The Deal with Drones

What’s the deal with drones?

Introductions

        “Drones are fool’s gold which prolong wars we cannot win.”^[1] The quote by Simon Jenkins is perhaps debatable in terms of right, the wars prolong, and wrong, the wars will end early. Compare to other military armaments, the utility of drones is relatively recent tool of statecraft. Thus, the issues with usage of drone is still disputed and has not reached to an agreement. Drones can be seen as two separate tools: it can be either viewed from a military or commercial perspective. However, this essay will only focus on the military aspect, and assess two main key features: the ethicality and effectiveness of drones. The essay will proceed in four sections to demonstrate the “deal” with drones. The first section of the essay will illustrate a clear definition of drone, and what it is, with some historical backgrounds. The second part of the essay will provide the ethical issues of using drones, with reference to human casualties, and the morality of it. The third sections of the essay will measure the effectiveness of drones, in terms of how successful it is when used as a weapon in the military, based on leaders, and whether they have accomplished what they were looking to attain. The fourth and final section of the essay will discuss the legality of drones, and provide a further insight derived from international law by determining whether or not if the killing of innocent citizens should be justified.  Thus, the primary objective of the essay will revolve around the evaluation of the ethicality of drones as killing machines and decides if this justifies them as being effective as weapons.

What is drone?

        A drone is a formal way of stating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and in a technological format it is called unmanned aircraft.^[2] The clearest definition given by a dictionary of drone is “an unmanned aircraft or ship that can navigate autonomously, without human control or beyond line of sight”.^[3] Initially, drone is a flying robot where people can easily access from the electronics market to use it for customer’s own benefits, such as taking photos and recording videos. Furthermore, it can also be utilized by many other domestic practices, such as, police and agriculture goods. Drones can be easily controlled by a remote control, and can fly independently thorough ‘software-controlled flight plans in their internal systems working in combination with on-board sensors and GPS’.^[4] Historically, drones were exclusively military affair, however, lately it became more commercialised.^[5] Although drone is now more commercialised, this does not mean that drones are not used for military purposes anymore. In fact, many states have emphasis the usage of UAV in militaries, and Sharkey stated that “drones have come to dominate military operations, and it is useful to find troop movements by intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance”.^[6] As it’s mentioned on the introduction, the essay will not demonstrate the usage of commercial drones, but it will solely focus on the military aspects.

An idea about the drone first came across on August 22, 1849, when “Australia attacked Venice with unmanned balloons which were loaded with some explosives bombs”.^[7] Few years later, the U.S Confederate, and Union forces flew balloons for reconnaissance missions in their Civil War, which then got developed by Samuel Langley, “a range of steam-powered aerodromes, unpiloted aircraft”, which successfully flew along the Potomac River near Washington, D.C.^[8] The first practice of aerial surveillance was then emerged in the 1898 during the Spanish and American War, where the U.S. army built-in a camera to a kite, producing the first photograph of aerial reconnaissance.^[9] From the origin up to today, drones have been developed in many ways with various different usage. President Obama have announced that drone has now become a crucial military weapon, which wages “his war on terror in the shadows, using drone strikes, special operations and sophisticated surveillance to fight a brutal cover war against Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups”.^[10] Although President George Bush was the first American president to use weaponised drone to kill Osama bin Laden in 2002, it was Obama who expanded the drone program further and carried out more strikes in Pakistan than President Bush ever did during his presidency period.^[11] Drones are now common tool of statecraft globally, particularly to the United States in terms of counter-terror strategies. Not only the US uses drones as a targeted killing, “the UK has followed the US and Israel in using armed drones to launch a targeted killing”.^[12] From 2015 up until recent days, there have been a significant increase in the numbers of drone system.  Especially, Pakistan military reported that they have launched an armed strikes against insurgents in North Waziristan. Pakistan did not have such a developed drone systems, but they have requested to the US with the technology and they are now using UAVs for targeted killings.^[13] Not only has the US selling their technology to other states, China also supplied their technology to Nigeria.^[14] The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), has announced that there are more UAVs being transferred between states than ever before.^[15] According to their data, “between 2010 and 2014, there were 439 drones exchanged compared to 322 in the five years previous to that”.^[16] These data and research have shown that drone is not only becoming a common tool of statecraft, but also it shows the abrupt proliferation. There is a positive correlation between the increasing numbers of drone in military affairs and controversy. As more states uses drone system, it creates more consequences between them. The debate has been raised amongst academics, journalists, and scholars that whether the usage of armed drones are unethical or it is no different to many other weapons that most states possesses in their arsenals.

Ethicality of drones

        The ethicality of drone never has the answer to whether the usage of drone in warfare is right or wrong. However, as much as it does not have the answer to it, this topic can be debated broadly. Michael J Boyle has stated, that domination of drone in the world could bring human life trivial as one press of button could eliminate them in an instant.^[17] In terms of unethicality with drones, civilian casualties and drone operators take huge part to back up the arguments. It has been estimated that 12% of civilian casualties are due to drone strikes.^[18] An armed solider in a warfare could control who to shoot and kill when they are in the battle filed. However, with drone strikes, although the operators can control the shot, it is inevitable to miss civilians if they are nearby. A movie called ‘American sniper’ shows an example of who to kill and not kill. The sniper from the movie managed to kill anyone who is in his range, however he chose not to kill a child who was carrying a bomb. As an example of the United States in an armed conflict, they have the limitation under international humanitarian law, in which they can “only directly kill armed forces enemy, military objectives or civilians directly participating in hostilities”.^[19] In additions, the law requires that, “in case of doubt whether a person is a civilian, that person shall be considered to be a civilian”.^[20] The law is applied, and reflected by army, whereas, the drone program does not. To illustrated this further, the CIA have claimed that nearly 2500 Pakistanis were kill in a conflict by drone attack, however, only 35 were ‘high value targets’ which are, people who are actually in the militants and engaging with a conflict, and the rest was claimed mostly ‘suspected militants’.^[21] Accordingly, we can clearly see that Michael Boyle’s arguments about de-humanisation of war is substantial to the ethical risk of drones. In terms of unethicality, it can also be seen from the operator’s point of view. Ed Pilkington stated that although drone pilots faces less pressures than fighter pilots, (as they do not have to fear about getting shot by their enemies) the operator’s still suffer from high levels of stress.^[22] To back up his points, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has noted that, the operators spend hours and hours during the day and night time facing computers and controlling the drones.^[23] In spite of the fact that they are thousands of miles away from the combat area, they are obligated to press triggers that dispatch lethal bombarding strikes.^[24] Moreover, the drone pilots are liable to make mistakes due to the high levels of stress, which can cause more civilian casualties. A latest Air Force study have announced that 17 percent of drone pilots suffered from “clinically distressed” with 29 percent “burnout”.^[25] On the other hand, civilian casualties cannot be regarded as strong reason to judge the unethicality of drone. An armed drone is a weapon used in war, and during the war civilian casualties are unavoidable. A drone is no different than any other weapon that state possess in their arsenals. In fact, drone kills less civilians than other weaponry that strikes enemy’s territory. Unlike fighting airplane or jet, drones have the ability to surveil a specific area for long periods of time, which allows the operator the ideal moment to drop the bomb and reduce the probability of catching civilians in the targeted area.^[26] Although drones still causes “collateral damage, which is a euphemism for killing innocent civilians including children”, the scale cannot be compared from the casualties which was made from World War II.^[27] Overall, drones are more accurate than any other armaments which allows the less collateral damage. Daniel Byman also stated that statistics on “civilians killed by drones are often inflated” and compare to other statistics it is far more humane.^[28] Despite the civilian casualties causing from drone strikes, the legality of drone is another debateable topic. As drones have “never been debated in Congress”,^[29] Bumiller stated that drone puts jus ad bellum and jus in bello into confusion which increases a “growing disconnect between the American public and its wars”.^[30] Even though drones are well known tool to public, it has no accountability for their use. Moreover, Sharkey stated that “none of the drone strikes in countries not at war with the US have even been considered under the War Powers Resolution. This is a dangerous precedent which is, at best, legally questionable under international humanitarian law”.^[31] In a similar scope, drones have the likelihood of contorting international laws seeing power as their utilization in “nations that are not fighting against the US bring up disagreeable lawful issues”.^[32] Drone strikes in Pakistan is an example of infringement on sovereignty. Even though the strikes were approved by the US government, Afghanistan soldiers who borders FATA were not aware of the strikes. Thomas Darnstadt, noted that, “a military strikes that crosses national borders, barring acts of self-defence, is generally viewed as an infringement on sovereignty”.^[33] Despite the unethicality, the issue of international law could be resolved if any governments using drone strikes explains their purpose of using it. Thus, when we are dealing with an issue of morality and ethic, it is difficult to say that the drone is unethical. Moreover, all other military weapons, as well as drones, there are no right and wrong answer to say whether it is ethical or unethical themselves. It is in fact the person who is ordering to use such weapon, their moral needs to be put into a question.