Operationally, remote-controlled weapons are force multipliers. Politically, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can cut both ways: their use minimizes casualties, but they can also be used in “inconvenient” ways. Ethically, the military use of UAVs or drones are controversial in two ways: their use for assassinations and their overall use in the context of Just War Theory.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Victoria Nuzzi)
Use for Targeted Assassination
Probably the most controversial use of drones is when the target is an American citizen. This is exactly what happened on 30 September 2011 when Anwar al-Awlaki was executed in the second of two CIA drone missile attacks against him.
In reading biographical information on al-Awlaki, one must ask oneself: in what sense was he a citizen?
Al-Awlaki was born of Yemeni parents who were living in New Mexico at the time, but the family returned to Yemen when he was seven years old. He later returned to the US and soon got on the FBI radar, which of course amounted to nothing even though he has certainly either influenced or played an operational role in numerous terrorist actions against the United States1:
- He had extended contact with at least two of the 9/11 hijackers
- He had direct contact and influenced Nidal Hasan to commit the 2009 Fort Hood shooting
- One of his students, a member of al-Qaeda, was the "Underwear Bomber" who attempted to bomb a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas 2009
- The Times Square bomber was also a follower of Al-Awlaki
- He issued a fatwa against the organizer of the "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" contest
- He also influenced Omar Mateen's shooting at the Pulse Night Club in Florida. (I lost an acquaintance in that attack.)
Through his teachings, Al-Awlaki denounced America and influenced others to take direct action against her. Regardless of whether birthright citizenship is legal or ethical, Al-Awlaki was a US citizen only in the sense that in some database, a box next to his name was checked.
There is apparently a legal framework against extrajudicial killing. Section 2.11 of the 2008 amended EO 12333 explicitly prohibits assassination2 3. It is unclear how the assassination was squared with that EO.
Al-Awlaki was charged in absentia in Yemen for being a member of al Qaeda. It isn't clear at all why he couldn't be tried in absentia in a US court. The rules for such trials are well-established but were not followed by the Obama administration.
Nasser al-Awlaki, Anwar's father, filed for injunction prior to both drone strikes, but Nasser lacked locus standi. It is unknown how Nasser learned that his son was on the targeted killing list.
The only objectional part of Al-Awlaki's death by drone strike, I claim, is that he wasn't tried in absentia. It is uncertain whether Al-Awlaki could have been extradited from Yemen, which is where he was killed. Lawsuits before and following his death seeking the release of the standards under which an American can be so targeted have apparently been unsuccessful.
So, was al-Awlaki's execution legal? We may never know as the standards for extrajudicial killing still appear to be a secret. All we know is that it couldn't have happened to a more deserving person.
Overall Drone Use
The use of drones has been addressed by just war theorists, including Bradley Jay Strawser. In his 2010 paper “Moral Predators: The Duty to Employ Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles,”4 he begins by distinguishing “man-in-the-loop” or “man-on-the-loop” weapon systems from “man-out-of-the-loop” systems. He rejects the latter but argues that the use of man-in-the-loop and man-on-the-loop weapons are morally justifiable.Strawser raises and addresses six objections to UAV usage. Here are two of them.
One of his objections is that UAVs lead to violations of the jus in bello Principle of Discrimination, the idea being that poor-quality or unreliable video feeds would limit the ability of the pilot to discriminate between combatant and non-combatant. This is a limitation that currently is not true, and Strawser quotes statistics showing that, in comparison to conventional forces, UAVs resulted in far fewer noncombatant deaths relative to combatant deaths. Further, by flying at lower altitudes than manned aircraft, more accurate targeting is to be expected. Finally, Strawser notes that the manufacturer of a missile designed for use on UAVs (a drone on a drone) has achieved “urban warfare precision,” and that the missile is controlled after it has been launched (“fire, observe, and update” as opposed to “fire and forget”).
Another objection is that UAVs create an unjust asymmetry in combat, in that “one side literally does not take any life-or-death risks whatsoever (or nearly so, since its warfighters are not even present in the primary theater of combat) whereas the opposing side carries all the risk of combat.” His response is perhaps the strongest part of his paper:
[T]here is no chivalrous reason for a just combatant to ‘equal the playing field’ or ‘fight fair.’ If combatant A fights under a just cause, while combatant B fights for an unjust cause, combatant A owes nothing to combatant B by way of exposing his/herself to some minimal threshold of risk. Thus, it is right for combatant A to reduce the risk in an engagement with the unjust enemy.
Worded another way: if we find ourselves in a “fair fight,” we make it unfair to our opponents, however possible.
One objection Strawser doesn’t raise is the problem of the drone pilot’s location. Range matters, and the remote-controlled weapons from previous wars all required the pilot or operator to be either in-theater or very close.
Again, range matters. At some point, the range of American artillery exceeded that of an enemy’s. Does this mean that the enemy surrenders without a fight? No: the enemy will simply attack from a position so close that the use of our artillery would be prohibitive because of the likelihood of harming our own troops.
What would an enemy do when facing-off against a UAV system? There are at least four points of vulnerability: the drone itself, the takeoff and landing site(s) of the drone, the communication system controlling the drone, and the drone’s pilot. Just as in the case of the artillery, the enemy will move close to attack. This means that the pilot is a legitimate target.
In the case of drones, though, the pilot could be located within the United States. For example, Anwar al-Awlaki was executed while in Yemen, but the drone pilot was located at the Creech Air Force Base outside Las Vegas, Nevada5.
Thus, there was a legitimate target for the enemy within our own borders.
This is not to say that this renders the use of UAVs unethical, but it does raise an issue that policy makers do not seem to consider.
Footnotes
- Shane, “The Enduring Influence of Anwar al-Awlaki in the Age of the Islamic State.”
- Executive Order 12333 United States Intelligence Activities
- Slick, S. “Modernizing the IC “Charter”: The 2008 Amendments to Executive Order 12333, United States Intelligence Activities”.
- Strawser, “Moral Predators: The Duty to Employ Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles.”
- Zegart, Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence
Bibliography
Shane, S. “The Enduring Influence of Anwar al-Awlaki in the Age of the Islamic State.” CTC Sentinel (9) No. 7, July 2016. Retrieved 28 June 2024 from https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-enduring-influence-of-anwar-al-awlaki-in-the-age-of-the-islamic-state/
Slick, S. “Modernizing the IC “Charter”: The 2008 Amendments to Executive Order 12333, United States Intelligence Activities”. Studies in Intelligence (58), No. 2 (Extracts, June 2014). Retrieved 27 June 2024 from https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/2008-Amendments-Executive-Order.pdf
Strawser, B. “Moral Predators: The Duty to Employ Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles.” Journal of Military Ethics 9 no. 4, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2010.536403
“Executive Order 12333 United States Intelligence Activities” Code of Federal Regulations. Retrieved 27 June 2024 from https://dpcld.defense.gov/Portals/49/Documents/Civil/eo-12333-2008.pdf
Zegart, A. Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence. Princeton University Press, 2022.
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