Remote warfare has become a ‘catch-all’ term, used to describe the so-called ‘light footprint’, ‘low-risk’, and ‘distant’ characteristics of contemporary Western warfighting. Typified by a reliance on military airpower, new weapon technologies, special operations forces, and the support of local partners, proxies, and surrogates, this form of modern warfare has allowed the USA and its Western coalition member to meet national security threats globally, yet withoutr having to endure the heavy cost to their soldier’s lives that defined Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003). Nevertheless, in this article, we argue that this perception of remote warfare needs reappraising. By analysing the case of Niger, we highlight how the means and mechanisms of remote warfare have now proliferated to a plethora of state actors, with varying ambitions, who combine their ‘light footprint’ to saturate distant zones of conflict and sovereign nations considered to be ‘strategic choke-points’. Although adopted as the blueprint for militarily effective and politically attuned global force deployment by a range of nations, we question the extent to which it is still politically useful, militarily effective, or indeed academically accurate to consider remote warfare as ‘light footprint’ at all.

远程战争已经成为一个“包罗万象”的术语，用来描述当代西方作战的所谓“轻足迹”、“低风险”和“远距离”特征。这种形式的现代战争以对军事空中力量、新武器技术、特种作战部队以及当地合作伙伴、代理人和代理人的支持为代表，使美国及其西方联盟成员能够在全球范围内应对国家安全威胁，但而不必忍受定义阿富汗（2001 年）和伊拉克（2003 年）的士兵生命的沉重代价。然而，在本文中，我们认为这种对远程战争的看法需要重新评估。通过分析尼日尔的案例，我们强调了远程战争的手段和机制现在如何扩散到具有不同野心的众多国家行为者，使遥远的冲突地区和被认为是“战略要塞”的主权国家饱和。尽管被一系列国家采纳为军事上有效且政治上协调的全球部队部署的蓝图，但我们质疑将远程战争视为“轻足迹”在多大程度上仍然在政治上有用、军事上有效或在学术上准确.