Nasser Hussain wrote extensively on colonial law and the state of emergency and on the history of counter-insurgency. Two years before his untimely death in November 2015 from a tragic illness, Nasser had published a brilliant and prescient article on drone warfare in the Boston Review: http://www.bostonreview.net/world/hussain-drone-phenomenology. Today, five years after the original interview, his insightful comments on the impact of aerial surveillance and of drone strikes on the populations that live with them could not be more relevant, as the Trump administration follows former President Obama’s lead in extending drone warfare, as Israel daily subjects Gaza to drone surveillance and targeted assassinations, and Saudi Arabia uses drone and other aerial bombardments to massacre the Yemeni civilians. And, in the wake of recent threats of the use of lethal force on the US-Mexican border, Nasser’s final prediction that lethal drones may eventually be used on that border in the name of preventing terrorism is chilling in its pertinence.
