Killing by metadata: Europe and the surveillance–targeted killing nexus

Abstract

The attempt to propose a European perspective on targeted killings is problematic to the extent that implies an understanding thereof as an exclusively American practice. By doing so, it risks overlooking the intimate relation of drone warfare with a targeting regime that depends for its functioning upon a surveillant assemblage transcending the American/European distinction. This article understands “Europe” as a fundamental part in the US targeting killing programme. Rather than exceptional and episodic, indeed, the European participation in drone strikes represents a continuation of a practice of intelligence sharing that, originating as a Second World War UK–US agreement, nowadays encompasses an assemblage of countries that collect and share military intelligence with one another. This increasing ability to collect, circulate and analyse a vast amount of data has underwritten the emergence of a distinct “way of war” revolving around the tracking and killing of individuals worldwide. The category of “Europe”, the article concludes, is unable to make sense of these phenomena.