The second quarter of the twenty-first century is already being shaped by a transformation in which not only political borders but also technological power are redefining social imaginaries. In the Turkish context, we observe this transformation becoming pronounced through a politics of national pride crystallized around unmanned vehicles and autonomous military systems. These technological developments produce profound effects not only within the frames of military strategy and the defense industry, but also through digital citizenship, nationalist subjectivity, and political loyalty. This essay aims to analyze the social and political modes of representation of military technologies through the concepts of classical thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Benedict Anderson, alongside contemporary theorists including Jean Baudrillard, Shoshana Zuboff, Yuval Harari and Wendy Brown.
Foucault’s conceptualization of biopolitics [1] seeks to show that the state establishes modes of governing life not only through legal instruments but also through technical systems. The promotion of unmanned aerial vehicles as a “humane” mode of operation means not the elimination of violence but its further rendering invisible. In this context, the “unmanning” of instruments of violence simultaneously turns them into “aestheticized” and “consent-producing” devices [2]. Agamben’s theory of the “state of exception” [3] provides a legal framework for this transformation. In Turkey, especially when cross-border operations are at issue, the frequently invoked discourse of the “security state” renders unmanned systems operative not at the margins of law but within the norm of exception. This situation symbolically mediates citizens’ contact with political processes, turning them not into decision-makers but into subjects who display consent. Achille Mbembe’s notion of “necropolitics” [4] is also crucial here: in contemporary forms of war in which death and destruction are deployed as instruments of sovereignty, unmanned vehicles stand at the center of modern killing practices. Thus the boundary between life and death is reduced to a political strategy governed by technical systems.
Benedict Anderson’s “imagined community” approach posits that the modern nation-state constructs a shared sense of belonging through print, maps, and education [5]. Today these communities are being reconstituted before our eyes through various digital platforms such as TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, and Instagram. Military content circulating on digital platforms—operational footage of armed unmanned aerial vehicles, videos of soldiers serving at the border, interviews with “martyrs’ mothers”—does not merely inform; it also generates a collective affect. What these materials share is the transformation of nationalism into a “spectacle” [2] through aesthetic codes such as dramatic editing, slow motion, and epic music. Thus, symbols algorithmically selected for their viral potential take the place of traditional narratives. Read together with Foucault’s concept of “speaking truth” (parrhesia) [6], this spectacularization reveals that we live in an era in which the citizen forms political opinion not through genuine knowledge but through symbols produced by display and technical visual media. For example, in the social media campaigns of companies belonging to the Turkish defense industry, the discourse of “domestic and national technology” is not merely a product promotion; it is a vehicle for mobilizing nationalist feeling. The aesthetics employed in these campaigns reflect, less a technological rationality than a nationalist emotional movement. Armed or unarmed unmanned vehicles gliding across the sky are presented fused with the flag and exalted as “national heroes.” Thus symbolic representations supplant political truth; citizenship turns into a regime of loyalty that is part of a technological visual aesthetic rather than of critical reason.
Jean Baudrillard’s theory of simulation [7] explains the epistemological basis of this transformation. Footage of a cross-border operation recorded by drones becomes not merely a military reality but a hyper-aestheticized [7] representation of that reality. What is before us is not a “real” conflict; it is its simulative, edited, and ideologically arranged version. This simulation renders the citizen no longer inside the conflict but, through “likes” and “shares,” a participant in the war—indeed, its subject. Guy Debord’s theory of the “society of the spectacle” [8] is another key for understanding this new media age. From military parades to border operations, every source of content enumerated above is presented to the public as an aesthetic spectacle. In this spectacle, much as in simulation theory, the citizen is not merely a passive viewer; they are also a “spectatorial subject” who performatively expresses national belonging [8].
Shoshana Zuboff’s theory of “surveillance capitalism” [9] helps us make sense of this process on the economic plane. Nationalist content on digital platforms becomes not only ideological but also an economic commodity. Each video, hashtag, or share produces data, generates followers, and carries advertising value. Thus nationalism becomes less an identity than a content form, and loyalty turns into an algorithmic behavioral code.
Yuval Harari’s concept of the “ideology of data” (dataism) [10] explains this transformation in a global context. According to Harari, the new faith of our age is neither God nor the human, but data. In this sense, nationalism too is reconstituted through data. The digital citizen who places the Turkish flag, shares defense-industry content, and circulates operation videos becomes a data unit of the system. Their nationalism is not merely an affect; it is also an algorithmic production. It is clearly evident that the concept of citizenship is now being transformed in the register of the digital. In place of Jürgen Habermas’s model of citizenship grounded in the public sphere and communicative reason, there emerges a profile of the digital citizen who shares military content on TikTok, posts on X with the hashtag “#VatanSizeMinnettar,” and discloses identity on Instagram through images of the Turkish flag.
This new digital nationalism resonates deeply not only on the conservative-nationalist flank, but also in secular circles. The imaginary of a rational and independent state in the Atatürkist tradition is now being reconstructed through the discourse of “technological independence.” The secular nationalist subject internalizes the achievements of the defense industry as a symbol of national power. This subject exhibits a performative “rational patriotism”; rather than questioning the state’s technological achievements, it becomes legitimized by applauding them. Yet this performance is far removed from democratic citizenship. Political participation is no longer voting or organizing; it is sharing nationalist content and glorifying it. In this context, Wendy Brown’s critique of the neoliberal subject [11] gains significance. According to Brown, in the neoliberal era individuals have been transformed into market subjects who must continuously produce visibility [11]. With this transformation, nationalism becomes a “product,” and citizenship a “spectacle” [8].
This new form of citizenship is not the product of a political belonging grounded in free participation, but of a pre-programmed performance of loyalty. The “national contents” that recommended pages on TikTok display to users are presented on a stage where algorithms steer emotions. Although the citizen appears to be a content producer, they in fact become a subject that supplies data, is steered, and is consumed. This fundamentally alters the conception of citizenship in the digital age. Digital nationalism, while offering individuals the opportunity to exhibit their identities, simultaneously suppresses alternative forms of identity and belonging, narrowing the space of pluralism. Critical thought recedes; “national technologies” become an unquestionable sacred. In this context, dissent is coded not only as political but also as technological “treachery.”
In conclusion, the social legitimacy of unmanned military systems is woven not only from technical successes but also from cultural representations, political subjectivities, and media images. In the Turkish case, these systems have become the bearers of a new form of nationalism. This nationalism functions not merely as an ideology but as an algorithm, a data loop, a simulation. In this transformation, the citizen is no longer a soldier driving a tank but a user sharing content. Nationalism is not only a historical narrative; it is also a software, a visual flow, and a data ritual. The political subject—however much they are made to believe otherwise—has evolved from an active participant into, rather, a passive consumer. In this regard, technological nationalism must be reconsidered in terms of both critical citizenship and democratic pluralism. For in the reality of our age, technology is not merely a tool; it is a worldview. And this worldview is, once again and anew, rewriting who we are, what we believe, and to what we belong today.
References
[1] M. Foucault, The Politics of Life: Lectures on Biopolitics, Ayrıntı Publishing, 2022.
[2] C. Mouffe, “On the Political,” Routledge, vol. March, pp. 12–18, 2005.
[3] G. Agamben, State of Exception: The Logic of Sovereignty, Istanbul: Ayrıntı Publishing, 2006.
[4] Achille Mbembe, “Necropolitics,” Public Culture, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 17–19, 2003.
[5] B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: The Origins and Spread of Nationalism, Metis Publishing, 1993.
[6] C. M. Tosun, “A ‘Verbal Relation Ethics’ in Foucault’s Philosophy: Parrhesia,” Dergipark, vol. 30, no. 30, pp. 145–157, 2018.
[7] J. Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, Doğu Batı Publishing, 2003.
[8] G. Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, Ayrıntı Publishing, 1996.
[9] S. Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, PublicAffairs, 2019.
[10] Y. N. Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, Kolektif Kitap, 2017.
[11] W. Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution, Zone Books, 2015.
