The Drone Debate

From headquarters in Langley, Virginia, CIA operatives have been launching drones to combat militants in the tribal regions of Pakistan. Using drones known as Predators, these robots are equipped with video cameras and Hellfire missiles, and are then targeted at al Qaeda and Taliban commanders in Pakistan. This has been under a program that has been recognized as the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s counterterrorism policy (Ofek 35).

To the US, this program provides many benefits in combating terrorist organizations in Pakistan. The most prevalent benefit is that it eliminates the necessity of having American troops in Pakistan. The drones are operated from a site far from the attack zone. With this, even if the drone is attacked and shot down, it does not cost the life of the operative (O’Connell 5). Additionally, having drone operatives stationed outside of the Pakistani region eliminates the disaster that would occur from American troops setting foot in Pakistan. Not only would this bring about a US national uproar, but it would destroy the withstanding US-Pakistan alliance.

Another way the US government rationalizes the use of drones is by adhering to the claim that, since September 11, 2001, the country has been battling a “War on Terror”. To the US government, the events of September 11 constituted as an “armed attack” by a transnational terrorist organization. Due to this, the laws of armed conflict apply to the War on Terror, and the US can thusly target terrorists under the self-defense terms of Article 51 from the UN Charter (Vogel 106).

Ultimately, the US government claims that the use of drones is effective. Under the drone program, scores of low-level terrorists have been killed, as well as a significant amount of the CIA’s twenty most-wanted “high-value targets.” Among the terrorists that have been eliminated by drones are major al-Qaeda spokesmen like Abu Laith al-Libi, and the eldest son of Osama bin Laden, Saad bin Laden (Ofek 36). It was a success rate such as this that spurred CIA director Leon Panetta to posit his most quotable quote: “Very frankly, it’s the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the al-Qaeda leadership” (Ofek 37).

However, there has been a strong vocal opposition to the use of drone warfare in Pakistan. One is that drone technology is too imprecise to avoid large amounts of collateral damage. In a media report outlining the problems drones encounter in target identification, a reporter explained: “Looking through the Predator's camera is somewhat like looking through a soda straw. … Your field of view tends to become distorted. … [Y]ou might be able to tell a Saudi headdress from an Afghan one. They are different. But it'd be pretty hard to do” (O’Connell 6). As a result of this imprecision, drones often kill unintended targets, causing collateral damage and an increased anti-American sentiment in Pakistan.

Another argument against drone warfare is that the use of robots violates the notion of an ethically just war. In a just war, it is implied that a concrete person must be able to assume responsibilities for human casualties. However, due to the increasing autonomy of drones, it is becoming less reasonable to charge officers that deployed the drones. It was, in fact, the intention of drone inventors for the robots to make its own decision on how to achieve the goal (Schornig 23).

The next argument does not speak against the drones themselves, but instead the very organization that launches the drones into Pakistan—the CIA. According to professor of law, Mary Ellen O’Connell, under the law of conflict the only lawful combatants to use force during an armed conflict are members of a state’s regular armed forces. This is because CIA operatives are not trained in the law of armed conflict, nor bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (7). Thus, not only do drones cause unethical collateral damage, but the fact that CIA operatives are using them in a war-like fashion is reprehensible.

Now, can IR theory help settle the drone debate? Maybe not fully, but it can, in some capacity, continue to explain and rationalize the US government’s decision to engage in drone warfare. One possible rationalization of drone warfare stems from liberalist theory. According to Goldstein and Pevehouse, “public opinion influences governments’ foreign policy decisions” (115). This can explain why the US government prefers to utilize drones to counter terrorists rather than send in troops. There is already much national public outcry against sending troops to the Middle East. Additionally, anti-Americanism is only growing in Pakistan. Sending troops in the region would only increase the image of America’s beloved dying in war and send a message to Pakistanis that America has turned bellicose. Drones help ensure that this PR disaster would never happen.

But in a twist in theory, liberalism adds that although public opinion has a definitive influence on foreign policy decisions, governments also manipulate the public opinion (Goldstein and Pevehouse 115). As we have seen, the US government has attempted to justify the use of drone warfare in stating that the attacks of 9/11 have brought the country into a state of war in which the laws of armed conflict apply. However, as the opposition to drone warfare has stated, the CIA members that launch the drones are not lawful combatants in armed conflict. Thus, their participation in killing is a crime. This seems to suggest that the government has been attempting to manipulate the public opinion; they have blurred the lines of what the CIA can and cannot do. Additionally, the very idea of a “War on Terror” is a manipulation, as this kind of conflict varies from the traditional view of war.

The debate on drone warfare has led me to conclude that it seems as though the very lines between what is war and what is not have been blurred. This haziness—as any lack of clarity would do to a situation—has fostered opposing views that conflict on many levels. This brings me to the question: can the current laws of armed conflict still logically be applied to the “War on Terror”?

Also, I question the ethics behind not just the use of drones, but the existence of such robots that kill. According to Isaac Asimov’s first law of robotics, a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm (“Three Laws of Robotics”). These drones, classified as robots, do indeed cause harm and kill human beings. With this law in mind, should robots even be permitted to make judgments over life and death? An eerily sci-fi thought, but it holds the potential for the end of drone warfare altogether.

Works Cited

Goldstein, Joshua S., and Jon C. Pevehouse. "Liberal Theories." International Relations. 9th ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2006. 115. Print.

"Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"" Auburn University. Web. 14 Dec. 2011. .

O'Connell, Mary Ellen. "Unlawful Killing with Combat Drones: A Case Study of Pakistan, 2004-2009." Notre Dame Legal Studies 9.43 (2010): 1-26. Print.

Ofek, Hillel. "The Tortured Logic of Obama's Drone War." The New Atlantis 27 (2010): 35-44. The New Atlantis. The Center for the Study of Technology and Society, Spring 2010. Web. 14 Dec. 2011. .

Schornig, Niklas. "Robot Warriors: Why the Western Investment into Military Robots Might Backfire."EDoc.ViFaPol. Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, 2010. Web. 14 Dec. 2011. .

Vogel, Ryan J. "Drone Warfare and the Law of Armed Conflict by Ryan Vogel :: SSRN." Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 39.1 (2011): 191-38. Social Science Research Network. 1 Dec. 2010. Web. 14 Dec. 2011. .