Arendt explained that, owing to this fundamental corporeal dependence, the power of the state—even in the most authoritarian of regimes—must, despite everything, be power and not pure violence. There is no power without bodies. But, as she in a way acknowledged, the reciprocal statement is true: with no bodies mobilized, there is no longer any power.

Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, loc. 697