The photons (let's say) that cause the inverse square law of the E+M force aren't on-shell photons [on-shell]. So, they're not photons that are "traveling" or

The photons (let's say) that cause the inverse square law of the E+M force aren't on-shell photons [on-shell]. So, they're not photons that are "traveling" or are "emitted" in the same way that radiation is---they don't carry any energy away. Similar with or whatever. The 'force law' isn't susceptible to low-intensity counting issues. In the last case---radiation---the photons are on-shell (so you can, for example, count them) and inverse square does degrade when you hit low counts. However, time-averaging restores it on average. [on-shell] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_shell_and_off_shell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_shell_and_off_shell