The argument is paradoxically supported by a rhetorical reminder of the equal value of all lives. Because, however, that equality holds only among citizens, the result is a hierarchization of bodies based on whether they are subjects of the nation-state or not. The operation consists in replacing the primacy of the structural distinction between civilians and combatants by another that simultaneously redefines it, one that boils down to a hierarchical separation between nationals and foreigners—and all in the name of an “ethic” that is just a polite euphemism for a nationalism of the most ferocious kind.

Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, loc. 440