Description
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, extensive open technological innovation has enabled civilians to participate more intimately in hostilities. Due to their global proliferation and diffusion, uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) now have low lower barriers of entry for production and innovation. With off-the-shelf commercial and civilian-built platforms now a common sight on Ukrainian battlefields for multiple purposes (including belligerent harm), civilians are participating in the war as producers of UAS and knowledge exchangers. While such efforts would likely be considered as indirect participation in hostilities, there is still a lack of international consensus specifically on grey-area participation that risks further blurring the distinction between civilians and members of armed forces. Civilians are integral to Ukraine’s aim to domestically produce 2 million UAS in 2024, providing a powerful case for a revision of international norms on civilian participation in warfare.
The developments in Ukraine do not occur in a vacuum and it is important to understand their normative implications. Employing Simon Pratt’s mechanisms for normative transformation (convention reorientation, technological revision, and network synthesis), I argue that three phenomena contribute to normative transformation, making is more acceptable/appropriate for civilians to participate in hostilities at a more intimate level. First, a discursive switch in elite messaging after Russia’s full-scale invasion increased the willingness of the state’s institutions to recognise and legitimise civilian efforts. Second, the increased accessibility and availability of UAS technology and supplementary knowledge has made it easier for civilians to create platforms with meaningful influence for the war. Third, network synthesis between civilian UAS producers, civilian and state-led crowdfunders, and the Ukrainian state’s institutions have opened new relationships that are structuring closer civilian influence in the war. Together, these three phenomena provide subject to study potential normative transformation in the context of civilian participation in hostilities.
