Violence and fantasy: The case of the drones

Abstract

In U.S. counterterrorism drones are currently considered “the only game in town.” The paper studies the extent to which drones have become one more instance of terrorism’s self-fulfilling prophecies. The relevance of fantasy is underlined –fantasy viewed as constitutive of the real, nor as mere fiction opposed to reality. The relationship between fantasy, secrecy, aestheticization, and fascism are examined. Drones are monitored for the most part from a military base near Las Vegas, whose surrounding (Area 51) have been historically at the center of science fiction, thus further linking militarism, counterterrorism, and fantasy. The paper also investigates the relationship between fantasy, desire, fear and time. What would it imply the Lacanian “traversing the fantasy” in the realm of counterterrorism?