Some jurists detect a dangerous indistinction. The United States, writes Laurie Blank, relies "on both armed conflict and self-defense as legal justifications for targeted strikes outside of the zone of active combat. . . . It is the United States' insistence on using reference to both paradigms as justification for individual attacks and the broader program of targeted strikes that raises significant concerns for the use of international law and the protection of individuals by blurring the lines between the key parameters of the two paradigms."

Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, loc. 1044