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| Israeli Heron UAV |
Although the United States has led the way in drone
proliferation, Americans are not alone in addressing the issues and challenges
associated with the new weapons, surveillance, and intelligence systems. This
Cato Unbound forum is stirring “strong passions” and “vigorous debate” about
the morality and strategic value of drones—passions and debate that Cortright
contends are already spreading in America.
While the debate is certainly starting to simmer on this
side of the Atlantic—although manifestly not in Congress or within the
executive branch—the public policy discussions are fortunately more advanced in
the United Kingdom. Our own discussion can benefit from the excellent European
publications and forums about drone warfare and drone surveillance.
One reason for this more developed discussion in Europe,
especially in the UK, is the convergence of concerns about the “surveillance
society” and persisting questions about the British Army’s and NATO’s
integration of drones into their overseas operations—along with Britain’s
partnerships with Israel in drone manufacturing and testing.
Playing a key role in this debate is a nonprofit group
called Drone Wars UK, which
released in January 2012 a valuable overview of drone warfare issues in a
special report titled Drone
Wars Briefing. The briefing includes a helpful review of the
noncombatant death reports in Pakistan, discussion of the expanding incidence
of extrajudicial drone strikes by the CIA, and a summary of the UK’s program of
Remotely Piloted Aerial Systems (RPAS). The report makes a strong case that “we
need a serious, public – and fully informed – debate on all these issues and to
ensure there is full public accountability for their use.” Aside from the UK’s
military intervention in South Asia, another connection, of course, is that its
own drones are also piloted from the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.
The publication last year by Pax Christi/Netherlands of Does
Unmanned Make Unacceptable? – Exploring the Debate on Using Drones and Robots
in Warfare also points to the increasingly vibrant debate in Europe –
one that can help inform the incipient public and policy debate at home.
What is striking, at least to me, about this forum is the
deep divide that separates Cortright’s concerns, expressed in “License
to Kill,” from the near-uncritical support of drone warfare expressed by
the other responders.
Cortright’s concerns both about the morality of remotely
controlled warfare and about the geographical distance and emotional
disconnection from killing will contribute to increased military and CIA
interventions contrast sharply—shockingly in my opinion—with enthusiasm for the
potential of these high-tech systems not only to reduce civilian casualties by
precise targeting but also to respond to humanitarian emergencies.
Caution and
Skepticism versus Confidence and Enthusiasm
Obviously, the central problem is that the discussion brings
together two distinct philosophical and strategic paradigms—which mostly clash,
leaving little room for a bit of consensus and concordance.
To avoid this unfortunate breach, we would have benefited if
Cortright had anticipated this communication problem by evaluating more
forthrightly and dispassionately the strategic and tactical benefits of
increased drone deployment across the range of missions—from intelligence
gathering and reconnaissance to targeted missile strikes.
But the debate is further obstructed by type of facile
dismissal by Wittes
and Singh, and by
Goure, of the proposition that the emergence of drone warfare changes
little.
“Drones are a weapon like any other weapon,” write Wittes
and Singh, pointing to a purported direct evolutionary line from spear to
Predator. Goure asserts, “There is no evidence that armed drones have reduced
the political inhibitions against the use of deadly force.” Such categorical
and simplistic conclusions close the door to the kind of public policy debate
that this forum should encourage and that is urgently needed in America. If the
CIA can kill targets covertly by using drone-launched missiles rather than by
initiating covert actions by infiltrating agents or special operations,
political inhibitions fade.
The two security paradigms that are loggerheads in this
forum were underscored by the concluding sentence of the Wittes and Singh
essay: “Indeed, the question is not whether we will live in a world of highly
proliferated technologies of robotic attack. It is whether the United States is
going to be ahead of the curve or behind it.”
That’s the paradigm of militarism—persuasive if you believe
that ever-increasing U.S. military development of new high-tech weaponry
ensures our national security (and yet there is recent U.S. security history to
assail this traditional assumption by militarists). Then there is another
paradigm in which Cortright apparently situates himself, namely that U.S.
security is best served when it aims to stay ahead of the curve with respect to
arms-control agreements, international frameworks for just wars and
interventions, international sanctions, and protection for noncombatants. This
counter-security paradigm wouldn’t necessarily dismiss the need for a strong
drone and anti-drone capacity within the U.S. security apparatus, although
presumably it would place greater emphasis on seeking more diplomatic,
economic, and social solutions to security and political tensions.
Thus far, however, the Obama administration has not stayed
ahead of this curve in visionary international leadership—the place where the
U.S. has historically often been in the vanguard, though in fits and starts.
Earlier this month the president announced a shift in U.S.
military strategy, including the shedding of “outdated Cold War systems” in
favor of the high-tech instruments and conflicts of the future—including the
aptly denominated
“shadow wars.” This evolution in military strategy, including the increased
reliance on drones and special operations (and presumably a continuing pattern
of extra-judicial killings by drone strikes around the globe) may, as its
supporters contend, be exactly the course the U.S. military believes it needs to ensure
national and global security.
Whether strategically right or not, this is a shift that
clearly calls out for the kind of moral, ethical, and legal scrutiny that
Cortright advocates. One can only hope that drone proponents will also
recognize this need – although so far it’s not in evidence in this forum.
Assertions that a weapon is a weapon is a weapon dismiss the evident truth of
this new conjuncture in national and global security.
Meanwhile, we can confidently leave any “hand-wringing”
about the fears of eroding U.S. military dominance to the busy hands and hearty
handshakes of the still thriving military-industrial complex.
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