The Role Of Drones

Kaag and Kreps’s main concerns are that drone technology is not consistent with international laws. The reasons for the author’s beliefs is that drone technology do not adhere the principals that international laws consist of. The authors talk about jus ad bellum – the right of war, also interpreted as the right of retaliation on the basis of self-defense – and how that justification is based on false principals. The other principal that the authors feel is being misused is jus in bello – the justification (or lack thereof) to engage in a war – due to the issues with interpretation that is existent in modern warfare. The authors believe that further preventative measures need to be established to insure that drone warfare adheres to international laws.

The military’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are able to fly in the airspace for up to 17 hours providing Soldiers, Marines, and Sailors on the ground real-time images of the enemy for 24-hours 7 days a week. They were engineered for precision and power in order to eliminate the enemy without the need of endangering friendly forces. The technological advancement of the drone has furthered America’s military agenda in multiple ways for the better, however, hundreds of civilian lives have been caught in the blast zone of these military drones. Today’s society and engineers have deemed the use of drones as morally good, but what makes killing the enemy from a remote, safe location any different than chemical warfare, especially if civilian lives

In response to the 9/11 terror attacks, President George W. Bush declared an all out war on global terrorism. To fight this war, the Bush administration introduced a new weapon, creating the highly secretive US Drone program, pushing the bounds of technology, giving UAVs the power to take life with impunity. In 2009, Barack Obama became president and the rise of the killer drones began. His campaign in the Middle East and abroad would usher in a new age of warfare, one fought not in trenches or fields, but from small air-conditioned rooms, while great Birds of Prey rain Hellfire down upon enemies half a world away; one where powerful men decide who will live

Drones are an effective counter insurgency tool deployed extensively throughout the world, especially by clandestine intelligence organizations often with the help of the country’s respective Air Force. Not only do they serve as an effective weapon, they minimize human

Drones have several advantages over manned aircraft: they can be flown for up to thirty hours at a stretch without needing to land, can track militants over remote and rugged terrain without risk to their pilots or ground troops, and can pinpoint and strike targets, reducing the time lag between identification and response. These attributes make them especially effective in unconventional warfare, such as counterinsurgency operations in Iraq or the pursuit of al-Qaeda militants into remote and inaccessible areas, such as the Pakistani tribal areas. Drones are also cheaper than manned aircraft.

Civilian casualties are common, and allow abuses to continue; this makes the establishment of peace a nearly impossible goal to achieve. It is one thing to use a drone to target a specific individual, in a precise manner, and for that to be the end of it. The goal in using drones is not to establish peace, but rather to punish those who have attacked United States’ citizens and threatened its security. The U.S. will use drones in order to continuously target terrorists, rather than aiming to seek peace on both sides.

Boyle (2013) states that drones operate with a reduce view of effectiveness. They kill innocent people including women and children, and drones do not see anybody down there and it kills everybody. But in reality, drone strikes are efficient because they cause fewer civilian casualties than air strikes or ground operations. According to Hastings (2012) he found out that drones was a good source to use against terrorists, it has supported and benefited the US military. Once a drone reaches its destination it hovers silently in an extensive radius for hours, with an altitude of up to 50,000 feet, providing a survey and a flow of detailed reconnaissance photos. With the use of its Geographic Information System (GIS) applications, McNeil (2014) who has developed a mapping geocode software to pinpoint the location based on information and analysis. This software system is installed in a drone and the GIS is designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all geographical data. This technology is less expensive than the current procedures

Eleven years ago, the United States Air Force launched a missile from a drone for the first time at a test range in the Nevada desert (Drone Test) . The use of armed drones has risen dramatically since 2009. Now drone strikes are almost a daily occurrence. In 2011 the use of drones continued to rise with strikes in (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia. Proponents of armed drones argue that their ability to watch and wait, with their highly accurate sensors and cameras gives increased control over when and where to strike its both increasing the chances of success and

Sun Tzu said in his book “The Art of War”, “The Supreme art of war is to subdue an enemy without fighting” (Brainy Quote).This quote is taking about the drone dilemma, and how he thinks you fight without getting your soldiers in trouble In conflict people can instantly point out the faults done, like for example: the raiding and pillaging nations do in the name of liberty, or the innocent people that get killed by drone strikes. The drone is a morally acceptable machine because it saves soldiers’ lives by taking them out of harm's way. It also gives a nation who is fighting a war a tool to win the war, and liberate the nation their fighting in, and they even the odds with the terrorists. Soldiers often get into harm’s

Nearly every week there is news of another drone strike and this has left many nations deeply divided on the issue. Many people support the use of drones proclaiming that they will save the lives of many American soldiers by allowing for the United States to wage wars against other countries without putting troops on the ground. Critics of this idea state that the use of drones removes the risk associated with war and can lead to the killing of innocent civilians. In reference to civilian casualties Noah Shachtman states that, “A drone can't dig through the rubble and see what the consequences of that Hellfire missile was” (Dretzin & Rushkoff, 2010, 1:09:51). The use of drones has an even more brutal cultural effect on Middle Eastern countries who are under attack by these machines. Every day innocent civilians wake up and live out their day fearing for their lives that a US drone strike intended to stop terrorism will kill them. In an interview with a civilian Pakistani father, he explained that "drones are always on my mind. It makes it difficult to sleep. They are like a mosquito. Even when you don't see them, you can hear them, you know they are there” (Friedersdorf, 2012). This life filled with constant terror and stress has caused a negative cultural shift in the Middle East and the constant increase of drone strikes definitely does not help

The use of Reaper and Predator drones deny terrorist sanctuaries, increasing the chance of physical elimination of terrorist operatives and high ranking officials. Drones also offer a higher viewpoint, making it easier to reach uninhabited areas of land, making it harder for terrorist organizations to train new recruits. Drones also have the ability to intercept transmissions undercutting terrorists’ ability to communicate, which also limits their commitments abroad. With a terrorist organization's commitments abroad halted the potential casualties of war are also avoided, keeping civilians safe, Drones also limit casualties of American and allied soldiers, they offer overhead surveillance and in times of need also are capable of offering suppressive fire. Drones are also a low-cost alternative to conventional forces, such as: training new military recruits, and conducting new operations. Along with the fact that they are low-cost they are highly capable and easily maneuverable with an array of control functions, drones have the ability to zoom in from great distances and target certain people and or objects with a smaller margin of error than that of traditional air strikes. Drones also make the impossible or unrealistic possible, they can offer surveillance and also take action in areas that are too risky to operate in with conventional

The use of drone strikes makes people wonder if it is necessary and proportional to the threat. The principle of proportionality prohibits excessive force, taking consideration of both civilian and militant casualties of war. Even if a target is considered lawful under the IHL, the principle of proportionality still applies and any form of attack that is deemed to violate the principle of proportionality is subject to prohibition of the attack itself. The IHL have banned many weapons after WWII for causing more harm than necessary, such as explosive projectiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, and cluster munitions. And this is only to name a few that have been banned by treaties like the Declaration of Saint Petersburg (1868), Geneva Protocol (1925), Convention on the Prohibition of Biological Weapons (1972), Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (1993), and Convention on Cluster Munitions (2008) to name a few. In the case of Drone warfare, drones itself are not dangerous or illegal, but the way they are being used by the US government raises many issues since civilians are becoming of target whether by accident or on purpose. Verification of the events in Pakistan confirms that militants are not defined strictly to terrorists, but any civilian can be classified as “militants” if they are dressed the same, or even in the same vicinity. Using signal

This article addresses the political impact of drone use in Pakistan. It also has some statistics that the paper

In London, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism orchestrated one of the most thorough studies concerning drone strikes (Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 2014). The Bureau concluded that the American C.I.A. or Central Intelligence Agency operators are improving their overall performance (Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 2014 n.p.). The Bureau recorded a marginal decrease in the percentage of drone civilian casualties at the hands of the United States. This decrease was from the previous amount of 28 percent in 2008, to a mere sixteen percent in 2011 (Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 2011 n.p.). As of July 7th of this year, only three of the 152 persons killed in drone strikes were civilians (Josar, "Unmanned War," 2014, p.1). This evident improvement in performance is creating a stronger promise of precision killing by drones and backing the United States’ stance on the necessity of using

Today’s society is driven by technology and its advancement. Often times the driving force behind major technological breakthroughs is military research and development. New military inventions offer a great deal to society, to include GPS, computers, and even duct tape. However, with the evolution of technology, war has become increasingly more technologically dependent. The new age of warfare offers many benefits, as it attempts to limit some of the inherent chaos of war, but it also conjures more questions regarding the morality of war. The use of drone strikes is an example of where new technology blurs the line between warfare effectiveness and morally justification. Drone warfare, as it is being used in our current irregular war, is not justified as it violates jus in bello and is also considered morally wrong according to