Afghan security forces inspect the site of an attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 16, 2017. At least 10 people were killed and nine others wounded after a suicide bombing ripped through a banquet hall in northern neighborhood of Afghanistan's capital of Kabul on Thursday, police and witnesses said. PA Images/Rahmat Alizadah. All rights reserved.Many previous columns in this series focus on the transition in the western way of war since 9/11 from tens of thousands of “boots on the ground” to "remote warfare". This has mainly involved a much more intensive use of air-power, including armed-drones; the utilisation of long-range artillery and ground-launched ballistic-missiles; and the much wider use of special forces and privatised military corporations.
The change has been consistently analysed by a few non-government organisations, most notably the Remote Control project and Drone Wars UK, whose specific concern is armed drones.
The states pursuing this kind of offensive war see three advantages, two military and one political:
