US Drone Research Articles

Is the US Drone War Effective?

Particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, drones have stirred up new levels of hostility against the United States and endangered the stability and cooperation of the local governments, with potential long-term consequences for the stability of the South Asian region.

The Use of Drones in Pakistan: an Inquiry into the Ethical and Legal Issues

It is clear the United States and other major powers see drone warfare as the wave of the future. Today more than 70 countries possess drone technology and many others are seeking to acquire it. It is expected that within 20 years, there will be swarms of drones and many autonomous fighters and bombers in use around the globe. If the trends continue as anticipated, these drones will usher in a ‘boundless and borderless war without end’. The development of technological improvements will eventually lead to a militarisation of foreign policy and unnecessary conflicts. While the circumstances in Pakistan are unique, the questions surrounding the US drone programme in non‐combat zones such as Pakistan raise important issues regarding how drone use should be governed in the future. This article is an attempt to analyse legal and ethical issues raised by the US use of drone technology in non‐combat zones such as Pakistan, and it looks into its underpinnings and also its repercussions as tool in prospective warfare.

Standing in the way of control

On 1 November 2013 a US drone strike in the tribal areas of Pakistan led to the high-profile death of Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud. On a political level, the event waylaid any potential for Afghan peace talks, but also served to reinforce civilian concerns. Are we ready to face a world of machines that think for themselves?

Technological Agency in the Co-Constitution of Legal Expertise and the US Drone Program

AbstractOn 30 September 2011, the US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in Yemen in what has become the most controversial incident of US ‘targeted killing’, or, as its critics would prefer, of the US practice of ‘extrajudicial executions’. This controversy over wording expresses a profound disagreement over the legal status of the US drone program. Target killing suggests that the drone program may be legally regulated. Extrajudicial execution suggests that it falls outside the realm of legality. This article does not seek to settle which terminology is the most appropriate. Instead it analyses the legal expertise struggling to do so and its implications. More specifically, it focuses on the processes through which drones constitute the legal expertise that constitutes the drone program as one of targeted killings and of extrajudicial executions; that is, on a process of co-constitution. Drawing theoretical inspiration from and combining new materialist approaches (especially as articulated by Bruno Latour) with the sociological approach of Pierre Bourdieu, the article shows that drones have ‘agency’ in the ‘field’ of legal expertise pertaining to the drone program. Drones are redrawing the boundaries of legal expertise both by making associations to new forms of expertise and by generating technological expert roles. They are also renegotiating what is valuable to expertise. Drones are making both transparency and secrecy core to expertise. However, and contrary to what is often claimed, this agency does not inescapably lead to the normalization of targeted killings. The article therefore concludes that acknowledging the agency of drones is important for understanding how legal expertise is formed but especially for underscoring the continued potential for controversy and politics.

US public support for drone strikes against asymmetric enemies abroad: Poll trends in 2013

Military drones have been much in the news, and numerous polls have sought to measure public opinion relating to US drone strikes – a recent but already iconic image of asymmetric conflict. I examined eight US national polls conducted in 2013 and found that, while a consistent majority supports targeting terrorists with drones, there is a small but increasing minority that disapproves. This trend, along with strong disapproval of US drone strikes in many other countries, points to a possible future in which drones are less acceptable for the stronger side in asymmetric conflict or more accessible to the weaker side.

The dispensable nation: American foreign policy in retreat, by Vali Nasr

Vali Nasr The dispensable nation: American foreign policy in retreat New York: Doubleday, 2013. 300pp $34.00 (cloth) ISBN: 978-0385536479America's global leadership, once thought by some to be visionary and purposeful, is now in decline, most observably in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the wider Middle East. A key reason for this decline is the omnipresence of political operatives in the Obama White House; former campaign strategists decide foreign policy based upon crude political calculations. The expert advice of senior foreign policy advi- sors is subverted to the interests of plays best on the evening news.Vali Nasr was senior adviser to President Barack Obama's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, from 2009 2010. His book scathingly accuses the Obama administration of sacrificing long-term national interests in favour of short-term political gains, with grave consequences for American power. The book is an indictment of the administration's mismanagement of foreign policy in the high-stakes post-9/11 world, especially with respect to relations with the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China.While Obama has received some praise for his foreign policy record, this is chiefly because his team aims to satisfy public opinion first, leaving the difficult strategic calculations about America's long-term interests for his successors. A consequence of allowing political strategists to make foreign policy is that America's official position on a host of issues is to take no position at all. Senior members of the foreign policy establishment have been asked to communicate stunningly obtuse proposals to our allies (3), themselves unconvinced of the wisdom of their actions. Nasr suggests that the White House's treatment of the Department of State, and of Holbrooke, illustrate this point.Apparently the State Department fought to be included in foreign policy decisions. That it participated at all is ow>ed to Hillary Clinton's stature as secretary of state. Holbrooke reportedly had to fight tooth and nail to be heard on AfPak policy, despite his position as special representative. In the face of Holbrooke's advice on this file, Obama's advisers dithered on whether force or diplomacy would best end the war in Afghanistan and wound up choosing neither. This insouciance is visible in other foreign policy files: if they kicked the can down the road long enough, they could avoid public scrutiny, and avoid decisions altogether hoping things would resolve themselves. Not did this approach do nothing to make America safer, but also, Nasr argues, it further put American security at risk, failed to end the war in Afghanistan, and raised serious questions about American leadership.In addition to these failures is the administration's underestimation of Pakistan's importance to the Afghanistan effort. Nasr writes that the troop surge that Obama reluctantly approved would have been useful to assist Pakistan in pressuring the Taliban. This opportunity was missed, as were others, such as chances to address the public outcry in Pakistan over the US drone program and to find alternatives to the pressure only policies with Pakistan and Iran that were clearly not yielding results. On Iran, Nasr convincingly argues that sanctions were the most favoured option precisely because they are what you do when you cannot or will not do anything else (110). American inaction has left relations with both countries unresolved.Moreover, America's hasty exit from Iraq left fertile ground for violent sectarianism. Nasr likens this sectarianism, similar to that which has flourished after the Arab Spring, to a rising storm. The unravelling of American efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in the wider Middle East are major vulnerabilities for America. Nasr posits that the combination of weakened regimes, sectarian urges and great power ineptitude have opened the gates to ethnic cleansing, floods of refugees, humanitarian disasters and conditions ripe for al Qaeda to flourish regionally. …

Predator Empire: The Geopolitics of US Drone Warfare

This paper critically assesses the CIA's drone programme and proposes that the use of unmanned aerial vehicles is driving an increasingly “dronified” US national security strategy. The paper suggests that large-scale ground wars are being eclipsed by fleets of weaponised drones capable of targeted killings across the planet. Evidence for this shift is found in key security documents that mobilise an amorphous conflict against vaguely defined al-Qa'ida “affiliates”. This process is legitimised through the White House's presentation of drone warfare as a bureaucratic conflict managed by a “disposition matrix”. These official narratives are challenged by the voices of people living in the tribal areas of Pakistan. What I term the Predator Empire names the biopolitical power that digitises, catalogues, and eliminates threatening “patterns of life” across a widening battlespace. This permanent war is enabled by a topological spatial power that folds the distant environments of the affiliate into the surveillance machinery of the Homeland.

Targeted Killings: Contemporary Challenges, Risks and Opportunities

The use of drones and other forms of targeted killings are being increasingly criticized at the international and domestic level. Before the backdrop of the most recent news that the United Nations has launched an inquiry into the overall legality of such a method of warfare and counterterrorism and its associated loss of civilian life, this article aims to give an overview on targeted killings as a means of warfare. The article asks what constitutes targeted killing and what distinguishes it from assassinations. It reflects on the safeguards, which are necessary to ensure the legality of the targeting process. This article further introduces the reader to an updated account of the use of Unmanned Combat Aircraft Systems, or ‘drones’, in targeted killings, employed as a means of warfare by the USA in its ‘War on Terror’. The US drone campaign in Pakistan also raises questions in respect to State Sovereignty and potential violations of this central tenet of International Law. The article will also touch upon another field of global security, so called ‘Hybrid Threats’, where the use of targeted killing may have an operational military benefit as part of a holistic counterstrategy. It concludes with a sobering warning that while targeted killing operations may be an effective means of achieving short-term tactical goals within the scope of a wider operational objective, the unregulated and increased use of targeting killings by the USA in the ‘War on Terror’ would be both immoral as well as illegal in the long run.

Drones over Yemen: Weighing Military Benefits and Political Costs

The future role of US drones has been the subject of considerable controversy due to their use in remote parts of the world to target individuals designated as terrorists. In his confirmation hearings, Secretary of State John Kerry expressed concerns about overseas perceptions of such activities by stating that, American foreign policy is not defined by drones and deployments alone. (1) Additionally, within the United States, many issues surrounding drone use clearly need scrupulous legal and ethical consideration. Underlying all these factors, however, must be a consideration of the issue of military effectiveness. Regulating the use of a marginally valuable weapons-system is easy, while regulating a highly effective system in a way that forecloses options can be difficult since more is at stake. Careful consideration must be given to how effectively these systems can serve US interests as well as the negative consequences of overseas backlash to their use when evaluating their optimal place in US strategy. In the case of Yemen, drones are not popular with the local population, but they do appear to have been stunningly successful in achieving goals that support the United States and Yemeni national interests by helping to defeat the radical group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). This organization is one of the most successful affiliates of the original al Qaeda group led by Osama bin Laden until his death in 2011. AQAP became prominent in the early 2000s when it began terrorist operations in Saudi Arabia, though it was ultimately defeated in that country. Following this defeat, AQAP retained its name and regrouped in Yemen, merging with the local al Qaeda organization operating there in 2009. AQAP (which Yemenis simply call al Qaeda) has a recent history of challenging the Yemeni government as well as a long record of attempting to execute spectacular terrorist events in the United States. This agenda has made it vital for the United States to oppose AQAP and help the Yemeni government in a variety of ways, including drone use, when appropriate. Clearly fearing a domestic backlash, former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who remained in office until early 2012, consistently denied his government was allowing the United States to conduct drone operations over Yemen. Saleh's denials regarding drones could hardly be considered credible since some extremely high profile strikes occurred while he was president. Of special importance was a successful February 2002 missile attack on six senior al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen. The Saleh government originally claimed these individuals were killed in a Yemeni Air Force bombing attack, but this story unraveled after a senior US official revealed information about the drone strike during a CNN interview. (2) In response to domestic pressure created by the CNN disclosure, Saleh eventually acknowledged that the February 2002 strike was conducted by a US drone, but he did not admit to any later strikes by the time he left power ten years later. (3) The president's continuing denials were almost universally disbelieved as there had been numerous Yemeni and international news reports of US drone warfare against AQAP, often citing seemingly credible sources on background. These press reports included a discussion of a fatal September 2011 US drone attack on AQAP planner Anwar al Awlaki. In response to such information, Saleh went so far as to claim that Yemeni forces had killed Awlaki, although virtually no one took such statements seriously. (4) In sharp contrast to Saleh, current Yemeni President Abed Rabbu Hadi has spoken glowingly of US drones used in Yemen, describing them as an effective way to strike the enemy while minimizing collateral damage to innocent civilians through precision strikes. (5) Despite Hadi's assurances, drone use remains a hotly contested domestic issue in Yemen. Achievements in Yemen Enabled by Drones The history of US drone activity in Yemen is still subject to considerable secrecy and cannot be written in full until more information has been declassified and released. …

Drones: What Are They Good For?

The drone debate continues hot and heavy. Critical issues range from the morality of targeting choices and concerns about unintended casualties and anti-Americanism to matters of legal and bureaucratic oversight) These are pressing questions; the United States' use of drones as a weapon of war is on the rise, and other countries are interested in acquiring them. (2) Less often raised are first-order questions, or examinations of first principles. These questions consider the fundamental nature of a concept or a tool. (3) This article poses basic questions about the use of drone as tools of the state. My goal is to spark further analysis of drone as an instrument in the US foreign policy tool kit. I ask how drones compare to other weapons and what they may be able to achieve tactically and strategically, militarily and politically. These are also questions worth considering in the context of how other states' acquisition of armed drones could affect the United States. In addition, I identify major unanswered empirical questions about the outcome of drone strikes. There is still a lack of empirical evidence about the effects of drone strikes, partly due to the secrecy of US drone programs and partly due to their relative novelty. But even without that research, it is possible to consider the utility of drones in attempts to increase US security. Some of these questions may seem to have obvious answers, but for those who suggest there is broad agreement in the public debate on first-order questions and first principles regarding drone strikes, I offer the contrasting positions of The New Yorker editor David Remnick and retired Air Force General Charles Dunlap. Remnick states, We are in the same position now, with drones, that we were with nuclear weapons in 1945. For the moment, we are the only ones with this technology that is going to change the morality, psychology, and strategic thinking of warfare for years to come. Dunlap says, It's not particularly new to use long-range strike. David defeated Goliath with a long-range strike with a missile weapon. At Agincourt, the English bowmen destroyed the flower of the French knighthood with long-range ... and we have had long-range strike bombers for some time. This really is not new conceptually. (4) This article considers the goal of US drone programs to be greater security for the United States and its friends and allies. Caveat: There are analysts thinking about a future of stand-off, plugged-in warfare. I make a more modest effort to consider what drone may achieve in fundamental political terms as a forceful tool of the state. I also bracket issues of morality, legality, budgeting, and bureaucratic oversight. Answering practical questions requires understanding what states can do and want to do with drones, politically and militarily. Investigation into the morality of drone is contingent on what states expect drone to achieve and how those drones are deployed. Striking only targets in the act of mounting an attack on the US homeland, for example, presents different moral questions than so-called signature strikes against unidentified individuals judged to be behaving suspiciously. (5) The first core question is whether drones are a unique weapon and whether they provide distinct advantages or disadvantages over other weapons. I categorize drones as a form of air power based on the following logic and evidence, which I detail expecting disagreement will advance the analysis. Like piloted armed aircraft, armed drones provide information as well as strike capacity. They can achieve a variety of military effects, as other air platforms can. They can kill, disable, support fighters on the ground, destroy, harry, hinder, deny access, observe, and track. Like pilots providing close air support, firing missiles, or dropping bombs, drone operators are expected to respect the laws of war, striking based on clear information, including assessment of potential human costs. …

Drone Wars: Risks and Warnings

Unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) wonder weapons of today's wars. UCAVs have been credited with striking convoy carrying Moammar Qaddafi; killing al Qaeda's Abu Yahya al Libi and Anwar al Awlaki; eviscerating Taliban's ranks and other militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan (AfPak) theater; and hitting targets from Asia to Africa--all without putting pilots in harm's way. The drone revolution promises many benefits, but there also drawbacks to this nascent unmanned air force--drawbacks that few policymakers have contemplated. Just as drone detractors need to acknowledge what UCAVs bring to table, UCAV advocates need to acknowledge negative implications of drone warfare. Today and Tomorrow Whatever one's view of UCAVs, appeal of drones is understandable. As an Air Force report concludes, drones are not limited by human performance or physiological characteristics ... extreme persistence and maneuverability benefits. (1) In other words, drones can handle what humans cannot--G forces and speed, tedium and boredom. Among other intrinsic benefits of drones: they deprive enemy of human targets; they don't get tired or thirsty or hungry; they relatively inexpensive; and with coming of nuclear-powered drones, they offer possibility of nearly endless above-target operation. It is no surprise, then, that drones beginning to dislodge manned aircraft from crucial role they have played in warfighting since World War II. Consider some of evidence: * has been a 1,200-percent increase in combat air patrols by drones since 2005. (2) * In past decade, US drone fleet has swelled from 50 planes to 7,500, though vast majority of these drones not UCAVs. (3) Still, drones represent 31 percent of Pentagon's air fleet. (4) * America's unmanned air force--including drones deployed by military and CIA--has struck targets in Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Philippines. (5) UCAVs so central to US efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan that some observers have dubbed this front of antiterror campaign the drone * Referring to F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen declared not long before he retired, There those that see JSF as last manned fighter or fighter-bomber. Raising more than a few eyebrows, he added, I'm one that's inclined to believe that. (6) Two factors accelerating use of drones: public's growing distaste for US casualties and Pentagon's shrinking share of budget. Regarding former, it pays to recall American people's tolerance for casualties has waxed and waned over decades. They obviously have had a high threshold for casualties at times. For example, despite far higher casualty levels than recent conflicts, public support remained high throughout World War II and during much of Vietnam. However, that changed dramatically after Vietnam. The result was a quarter-century of push-button, almost-bloodless wars (at least for Americans), each conditioning American people to expect less bloodshed than previous conflict. This, in turn, conditioned political and military leaders to deliver more push-button, bloodless wars. The 9/11 attacks briefly broke this cycle, having an effect on American public not dissimilar from attack on Pearl Harbor. Consider a CNN poll conducted after 9/11 asking Americans if they would support military action even if it meant 5,000 American troops would be killed. As a sign of their grim, if ephemeral, determination, 76 percent said yes. (7) Of course, those attitudes have shifted, predictably, during what one observer calls the wars of 9/11. (8) Land wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been lengthy and costly, with 4,485 American troops killed in Iraq and more than 2,147 killed in still-unfinished Afghanistan war, America's longest shooting war. …

A Legal Assessment of the US Drone Strikes in Pakistan

While assessing the legality of the US drone strikes in Pakistan, this article takes into account the nature of armed conflict which has potential to be converted into an international armed conflict (IAC) from a non-international armed conflict (NIAC). The growing trust-deficit between Pakistan and the US is catalyst for determination of nature of armed conflict. The arguments based on tacit consent of Pakistan no longer stands valid after a clear protest by Pakistani officials at national, bilateral and international level. It also examines the observance of the rules of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in comparison with official US statements. Continued drone strikes are now being considered as counter-productive and resulting in increased suicide bombing in various cities of Pakistan. The author suggests a collaborative effort by considering other social, political and economic factors to minimize the violation of IHL for desired results.

The Surveillance State Bigger, Braver New World?

notebook 6 worldliteraturetoday.org What distinguishes the modern surveillance-and-control state from its predecessors is technodeterminism : the use of algorithms, not human beings, to monitor and shape citizens’ attitudes and behavior. A grotesque example of a primitive political order enslaving its subjects is found in Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov’s 1980 novel The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years. He retold the legend of the mankurts—prisoners in steppe societies who had wet camel hides (shiri) fitted over their shaven heads. Left in the Central Asian sun until the camel skin dried out, either cracking their skulls or destroying their reason and memory, mankurts who survived became mindless subjects. A bit earlier , in the classic era of dystopian writing around the time of the two world wars, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Yevgeny Zamyatin, and others described the makings of sophisticated totalitarian regimes. Are we today on the brink of a new wave of literature offering resistance to an allknowing surveillance state? Kallocain Karin Boye It is puzzling that Swedish writer Karin Boye’s 1940 novel about a totalitarian Worldstate is not treated as a classic of dystopian fiction. The novel offers a terrifying account of state manipulation of people’s thoughts and feelings, transforming them into mere “healthy cells in the state organism.” Boye takes for granted that citizens are constantly monitored and imagines innovations toughening thought control. Through kallocain, a truth-telling drug, human feelings are repossessed by their rightful owner, the state. Linda’s valiant struggle against succumbing is particularly poignant. One critic wrote that “Karin Boye is something of the saint thirsting in the desert.” She took her own life within a year of completing this novel. The Silences of Hammerstein Hans Magnus Enzensberger Nazi Germany organized its citizenry into a militarist mass society. But how it repressed opponents, especially of elite military background, has been left to one of Germany’s leading poets and public intellectuals to describe. Combining archival and epistolary sources, reportage, fictional posthumous interviews, and narrative , Enzensberger offers a spellbinding account of the intransigent Kurt von Hammerstein, the Wehrmacht’s last commander before Hitler, and his family. Opposition to the Nazi order is spearheaded by three of his four daughters who join the Communist Party and consort with Jewish militants . We also obtain new insight into the totalitarian Stalinist regime with which Germany collaborated. The Unknown Soldier Gerald Seymour A British-born Al Qaeda mastermind released from Guantánamo crosses the sprawling Saudi desert in a caravan populated by camels, Bedouins, and terrorists. Tracking him from the skies are American technicians operating Predator drones and Hellfire missiles. Their location is eerily close to the site of the real-world, secret US drone base that showed up in satellite images in February 2013, two years after the base’s clamshell hangars and airstrips had been constructed but nine years after the publication of Seymour’s novel. Do the drones get their man? The Watchman in Pieces: Surveillance, Literature, and Liberal Personhood David Rosen & Aaron Santesso This scholarly monograph offers a sweeping history of surveillance and literature since the Renaissance. Political structures and literary works share a philosophical quest for understanding and organizing reality. Both construct observation strategies. Today profit-motivated, corporate dataveillance adds a new layer to citizen control. Literature’s role is to restore empathy and to rehumanize the state while mapping strategies of resistance. What to Read Now The Surveillance State Bigger, Braver New World? Ray Taras Ray Taras was born and educated in Montreal and went on to study and teach at universities in the UK, Denmark, Italy, Sweden, and the US. He publishes on issues of identity and of world literature’s importance to making sense of international politics. His interviews with Carsten Jensen and Rawi Hage appear, respectively, in the May 2011 and July 2013 issues of WLT. ...

The 'Living Under Drones' Report – A Critical Appraisal

The report 'Living under Drones' by Stanford and New York Universities provides a thorough analysis of US drone strike practice. It must be praised for raising awareness of the issue. However, their legal findings merit special attention, for crucial points are missing.

Tracking the Predators: Evaluating the US Drone Campaign in Pakistan

This article examines the strategic wisdom of the US Predator drone campaign in Pakistan, particularly in light of the dramatic expansion in the number of strikes that has occurred under the Obama administration. First, it examines whether there is a compelling rationale for any drone strikes in Pakistan by evaluating the justification advanced by US authorities and the three main criticisms that have been leveled against the campaign. With the help of an original database of drone strikes and their effects compiled by the authors of the article, it shows that the criticisms lack merit and that some strikes may be justified in principle. Second, it turns to the reasons explaining the dramatic increase in strikes over the past 2 years. On examination, it finds that the arguments supporting the expansion of the campaign are forceful but not necessarily decisive. In the third section it considers some objections to an expanded campaign. Finally, in the closing section, it weighs these considerations against the points favoring the expansion of the drone strikes. The article ends with the conclusion that on balance it would be prudent to shift back towards a more narrowly focused campaign concentrating on al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban and only leaders of the Pakistani Taliban.

The Unbearable Humanness of Drone Warfare in FATA, Pakistan

Abstract: This paper provides a critical analysis of how and why US‐led drone warfare is conducted in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. First, we provide detailed statistics on the scale and funding of US drone operations, noting a rapid acceleration of its adoption by the military. This is then situated within an overarching narrative of the logic of “targeting”. Second, we study a legal document called the “Frontier Crimes Regulation” of 1901 that defines the relationship of FATA to the rest of Pakistan as an “exceptional” place. In the third section, we argue that the drone is a political actor with a fetishized existence, and this enables it to violate sovereign Pakistani territory. In this sense, the continued violence waged by robots in Pakistan's tribal areas is a result of the deadly interaction between law and technology. The paper concludes by noting the proliferation of drones in everyday life.

Drones over Pakistan: Secrecy, Ethics, and Counterinsurgency

The US government appears to be using drones to launch air strikes inside Pakistan. This article details uncertainties regarding the ethical soundness of these strikes and highlights the consequent need for greater official transparency. Available evidence is assessed in the light of traditional ethical requirements that the use of force is beneficial to a legitimate military objective, that it discriminates between combatants and noncombatants, and that it generates harm that is proportional to the expected military benefit. The murky picture that emerges is an inadequate foundation for determining whether US drone strikes in Pakistan constitute a just or an unjust use of force. Arguably, however, the very persistence of doubt on this point undermines international norms on the use of force and the reputation of the United States as a champion thereof. The US government should therefore either refrain from drone strikes or explain publicly how they are beneficial, discriminate, and proportionate.