New Books in Science, Technology, and Society Erik Lin-Greenberg, "The Remote Revolution: Drones and Modern Statecraft" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Dec 19, 2025
In this engaging discussion, Erik Lin-Greenberg, a political scientist at MIT and author of The Remote Revolution, dives into how drones are reshaping international security. He challenges the common belief that drones increase the likelihood of war, arguing instead that they can lower escalation risks. Drones enable better intelligence gathering and provoke less retaliatory aggression. He shares insights from original research and highlights both the operational advantages of drones and the implications for military strategy.
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More But Milder Conflicts
- Drones increase the frequency of military operations by lowering risk and cost for decision-makers.
- Yet on average these operations are less likely to escalate into broader wars because drones sit lower on the escalation ladder.
Dual Dynamics: Hazard And Control
- Two forces act together: a moral hazard driving more drone use and an escalation-control effect reducing harsh retaliation.
- These combined produce increased interactions that tend to remain at low escalation rungs.
Cold War Drone Showdowns
- The U.S. flew reconnaissance drones over China during the Cold War and ignored Chinese publicized shootdowns.
- U.S. officials explicitly treated drone losses as less consequential because no pilots were captured.