Why is the term kamikaze inaccurate for many one-way attack drones?
The term "kamikaze" is widely considered inaccurate when applied to one-way attack (OWA) drones because it conflates modern uncrewed technology with the specific historical context of World War II.1
The word kamikaze translates to "divine wind" and historically refers to the Japanese pilots who conducted deliberate, suicidal crashes into enemy targets, as well as the piloted aircraft or specialized missiles (such as the Baka) used in those attacks. Because these missions required a human pilot to sacrifice their life to guide the craft, the term is inextricably linked to human suicide.213
In contrast, OWA drones are uncrewed systems that operate without a pilot on board. Applying the term "kamikaze" to these machines is imprecise because it ignores the fundamental distinction between a human-piloted suicide mission and the deployment of an autonomous or remotely operated precision-strike asset. Furthermore, many OWA drones function more like inexpensive, slow-moving cruise missiles than the piloted suicide craft of the 1940s.1