At the time of writing, the American armed forces had at their disposal more than six thousand drones of various kinds; more than 160 of these were Predator drones in the hands of the U.S. Air Force. For both the military and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the use of hunter-killer drones has become commonplace, to the point of being routine. These machines are deployed not only in zones of armed conflict, such as Afghanistan, but also in countries officially at peace, such as Somalia, Yemen, and above all Pakistan, where CIA drones carry out on average one strike every four days. Exact figures are very hard to establish, but in Pakistan alone estimates of the number of deaths between 2004 and 2012 vary from 2,640 to 3,474.

Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, loc. 112