During the foreign policy debate leading up to the presidential election, grumblings were heard over President Obama and Governor Romney both giving their full support to the expanded use of drone technology in military operations. Politics are like that. In their quest to show that they are different from that other guy, campaigns prefer for their candidates to disagree over every subject right up to, but certainly including, boxers or briefs. If one side says Pepsi the other says Coke, and by the way, I hear that Pepsi might be a bit of a communist. Agreeing is not what campaigns are about. But in the case of military drones, both sides gave the technology their complete support. Certainly this political consensus speaks to the attractiveness of the versatility and striking power of the technology, plus the downright sexy advantage of not putting the lives of American troops in jeopardy in the process. As far as military technology goes, drones appear to be a complete win. So, why is it that some people are getting upset about the ethical implications of war by remote control?
While various types of simple remote control military devices have a long history, modern unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) were first used in combat by the Israeli Air Force during the 1982 Lebanon war for surveillance as well as providing radar decoys. During their war with Iraq, post-revolutionary Iran became the first nation to attach rockets to a UAV, using the vehicles to harass and demoralize civilian populations along the countries’ mutual border. Despite some drawbacks with control technology, these early devices demonstrated the clear advantage provided by small unmanned aircraft capable of staying aloft for extended period of times and carrying a solid punch when used. By the time the war in the Balkans rolled around in the 1990s, NATO forces using U.S. technology and crews, extensively used UAVs for surveillance, finding them invaluable for tracking movements of troops and partisans in Bosnia and Serbia. Quiet, inexpensive and best of all able to complete complicated missions without endangering pilots or crews, it was undeniable that UAVs were the wave of the future. By the end of the Clinton administration in 2001, the U.S. was actively working on updating their Predator drone into an armed, offensive vehicle. Technology that was warmly embraced by the new Bush administration, and rapidly deployed into the post-911 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, started becoming the first major weapons advancement of the twenty-first century.
It’s an uncomfortable truth that militaries exist to use violence to exert their leadership’s will on others. Despite the best efforts of diplomats, politicians, and drum circles, the United States has historically been a nation eager to use force. Even with our continued national calls for peace, love, and eternal brotherhood, from minor skirmishes on the prairie of Kansas to major wars in the jungles of Asia, the U.S. has been regularly involved in military excursions since its inception. Occasionally, it’s true that the troops fought for clear and lofty goals, but honestly, more often than not to protect the vaguest of political and economic interests. Generation after generation of Americans have spent time in the service, and with the passage of time, as age makes all of our pasts simpler and more exciting, we’ve passed down to our children not only a respect for the military, but also a cultural myth of G.I. Joe being the all-around American ideal. It’s only been 35 years since the American loss in Vietnam and 60 years since the stalemate in Korea, but the national psyche as far as our military identity goes remains firmly in 1943. For the current generation, the people who came into service during the Gulf War 20 years ago or Iraq 10 years ago or Afghanistan now, there have been harsh lessons learned about the tenacity of other nations, and one of those lessons is that American exceptionalism doesn’t mean a damn thing against a bomb hidden under the asphalt. With this deep marital tradition, tail ended by the longest war in U.S. history dragging on in Afghanistan, it’s fair to assume that from the perspective of the troops, any technology that allows them to fulfill their mission without risking their lives is an ethical non-issue.
Drone Predator monitor and control room
Proving, however, that people can sometimes just not be all that bright, it only takes a quick search on the internet to find the question, usually asked quite obliquely, if it’s “fair” to use drones for attacks. As if removing the possibility of a pilot being killed were somehow underhanded. But then that’s the internet for you, everybody has an opinion and thanks to Google search, it’s not hard to find the stupider ones. Granted, the people seriously supporting these views are a tiny minority and seem to be mostly made up of armchair military experts who studied Sun Tsu, but never made it to Cub Scout, let alone the infantry. Yet this reaction, while grotesquely magnified, reflects our semi-delusional national self-image of being a nation of heroes, every single on of us another Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, and Sly Freaking Stallone all rolled up into one great big American ideal. Mark Twain wrote that the Civil War happened because the men of the South had read too much Walter Scott, becoming convinced that they were all knights in shining armor fighting for honor and glory, only to find their entire way of life crushed by their hubris. Mister Clemens had a point, not just with the Confederacy, but with the entire American military experience from 1776 until today. Culturally, the U.S. has a history of seeing ourselves, especially in military situations, as the everyman hero putting on the good fight against the forces of evil in the never ending battle to preserve and protect our fragile way of life and the dignity of our citizens. And with that kind of history and tradition to maintain, what kind of “hero” fights a battle from 4,000 miles away from a tent in New Mexico?
Leaving the fringe voices aside, the true ethical questions involving the use of UAVs have little to do with the technology itself, but instead the mission of targeted assassinations the technology is being used for by the military and the Central Intelligence Agency. With their highly accurate surveillance systems and ability to stay in the air for extended periods of time, UAVs have proven to be excellent tools for long-distance attacks on “individual” targets. That is as long as you recognize that with a missile there is no such thing as an individual target. To give credit where its due, UAVs are exceptional tools for destroying these small-scale targets, as Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud could tell you if he hadn’t been killed in Pakistan by a CIA drone, while sleeping on a rooftop with his unfortunate wife who was blown to bits alongside of him. Which brings up the major issue of UAVs causing the deaths and mutilations of innocent people who were doing nothing more than just being in the vicinity of someone the U.S. has labeled as a terrorist, or worse yet, the numerous people targeted who were in fact innocent and doing nothing more than gathering for weddings or merely walking down the street. Tragic circumstances and fair issues for criticism and discussion for any nation using force, but to be fair, these same exact issues and tragedies exist for any weapon, from a sharpened stick to ICBM.
The big subjects, the ones that really matter, what is the ethical balance of individual assassinations versus large scale invasion, when is “collateral damage” acceptable, and what are their limits, are these targets military or extra-legal, all are hugely important, but they are questions about policy and law, not technology. Like it or not, in future conflicts, and there will be future conflicts, the use of UAVs will only increase. Not just in the air, but increasingly with ground vehicles, guarding positions, snipers, and almost every other type of combat mission already in existence. There are still going to be major roles for ground troops, and war is not going to suddenly stop being deadly for the people fighting it. However, with increased automation and remote control operations, lives will be saved, at least on the automated side.
To me, the central question is not whether using drones is less damaging than an invasion; that’s a pretty simple equation, and if we’d managed to handle Saddam via drones rather than as we did, it would’ve been less costly in all significant ways than the invasion we had. The central question is whether we end up using drones instead of invasion, or whether we end up using them instead of peace. If the availability and relative ease of the tech leads us to be bringing death to innocents where there would be no attack without the tech, then we get into a darker ethical situation.
Drones aren’t even the issue here; the issue is whether the extrajudicial killing — assassination, as you put it — of individuals deemed to be detrimental to the well-being of the USA is perhaps itself detrimental to the well-being of the USA. This isn’t justice; it’s simple revenge. Justice would be about capture, trial, and sentencing. Even the Nazi high command got that, and the world was glad for it. When it becomes de rigeur to use such tools to act as judge, jury, prosecution, and executioner, then the stakes have been raised — again — and the enemies of the USA will grow in number — again — requiring the stakes to be raised even higher — again. It’s a game that can’t be won.