Drones, drones, everywhere drones. For a few weeks, clusters of drones of unknown provenance were recently seen flying in the skies above New Jersey. Local, state, and federal authorities claimed that they did not know whose drones they were. The expression “baseless conspiracy theory” saw an uptick in usage once again as some in the media scoffed at the proliferating hypotheses about what was going on. Incoming U.S. president Donald Trump opined that the machines should be shot down, but the Joe Biden administration did not agree, lending significant support to the simplest hypothesis of...

Since the Middle Ages, belligerent leaders have taken refuge behind the seductive façade of just war theory according to which what matter above all during wartime are the intentions of the warriors, not the consequences of their actions. When leaders order their troops to drop bombs, they claim to be combating “evil” adversaries. But war culminates in indiscriminate death, destruction, maiming, and misery of both combatants (whether voluntary or conscripted) and noncombatants. When civilians are slaughtered, war supporters tend charitably to forgive and forget what they interpret to have...