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This article sets out to probe the peculiar nexus between democracy and the military use of unmanned systems. To this end, it draws on a critical, ‘antinomic’ reading of democratic peace theory. Tying into the theoretical scope of research conducted within the democratic distinctiveness programme that emerged out of the democratic peace debate, this entails fathoming out the ways in which democracies are distinct from other regime types. It includes acknowledging that democracies deal with conflicts aggressively too, rather than naïvely taking their supposed general peacefulness at face value. We demonstrate that the same distinctly democratic set of interests and norms that is conventionally taken to be pivotal for democratic peacefulness yields both peaceful and belligerent behavior. That same democracy-specific set of interests and norms is also constitutive of the special appeal unmanned systems hold for democracies. While armed and eventually autonomous systems may thus seem like a ‘silver bullet’ for democratic decisionmakers today, we argue that, by relying on these systems in an attempt to satisfy the said interests and norms, democracies may end up thwarting them in the long run and render themselves only more war-prone.

Zusammenfassung: Der Beitrag skizziert einen neuen, sprachphilosophisch inspirierten Forschungsansatz ("Vokabularanalyse") und wendet ihn exemplarisch auf die deutsche Außenpolitik an. Ohne die Diskussion darüber fortzusetzen, ob Kontinuität oder Wandel für die deutsche Außenpolitik seit der Vereinigung kennzeichnend ist, rekonstruiert der Beitrag die Entwicklung der deutschen außenpolitischen Praxis zwischen 1986 und 2002 anhand des Sprachgebrauchs der außenpolitischen Elite. Exemplarisch wird der Gebrauch der Schlüsselbegriffe Deutschland, Europa, Macht, Verantwortung, Selbstbewusstsein und Stolz analysiert. Es zeigt sich, dass im semantischen Netz, aus dem der außenpo-litische Diskurs in Deutschland gewoben ist, mittels der Vokabularanalyse erstaunliche Verschiebungen sichtbar gemacht werden können -Verschiebungen, die ihrerseits nicht folgenlos für die außenpolitische Identität Deutschlands bleiben. Abstract:The article sketches a newly developed analytical approach ("vocabulary analysis") inspired by philosophy of language. Without engaging in the debate as to whether Germany's foreign policy is best characterised either in terms of continuity or

Whether and how Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) can and should be regulated is intensely debated among governments, scholars, and campaigning activists. This article argues that the strategy of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots to obtain a legally binding instrument to regulate LAWS within the framework of the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons is not likely to be effective, as it is modeled after previous humanitarian disarmament successes and not tailored to the specifics of the issue. This assessment is based on a systematic comparison of the autonomous weapons case with the cases of blinding laser weapons and anti-personnel landmines that makes use of an analytical framework consisting of issue-related, actor-related, and institution-related campaign strategy components. Considering the differences between these three cases, the authors recommend that the LAWS campaign strategy be adjusted in terms of institutional choices, substance, and regulatory design. KEYWORDS Humanitarian disarmament; anti-personnel landmines; blinding laser weapons; convention on certain conventional weapons; artificial intelligence; lethal autonomous weapons systems Humankind is on the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution. How we live, work, and communicate is changing. A key feature of this new epoch is automation, enabled by breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI). 1 Machines today are able to perform more numerous and complex tasks with minimal or no human assistance or supervision. Naturally, militaries around the globe also intend to benefit from this development. As a result, what has come to be

In addition to its successful mobilization in stigmatization and norm‐setting processes on anti‐personnel landmines and cluster munitions, the principle of distinction as enshrined in International Humanitarian Law also figures prominently in the debate on lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS). Proponents of a ban on LAWS frame these as indiscriminate, that is, unable to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and thus as inherently unlawful. The flip side of this particular legal argument is, however, that LAWS become acceptable when considered capable of distinguishing between combatants and civilians. We thus argue, first, that this particular legal basis for the call for a ban on LAWS might be rendered obsolete by technological progress increasing discriminatory weapon capabilities. Second, we argue that the argument is normatively troubling as it suggests that, as long as civilians remain unharmed, attacking combatants with LAWS is acceptable. Consequently, we find that the legal principle of distinction is not the overall strongest argument to mobilize when trying to stigmatize and ban LAWS. A more fundamental, ethical argument within the debate about LAWS – and one less susceptible to ‘technological fixes’ – should be emphasized instead, namely that life and death decisions on the battlefield should always and in principle be made by humans only.