What I find really odd is how similar a drone strike is to a terrorist attack. A military convoy is being attacked by a remotely controlled IED, you can retaliate by sending a drone to blow up some pre-defined target. Maybe it is a fitting weapon for the twenty-first century, to put back some symmetry in asymmetric wars. The next logical step is the use of drones to perform terrorist attacks. It is easy to envision an eternal low intensity war with objectives being remotely destroyed by both opponents. It muddles further the blurry line, if any has ever existed, between regular and irregular warfare.
I think you're getting caught up in semantics here, but you're also groping towards a critical realization: Drone strikes, by all accounts, seem to fit the definition of terrorist attacks.
Noam Chomsky certainly thinks so. He had this to say [1] in 2013:
"Obama is running the biggest terrorist operation that exists, maybe in history: the drone assassination campaigns, which are just part of it [...] All of these operations, they are terror operations. You are generating more terrorist operations.
"People have a reaction” when they lose a loved one to an American drone strike, he added. “They don’t say, ‘Fine, I don’t care if my cousin was murdered.’ They become what we call terrorists. This is completely understood from the highest level.”
Some of them are effectively terrorist attacks. If anyone remembers that drone strike against Wedding convoy in Yemen. It's exactly the same if someone would bomb a wedding in US that had some military officers there.
I wish I could remember who made this comparison (I'm guessing it was Jeremy Scahill?), but I agree with the idea that the primary hallmark of terrorism is the feeling of utter powerlessness to respond or defend yourself, making drone warfare just as terrorizing as a suicide bomber.
I remember when Maryland residents lived in constant fear of going outside for a few weeks in 2002, due to a pair of uncaught snipers [1]. If I lived in Yemen, I would feel that way 100% of the time.
A terrorist attack is defined by the object of the attack, not the method of the attack. Attacking civilian targets is terrorism. Attacking military targets and infrastructure, and especially in the case of attacking infrastructure when the fewest civilians would be killed (eg, nights or Sundays) is not terrorism.
Thus, the use of drones, against terrorists (those who would attack civilians) or enemy combatants (those who target military or infrastructure targets) is certainly not terrorism. OTOH, if drones were deliberately (and not accidentally) targeting civilian, non-military, non-infrastructure targets, that would be terrorism.
Eliminating terrorists with drones is going to minimize the number of terrorist attacks just as eliminating terrorist with sniper rifles, or bombing.
I am speaking as someone who nearly escaped a terrorist attack in Israel (Jerusalem BMW attack).
One of the interesting aspects is how the mere existence of cheap drones will need to alter defence. Consider that for a terrorist group, once they've demonstrated the willingness to use drones, they can drastically increase the cost in defending against attacks by using very cheap fakes.
A government targeted with drones would not dare take the risk of finding out the "wrong way" whether or not the incoming drone is loaded with explosives, or is a cheap toy. Now imagine a steady stream of hundreds of cheap toys, with one every now and again loaded with explosives.
Say (just to pull random numbers) that a real "homemade" drone costs $10k/piece, and a fake one drops down to $100/piece and you can send out 101 w/one real for the cost of 2 real ones. Yet the cost of defending against the attack has gone up 100-fold.
In World War II bombings targeted civilians, and were designed in such a way to inflict firestorms and terror. By body count alone drones and IEDs are quite tame.
In particular the 2008 terrorist attack at the Taj hotel in Mumbai, wherein the attackers were directed by controllers in Pakistan via cell phone and VoIP always struck me as the horrifying equivalent of a terrorist poor man's drone.
The report raised warnings that other countries might adopt the same rationale as the United States has for carrying out lethal strikes outside of declared war zones. Using an example of a current crisis, it said that Russia could use armed drones in Ukraine under the justification that it was killing anti-Russian terrorists and then refuse to disclose the intelligence that served as the basis for the strike.
“In such circumstances,” the report asked, “how could the United States credibly condemn Russian targeted killings?”
Targeted killings are wrong, but Russia isn't doing this anyway.
They still send in troops/police that try to disarm suspects, because the Russian population in some regions would feel oppressed if they started assassinating suspects without a trial and they don't need a new Chechnya.
And outside of Russia they intervene much less militarily than the US is doing right now. (compared to the US, Russia's interventions are almost nonexistent)
That's a silly conclusion, since the US has been engaged in essentially non-stop war since at least WWII (with a developing national security state based on that permanent war footing), most of which didn't involve drones.
Drones certainly lower the political cost of war, but they aren't something that "risks" war without end, they are something developed and deployed in an environment where "war without end" was already the established reality.
There is plenty of unique things about this new type of long-term warfare:
a) every operation is conducted in total secrecy
b) most of it is executed remotely, or occasionally via Special Forces commandos on the ground when drones can't get the job done
c) they are (apparently) based off of a 'kill-list', which is essentially an assassination list
This is very different than the decades of conventional warfare the US traditionally engaged in, using troops and engagements openly talked about to the public (even if it's after the fact).
It is only comparable to the CIA operations in latin america in the 1980s.
I agree with you, but there is another view here: much of our military spending is really to serve the purpose of forcing the US dollar as the reserve currency rather that SDRs or even a partial gold standard (i.e., require a percentage, perhaps 10%, of money to be backed by gold). The books Currency Wars and The Death of Money make a pretty good case for this.
To quote Walter White: We are not in danger, we are the danger. And would we want it any other way? Could we as a nation accept being second best at the delivery of death and destruction?
A good time to listen to or reread Eisenhower's 1961 speech warning of the Military-Industrial Complex.
"Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of ploughshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions."
Unconditional surrender is what terrorist organizations want, and they will wage war without end until they achieve it.
The problem with peace is that it is symmetrical. Everybody has to agree to peace before it will happen. War is asymmetrical. It takes only one entity (including, at the limit, one person) to make a war, even if everybody else wants peace.
The other is that it will cause large segments of society to not trust the beneficial uses of this type of technology. When everything flying over head is a threat what can you say of your quality of life?
Similar to how the co-opting of vaccinations in very much the same countries has lead to killing of doctors who only come to help.
We are teaching a whole new generation to fear technology and it may take another to fix that.
Where is the line between war and security drawn? Terrorism can't be "defeated" like an advisory in a traditional war, it's more of a mindset. Therefore one could argue that adequate security should continuously identify and address threats to the state. Does this mean we're in a continuous war? I don't think the semantics matters.
It might be interesting if it were possible to declare war against an organization, as opposed to a sovereign nation. The conflict between Western nations and Al Qaeda is complicated by the fact that it doesn't fit into previous models of military conflict, and there seems to be a reluctance to update those models. It would also be useful if a nation were required to control activities within its borders and not empowered to respond militarily to border violations in pursuit of combatants.
Drones aren't too much different than normal airplanes doing bombing runs or any mission where a general sits back while troops/drones/missiles/robots kill the target you specified.. There is definitely a sense of, "pick a target, push a button, wait until he blows up" which the world needs to evaluate before allowing.
I think there is a limit to putting real robots on the battlefield, humans will always be necessary. It's always been possible to get the support of citizens and sometimes foreign government support by having real humans in the field doing humanitarian work. This cannot be replaced by dumb robots, a human face will be required to work with machines or else they will always be seen as inferior and untrustworthy.
I could see the US Government eventually having ATLAS style robots with tablets / large screens for faces, kind of like robocop but the soldier would just be remote controlling the robot.
Drone wars are a new continuous flow, always on, Kanban killing process.
Probably get some sort of Office 360 interface so we can kill from home. Maybe a new version of Python called KillScript that has some Hebbian learning libraries built in. TFIDF says it is a good time to be average.
The Israeli's have saved many lives with drones both for reconnaissance and for targeting terrorists. I don't think they would be using drones for killing terrorists if it proved ineffective. It is hard to understand why drones are saving Israeli lives but not American ones.
[+] [-] seren|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcone|11 years ago|reply
Noam Chomsky certainly thinks so. He had this to say [1] in 2013:
"Obama is running the biggest terrorist operation that exists, maybe in history: the drone assassination campaigns, which are just part of it [...] All of these operations, they are terror operations. You are generating more terrorist operations.
"People have a reaction” when they lose a loved one to an American drone strike, he added. “They don’t say, ‘Fine, I don’t care if my cousin was murdered.’ They become what we call terrorists. This is completely understood from the highest level.”
[1] http://www.mediaite.com/tv/noam-chomsky-obama-is-running-big...
[+] [-] sharpneli|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lukifer|11 years ago|reply
I remember when Maryland residents lived in constant fear of going outside for a few weeks in 2002, due to a pair of uncaught snipers [1]. If I lived in Yemen, I would feel that way 100% of the time.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks
[+] [-] spingsprong|11 years ago|reply
If a group did attack a military convoy with a remote controlled IED, it wouldn't be an act of terrorism.
Terrorism is the indiscriminate targeting of civilians.
A remote controlled IED isn't indiscriminate, and a military convoy isn't civilian.
[+] [-] davidf18|11 years ago|reply
Thus, the use of drones, against terrorists (those who would attack civilians) or enemy combatants (those who target military or infrastructure targets) is certainly not terrorism. OTOH, if drones were deliberately (and not accidentally) targeting civilian, non-military, non-infrastructure targets, that would be terrorism.
Eliminating terrorists with drones is going to minimize the number of terrorist attacks just as eliminating terrorist with sniper rifles, or bombing.
I am speaking as someone who nearly escaped a terrorist attack in Israel (Jerusalem BMW attack).
[+] [-] vidarh|11 years ago|reply
A government targeted with drones would not dare take the risk of finding out the "wrong way" whether or not the incoming drone is loaded with explosives, or is a cheap toy. Now imagine a steady stream of hundreds of cheap toys, with one every now and again loaded with explosives.
Say (just to pull random numbers) that a real "homemade" drone costs $10k/piece, and a fake one drops down to $100/piece and you can send out 101 w/one real for the cost of 2 real ones. Yet the cost of defending against the attack has gone up 100-fold.
[+] [-] AJ007|11 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.com/The-Bombers-Bombed-Allied-1940-1945/dp...
[+] [-] JackFr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] streptomycin|11 years ago|reply
“In such circumstances,” the report asked, “how could the United States credibly condemn Russian targeted killings?”
Good question.
[+] [-] DominikR|11 years ago|reply
They still send in troops/police that try to disarm suspects, because the Russian population in some regions would feel oppressed if they started assassinating suspects without a trial and they don't need a new Chechnya.
And outside of Russia they intervene much less militarily than the US is doing right now. (compared to the US, Russia's interventions are almost nonexistent)
[+] [-] davidf18|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragonwriter|11 years ago|reply
Drones certainly lower the political cost of war, but they aren't something that "risks" war without end, they are something developed and deployed in an environment where "war without end" was already the established reality.
[+] [-] dmix|11 years ago|reply
a) every operation is conducted in total secrecy
b) most of it is executed remotely, or occasionally via Special Forces commandos on the ground when drones can't get the job done
c) they are (apparently) based off of a 'kill-list', which is essentially an assassination list
This is very different than the decades of conventional warfare the US traditionally engaged in, using troops and engagements openly talked about to the public (even if it's after the fact).
It is only comparable to the CIA operations in latin america in the 1980s.
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lostInTheWoods3|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rbanffy|11 years ago|reply
On an interesting digression, "War Without End" is a two-part Babylon 5 episode that won a Hugo award.
[+] [-] eevilspock|11 years ago|reply
"Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of ploughshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions."
Nice intro with video of Eisenhowr giving the speech: http://www.npr.org/2011/01/17/132942244/ikes-warning-of-mili...
Full text of speech: http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html
[+] [-] gvb|11 years ago|reply
The problem with peace is that it is symmetrical. Everybody has to agree to peace before it will happen. War is asymmetrical. It takes only one entity (including, at the limit, one person) to make a war, even if everybody else wants peace.
[+] [-] Shivetya|11 years ago|reply
Similar to how the co-opting of vaccinations in very much the same countries has lead to killing of doctors who only come to help.
We are teaching a whole new generation to fear technology and it may take another to fix that.
[+] [-] josefresco|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bd_at_rivenhill|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dm2|11 years ago|reply
I think there is a limit to putting real robots on the battlefield, humans will always be necessary. It's always been possible to get the support of citizens and sometimes foreign government support by having real humans in the field doing humanitarian work. This cannot be replaced by dumb robots, a human face will be required to work with machines or else they will always be seen as inferior and untrustworthy.
I could see the US Government eventually having ATLAS style robots with tablets / large screens for faces, kind of like robocop but the soldier would just be remote controlling the robot.
[+] [-] sitkack|11 years ago|reply
Probably get some sort of Office 360 interface so we can kill from home. Maybe a new version of Python called KillScript that has some Hebbian learning libraries built in. TFIDF says it is a good time to be average.
[+] [-] ghostwords|11 years ago|reply
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/just-ask...
[+] [-] bakhy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tsbardella2|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidf18|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kalleboo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] higherpurpose|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjmlp|11 years ago|reply