, manufacturers will likely
lack the knowledge or constructive knowledge that a specific system will commit certain acts constitutive
of war crimes. Similarly, if software problems lead to such acts, it will be challenging to determine whether
fault lies with the manufacturer, the operator, or the programmer. A significant accountability gap exists,
due to the lack of foresight on how unmanned, autonomous or semi-autonomous aerial systems will
interact with complex environments. Drones equipped with military capabilities may be deployed in ways
that exploit the existing grey areas in international law. In such scenarios, criminal liability is difficult to
attach to individuals, institutions, or systems, leaving victims without redress.
From Guernica to the Digital Panopticon
Historically, aerial warfare used invisibility and sound as weapon of terror. The German Junkers dive
bombers and the bombing of Guernica, as well as its collective memory through community and art,
exemplify how spectacle and noise were weaponized against the civilian population. If the planes were
not easily visible, the bombs were. The logic of visible and visceral force as well as the visual spectacle of
destruction has actively been inverted in modern drone warfare. The drone is silent. What remains is its
shadow, as it remains increasingly invisible in high-altitude settings. Regardless, the constant, ambient
threat remains, imposing a new form of psychological terror rooted in undetectable surveillance and the
uncertainty of incoming strikes. The prior horror of a single moment of impact morphs into a constant fear.
Drones therefore function as a mobile panopticon, a surveillance eye that may or may not be watching
but which reshapes civilian behavior. Even the possibility of being observed can become more powerful
than constant surveillance itself, as civilians adapt routines, avoid community gatherings, and self-police
out of fear. Researchers have called this constant awareness of being watched and the fear of the next
unpredictable strike “dronophobia,” or drone-induced anxiety among civilians, a condition marked by
chronic fear, sleeplessness, and social withdrawal.
At the same time, drones can re-weaponize sound. In Gaza, Israeli quadcopters have been reported to
broadcast children’s voices, sirens, or commercial-like audio to provoke and expose civilians. Thus, drone
warfare reconfigures terror and expands its toolkit of coercion, without equivalent expansion of the means
for political or legal accountability.
Centrally, drones restructure the relationship between the killer and the killed: operators are physically
distant, yet visually and emotionally proximate through live high-resolution feeds. Humans are reduced to
dots, signatures, or data, to enable degrees of dehumanization and moral disengagement. This paradox
of distance enables the justification for lethal action when human lives are abstracted to “targets” behindscreens and algorithms. Increasingly, the “gamification” of warfare is utilized to recruit new soldiers. In
contrast, for civilians on the ground, the gaze of the drone becomes a constant (self-)disciplinary force
leading to adaptations in movements and behaviors.
“Democratization” of Airpower and Case Studies
Recent aerial warfare has been transformed by low technological and financial barriers. States use
drones to project force with minimal risk to personnel. Non-state actors may deploy low-cost drones to
disrupt more powerful militaries. This “democratization” of airpower does not reduce civilian risk: it
redistributes and often intensifies this risk. This is all the more likely in contexts where data and targeting
rules are opaque. One of the key features of aerial warfare is that it blurs the line between civilians and
military when targeting in complex urban environments. A recent proliferation of short-range and loitering
munitions has been recorded in conflicts in Ukraine, the Red Sea, and Middle East. In Ukraine, short-
range “kamikaze” drones deployed by Russia have become a leading cause of civilian casualties and
damage of property and cultural resources in frontline areas, resulting in high-cost humanitarian
consequences. Ukraine has likewise used long-range drones to strike targets deep inside Russia,
including the Moscow Oil Refinery during a large-scale attack in September 2026, further demonstrating
the extended reach of unmanned aerial warfare. Ukraine has also established an open database
documenting Russian unmanned systems and their foreign-made components, including information on
manufacturers, supply chains, and the technologies identified in captured or recovered weapons. Notably,
in Nagorno-Karabakh (2016-2020), the Azerbaijani use of armed drones and loitering munitions decisively
altered the battlefield. Relatively cheap unmanned systems offset conventional military disadvantages.
Similarly, Houthi operations using drones to attack shipping and infrastructure have demonstrated how
low-cost sabotage can project regional influence and expand regional zones of power.
Drones have also mirrored a broader ideology of technocracy and tech-fascism as security and order are
increasingly entrusted to algorithms, data, and remote systems that are framed as “objective” and thus
“superior” to human judgment, whilst weaponizing narratives of “defending democracies”. Progress is
measured only in the capabilities of better sensors, faster response times, and fewer operator causalities.
Dwindling emphasis is placed on ethical and political questions as to who is targeted and why.
Seemingly, modern warfare is visible in its technical sophistication but invisible in its human operators
and consequences.
Conclusion
Drones and aerial warfare do not escape the existing legal framework of international humanitarian law
and state responsibility. The Nuclear Weapons opinion and the Tallinn Manual show that the
“humanitarian character” of these principles predates all forms of warfare, including those enabled by
unmanned systems. Yet, the practical reality of drone warfare is defined by invisibility, asymmetry, and
psychological terror, rather than by clarity of the legal texts.
From the digital panopticon in the sky, to tech-fascist and technocratic cultures and remote control, drone
warfare is reshaping how power is exercised and how violence is experienced. Recent developments
resulted in the greater diffusion of accountability. Civilians in high-conflict zones are all too aware of the
constant knowledge of being watched, mapped, and potentially targeted by an invisible gaze. To close
the gap between legal principles and lived reality, the international community must move beyond
rhetorical commitments and embrace concrete reforms in transparency and civilians-protection protocols.
Genocide Watch recommends:
• States Parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) must negotiate legally
binding international rules on autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons that establish clear
lines of responsibility for unlawful acts. This includes responsibility within military chains of
command and for the development and deployment of such systems.
• States employing armed drones, through armed forced and defense ministries, must strengthen
civilian protection protocols.This requires meaningful human oversight, target verification,
proportionally and precautionary assessments, as well as transparent investigations into civilian
harm.
• States, technological companies and digital platforms must establish safeguards against the
gamification and glorification of drone warfare. States must require military personnel operating
remotely controlled or autonomous systems to receive training in international humanitarian law
and retain meaningful human control over aerial warfare and lethal force.
