The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has presented a complex and difficult array of dilemmas to military and political leadership. These systems bring a myriad of capabilities that are unavailable from other types of platforms. As the Navy pursues these technologies, understanding the ramifications of their employment in combat is critical. The fight against terrorists and insurgents over the course of the past decade-plus and the use of UAVs within these conflicts offer the Navy a valuable set of lessons from which to learn as it develops its own systems and doctrine. As the service sets its requirements for these systems, it must first consider their effectiveness. One of the most visible uses of UAVs has been their employment against asymmetric and non-state threats. With respect to the military, political, and ethical factors, UAVs are an effective and viable military technology in the targeting of non-state terrorist actors but present difficult considerations in their proper use.
Measuring Effectiveness
The first-order consideration for employing a given means to achieve a desired military objective should be the military effectiveness of that technology, defined here as the ability to inflict a desired consequence on an enemy combatant in the pursuit of desired objectives. The military effectiveness of UAVs is broken into three principal areas: the ability to gather persistent intelligence, the ability to effectively disrupt enemy capabilities and operations, and the ability to minimize collateral damage. With respect to intelligence gathering, UAVs are an ideally tailored platform for the demands of persistent surveillance. Originally designed for this role, the MQ-1 Predator and its larger, more advanced successor, the MQ-9 Reaper, are equipped with advanced sensor suites including electro-optic/infrared sensor system with multiple spotting and view lenses. In addition, the aircraft can travel more than 400 nautical miles and loiter over a target in excess of 14 hours.1 By merit of being unmanned, they are capable of staying airborne far longer than crewed aircraft and can fly into dangerous areas without risking an aircrew. The combination of these abilities presents a platform that is capable of reaching remote, difficult-to-access locales and providing video surveillance of those areas. UAVs have proven successful in this capacity in a variety of locations for more than a decade.2
Assessing the ability of UAVs to disrupt and degrade enemy capabilities requires analyzing their implementation in conflict. Examining the raw casualty figures as a result of UAV strikes provides a place to first assess their effect. The U.N. Special Rapporteur for Counter Terrorism and Human Rights (SRCT) Drone Inquiry estimated 1,600 combatants were killed in Pakistan by UAV strikes.3 Viewing only combatants killed does not fully reflect the military value of using UAVs, however. By unleashing targeted attacks against key nodes in a terrorist organization, individual strikes can have far-reaching effects. The pressure applied by robust signal intelligence and persistent UAV surveillance combined with lethal and accurate strikes has forced al Qaeda and its affiliates to use slower forms of communications such as couriers to avoid interception, slowed the movements of these organizations to prevent detection, and hampered the ability to train for and carry out attacks.4 Further, survivors of attacks spend time searching for possible informants, generating dissension within the groups.5 Their appeals to the Pakistani government for a cessation of the strikes indicate their effect. Further, UAVs have proved effective at eliminating terrorist leadership including Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan founder Baitullah Mehsud; Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan leader Tahir Yuldashev; Majmiddin Jalolov, leader of the Islamic Jihad Union; and Saleh al-Somali, al Qaeda’s chief of operations, among others.6 The combination of these effects has produced a profound degradation on militant organizations that reduces their capabilities to launch regional and international attacks.
The final consideration in the military effectiveness of UAVs is their ability to reduce collateral damage, primarily reflected by the number of civilian casualties. The persistent surveillance capabilities of UAVs provide decision makers with a greater level of information when making targeting decisions. In addition, the weapon systems on board are highly accurate.7 When combined with proper targeting protocols and decisions, the result is a high degree of precision in destroying only desired targets. Over the course of the entirety of UAV strikes in Pakistan, the SCRT report estimates 400 noncombatants were killed along with 200 additional “probable noncombatants.”8 This figure represents 27 percent of all casualties.9 However, as the usage of UAVs evolved with improvements in intelligence, weapons, and stricter rules of engagement, civilian casualties were significantly reduced.10 In nine strikes conducted in Afghanistan thus far this year, an estimated one civilian has been killed relative to as many as 65 militants (1.5 percent of casualties).11 UAVs, though imperfect, continue to make improvements in reducing collateral damage.
Weighing the Political Ramifications
Ceasing the analysis of the utility of UAVs at the simple tactical military advantage conferred by these systems would present an incomplete picture. An equally important consideration when conducting counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations are the political consequences. While there are potentially significant domestic political concerns (consider the connotation of the word “drone” in the United States today), of greater import to military commanders are the political ramifications in theater, particularly from local populaces. UAV strikes in Pakistan, though conducted in coordination with Pakistani intelligence, have produced a degree of anti-American sentiment in the country.12 David Kilcullen, an expert on counterinsurgency and an advisor to retired General David Petraeus, stated in May 2009 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee: “The drone strikes are highly unpopular, they are deeply aggravating the population. And they’ve given rise to a feeling of anger that coalesces the population around the extremists and leads to spikes of extremism.”13 A 2009 Gallup Pakistan poll found that only 9 percent of Pakistanis support the UAV strikes and 67 percent oppose.14 Further, the failed airliner bombing over Detroit on 25 December 2009 and the failed Times Square bombing attempt on 1 May 2010 both cited UAV strikes as the motivation. This evidence suggests that UAVs are having a largely negative impact on the political and strategic objectives of the United States in the form of motivation for attacks and stoking anti-American sentiment.
However, this narrative is incomplete. Farhat Taj, a northwest Pakistan native currently working in Norway for the newspaper The News, claims, “Most of the literature misinforms in terms of civilian casualties caused by the attacks.”15 Based on conversations with locals of the Pakistani tribal areas where UAVs strike, she notes that many are actually in favor of the strikes, citing that they rid the locals of the “strictures, intimidation and violence associated with the Islamist militants living among them.”16 A 2008 study by the Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy found that of 550 professional people living in the tribal areas, about half characterized the strikes as “accurate,” six in ten said the strikes were damaging to militant organizations, and a similar number denied they increased anti-Americanism sentiment.17 The dichotomy of views and greater support from those directly affected by the strikes indicates that a more tangible sense for the security benefits of the strikes promotes a more favorable opinion of the activity. Further, the covert nature of the drone strikes and the subsequent dominance militant groups have over the flow of information result in a significant amount of disinformation and extremist propaganda influencing the perceptions of the populace.18 On the whole, the use of UAVs for strikes produces negative reactions. However, the more acute reactions of those directly affected tend to be neutral or positive on balance. A more transparent campaign may push these views to areas beyond the strike theater.
Regardless of the military benefits and political ramifications, the United States should pursue ethical actions. When analyzing the morality of actions in war, Just War Theory provides the traditional framework. Just War Theory is broken into two principle elements, Jus ad Bellum, the ethical backing for going to war, and Jus in Bello, the ethical guidelines for the conduct of war.
Discrimination and Proportionality
Turning to the more obvious relationship between UAVs and Jus in Bello, for an act to be permissible in combat it must meet a series of requirements. Two requirements are particularly essential with respect to the use of UAVs: discrimination and proportionality. Discrimination requires that only military targets and combatants can be attacked. A military cannot legally directly target civilians. The second requirement, proportionality, requires that the military advantage gained by an attack cannot exceed the civilian damage.19 As demonstrated previously, UAVs possess the technical capabilities to provide a high quantity of information to allow operators to make sound determinations between combatants and noncombatants when engaging targets. The precision weapon systems on-board allow for accurate engagement of these targets. However, this technical precision does not guarantee accurate moral distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate targets.20 A 2013 study by Lawrence Lewis, a researcher at the Center for Naval Analyses, indicated that UAV strikes were ten times more likely to cause civilian casualties per strike than those from manned platforms.
While the technical ability of UAVs and their weapon systems to hit their desired targets is clear, the ability of operators to select proper targets may be less so. To utilize the accuracy provided by UAV systems, operators must be highly competent in identifying proper targets and in recognizing and avoiding potential collateral damage. Better intelligence, particularly from sources on the ground, may improve the situational awareness of UAV operators and improve their ability to distinguish combatants from noncombatants. In addition, robust training is required to ensure that UAV operators have the same level of competency in recognizing combatants from noncombatants as manned aircraft pilots to ensure that recent reductions in civilian casualties are maintained. 21
Proportionality requires weighing the anticipated military gain with the anticipated collateral damage. In counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, these two factors are inextricably linked. Collateral damage inherently reduces the military advantage conferred by a given action. As such, military planners maximize the value of a strike by minimizing the collateral damage. Satisfying the proportionality constraint will vary from strike to strike, as the target that is being engaged and its perceived value will have vastly different “acceptable levels” of collateral damage. The tolerated risk to civilians for a strike on a single, lone Taliban rifleman would be significantly different than the level tolerated to kill ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Michael Walzer, a leading philosopher on Just War Theory, contends that “even if the target is very important and the number of innocent people threatened relatively small, [military planners] must risk soldiers before they kill civilians.”22 However, Asa Kasher, an Israeli philosopher and linguist, and Amos Yaldin, former head of the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Directate, argue against this position, contending that terrorists excuse military combatants from this responsibility by intermingling with noncombatants.23
This consideration should not be lost on commanders, though. Minimizing risk to one’s own forces can serve in opposition to the intended objectives. As the counterinsurgency manual states, “If military forces remain in their compounds, they lose touch with the people, appear to be running scared, and cede the initiative to the insurgents.”24 This is particularly true with UAV strikes in remote areas where ground forces are not routinely present and engaged with the populace. As a general rule, to satisfy the proportionality criteria, commanders should work to minimize collateral damage to the greatest extent possible. If an option exists that incurs an increased risk to soldiers but a decreased risk to civilians, this is the option the commander should execute. UAVs can satisfy the proportionality constraint and in many circumstances present the best possible means to do so. However, commanders need to remain keenly aware that the technical capabilities and perceptions of precision surrounding UAVs do not exonerate them from “the determination of legal or ethical legitimacy.”25
Hostage Deaths Emphasize the High Stakes
The recent tragic deaths of two al Qaeda hostages, American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto, highlight the need for consistent and vigilant caution in conducting UAV strikes. Weinstein and Lo Porto were killed in a CIA strike in the Shawal Valley, Pakistan, conducted in January, despite persistent surveillance by UAVs for hundreds of hours.26 In the wake of such failures, keeping a strategic view of the overall situation is imperative. As President Barack Obama said in his statement regarding the deaths, “It is a cruel and bitter truth that in the fog of war generally and our fight against terrorists specifically, mistakes, sometimes deadly mistakes, can occur.”27 Even the most cautious, well-intentioned measures will not prevent all unintended consequences of an action. Due to the extensive surveillance of the target, it is unlikely that another platform, outside of direct action by “boots on the ground,” would have prevented the deaths of the hostages. It is also important to note that, despite the deaths, UAVs are still “the least costly means of eliminating militants whose first aim is to kill Americans.”28
However, specific improvements in the operational methodology of the UAV program may help prevent such situations in the future. First, the control of lethal UAV strikes should be transferred from the CIA to the U.S. military. Doing so would allow for a greater level of transparency as the military can report on its actions. This may create a more challenging diplomatic environment for conducting strikes, particularly in Pakistan.29 However, military control is necessary not only to ensure the proper conduct of operators in the future but also to allow for a more robust effort to engage locals and provide a more positive narrative surrounding the campaign.
On balance, the totality of UAVs’ performance in the nation’s 21st century conflicts indicates their ability as a capable and valuable asset. UAVs present military commanders and political leaders with an asset capable of persistent surveillance with the ability to conduct precise strikes over dangerous and difficult-to-access locales. These capabilities have been successfully demonstrated over the course of the past decade in conflict against militants in various settings around the world. In addition, the application of these systems has improved during their usage, with noted improvements being observed in civilian casualty rates in recent years. However, for the United States to be able to fully leverage the advantages conferred by these capabilities, it would be wise to better illuminate the campaign. Doing so would shed light on the legality and moral authority of the practices in place to the international community while also preventing the alienation of populaces affected by these strikes. Finally, operators and commanders must continue to improve on their abilities to make difficult moral determinations when employing UAVs to ensure their continued effectiveness on the battlefield within the bounds of Just War. As the Navy moves to develop and employ its own UAV fleet, it would be wise to reflect on and learn from the lessons of the previous conflicts. Doing so will allow for a better equipped system with more prepared operators for the range of threats that will be encountered.
1. Ryan L. Brown and Brian G. Smith, “Technical elegance VS. political consequence,” The SciTech Lawyer 7.1: 24 (2010), http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA373886525&v=2.1&u=anna82201&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w &authCount=1.
2. Dave Sloggett, “Attack of the drones—The utility of UAVs in fighting terrorism,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, 16 July 2010, https://janes.ihs.com/.
3. United Nations Human Rights, “UN SRCT Drone Inquiry,” http://unsrct-drones.com/report/63.
4. Sloggett, “Attack of the drones.”
5. Scott Shane, “C.I.A. to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan,” The New York Times, 4 December 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/world/asia/04drones.html?pagewanted=all.
6. Sloggett, “Attack of the drones.”
7. Sarah Kreps and John Kaag, “The Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Contemporary Conflict: A Legal and Ethical Analysis,” Polity 44, no. 2 (April 2012), 260-285, http://search.proquest.com/docview/99289873?accou ntid=14748.
8. “UN SRCT Drone Inquiry.”
9. Carl Conetta, “The Wages of War: Iraqi Combatant and Noncombatant Fatalities in the 2003 Conflict,” Project on Defense Alternatives, www.comw.org/pda/0310rm8ap2.html#1.
10. Sloggett, “Attack of the drones.”
11. “Get the data: Drone Wars, Casualty estimates,” The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/drones-graphs/.
12. Shane, “C.I.A. to Expand Use.”
13. Brown and Smith, “Technical elegance.”
14. Shane, “C.I.A. to Expand Use.”
15. Sloggett, “Attack of the drones.
16. Sloggett, “Attack of the drones.”
17. “C.I.A. to Expand Use.”
18. Sloggett, “Attack of the drones.”
19. Linda Johansson, “Is it morally right to use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in war?” Philosophy & Technology 24.3 (2011), http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA373886525&v=2.1&u=anna82201&it=r&p=AONE&s w=w&authCount=1.
20. Kreps, Kaag, “Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.”
21. Lawrence Lewis, “Drone Strikes: Civilian Casualty Considerations,” Center for Naval Analyses, June 2013, www.cna.org/research/2013/drone-strikes-civilian-casualty-considerations.
22. Kreps and Kaag, “Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.”
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Craig Whitlock, Missy Ryan, and Greg Miller, “Obama apologizes for attack that killed two hostages,” The Washington Post, 23 April 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-operation-kills-al-qaeda-hostages-including-american/2015/04/23/8e9fcaba-e9bd-11e4-aae1-d642717d8afa_story.htmn.
27. Ibid.
28. “Drone strikes are bad; no drone strikes would be worse,” The Washington Post, 1 May 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-continuing-value-of-drones/2015/05/01/5938eaac-ecf9-11e4-a55f-38924fca94f9_story.html.
29. Ibid.
Ensign Lacinski is a 2015 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and selected naval aviation. Prior to reporting to flight school, he is pursuing a MS in aerospace engineering and technology and policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.