Answer questions in paragraphs

55© The Author(s) 2017 M. Schulzke, The Morality of Drone Warfare and the Politics of Regulation, New Security Challenges, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53380-7_3

CHAPTER 3

The Moral Landscape of Drone Warfare

In this chapter I will explore some common criticisms of drones that need to be reconsidered but that fall outside the boundaries of the just war categorization I will employ in later chapters. My goal when interrogat- ing these arguments is not to suggest that the debate over the morality of drones should be ended or that it is somehow misguided. Drones raise important ethical concerns and should, along with all new military hard- ware, be subjected to careful scrutiny as they are developed and deployed. The underlying problem that I want to call attention to is that certain types of arguments that have been directed against drones are problematic and distract us from the more plausible ethical challenges that may be addressed by improving the design and regulation of drones.

The arguments I discuss in this chapter seem to refl ect feelings of dis- comfort that many have about these new weapons platforms. They appear to be objections based on intuitions about what war should be like — intuitions that turn out to be fairly hollow when one attempts to fi nd the underlying moral reasoning sustaining them. These concerns are that: the US military’s drone strikes in the War on Terror show universal fl aws in drones, drones have morally objectionable technological faults, drones create unethical relationships of civil–military technology sharing, drones mediate wars in ways that may promote militarism, drones mediate wars in ways that may make it easier for soldiers to commit immoral or illegal attacks, and drones might cause an arms race.

I use my discussions of these criticisms to draw some general conclu- sions about how we should evaluate drones. First, I demonstrate the importance of distinguishing between drones’ latent potentials and how those potentials are realized in practice. In particular, I show that exist- ing drones do not raise any signifi cant new prospects for armed forces to act immorally beyond those that already exist because of other weapons. This does not in itself show that drones are morally justifi ed weapons— only that they are not worse than other military technologies. However, this will be important later when I explore the latent potentials for moral conduct that are unique to drones and that therefore provide compelling reasons to favor them over alternative weapons and tactics. This will help to substantiate the book’s core argument: that although drones can be misused in many of the same ways as other military technologies, they have unique moral benefi ts that make them morally advantageous.

Second, I demonstrate the importance of having a clear normative framework for analyzing the use of drones. The critiques that I discuss suffer from a common failure to clearly specify the moral logic they invoke. They identify uncomfortable processes that deserve moral scru- tiny, yet without articulating any convincing moral grounds for thinking that drones are wrong, or even that our intuitive discomfort with cer- tain features of drones refl ects genuine moral concerns, the arguments are unconvincing. This not only reveals the weakness of these arguments but also highlights the importance of the just war reasoning that I will apply in later chapters. Just war theory provides a strong normative language for investigating the many important moral dimensions of war and makes it possible to more precisely identify how military technologies can be mor- ally objectionable.

DRONES AND TARGETED KILLING The ongoing debate over the morality of drone warfare is closely linked to debates about the permissibility of the War on Terror, US targeted killing operations, and the Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in particular. There is good reason for this. The USA is the world’s leading user of drones, operates the most recognizable UAVs, and has deployed them in roles that are justifi ably controversial. UAVs make it possible to wage the War on Terror according to a decapitation strategy—a strategy of killing prominent enemy leaders to degrade or destroy entire organi- zations. UAVs’ latent potentials urge the USA toward decapitation by

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making it easier than ever before to monitor and attack suspected terror- ists, as well as to do so in countries that the USA is not actively at war with, such as Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. The War on Terror has likewise infl uenced the course of drone development by providing incentives for focusing on the creation of unmanned aircraft that are equipped to carry out low-intensity strikes.

Critics have raised important concerns regarding UAV operations dur- ing the War on Terror, with efforts to challenge the morality of targeted killing and show that the underlying logic of the War on Terror is funda- mentally fl awed, regardless of the machines being used in attacks. There is good reason to think that the USA has gone too far in its UAV strikes, that it has attacked too many people based on limited intelligence, and that it has deliberately misled the public about how many civilian casual- ties have been infl icted. However, the debates over the morality of drone warfare and the morality of targeted killing as a counterterrorism strategy have become confused, to the detriment of our understanding of drones. Many discussions of drones seem to suggest that there is nothing to these machines beyond this particular tactic or they envision a future of drone warfare that is irrevocably bound to how these machines have been used in the War on Terror. Worse still, evidence that certain targeted killings involving drones are morally dubious is often mobilized as evidence that drones are reprehensible in general.

It is wrong to assume that drones will always be used as they have been during the War on Terror, especially when they are operated by other armed forces or when different types of drones are deployed. Drones are not the cause of the US military’s controversial style of targeted killing or its geographically unrestricted counterterrorism/counterinsurgency opera- tions. Rather, they are one symptom of the American strategy of waging the War on Terror by any means available. UAVs fulfi ll a particular need—a need to carry out covert strikes against suspected terrorists and insurgents with minimal risk to US military personnel—and they are not alone in doing this. Special operations forces, private military contractors, cruise missiles, and cyber weapons can likewise be used to fulfi ll this need. UAVs may be more effective than these other means of attack insofar as they pres- ent lower risk to combatants than those associated with special operations missions and contractors and are more effective in targeting specifi c indi- viduals than cruise missiles and cyber weapons, yet they are part of a range of weapons and tactics that are used for similar purposes and that do not necessarily have to be used as they have been by the US military.

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In a study of US military’s special operations tactics, Niva correctly notes that ‘[d]rones…are a synecdoche for a bigger issue: the expanding system of a high-tempo regime of targeted strikes, special operations forces raids, and detention practices that are largely unaccountable to the public and draped in secrecy rules.’ 1 Niva’s assessment is apt, not only because he identifi es the extent to which the controversial strategies for employing UAVs are symptomatic of larger strategic decisions but also in thinking that the root cause of these strategies is the lack of accountability and transparency. To these problems one should also add that the American strategies for waging the War on Terror are marred by inattention to state sovereignty, reliance on dubious targeting strategies, and disturbingly close relations between the military and intelligence services, especially the Central Intelligence Agency. UAVs certainly play an important part in waging the War on Terror and have been involved in attacks that are morally and legally question- able. However, the proliferation of tools for carrying out these questionable attacks is evidence that they are not necessarily connected to drones.

As we saw in the previous chapter, drones have broad latent potentials. The morality of drones is best evaluated in terms of whether these poten- tials increase or decrease the scope of ethical and unethical conduct. To say that UAVs can perform the same functions as cruise missiles, special opera- tions forces, and other weapons and tactics does not excuse the misuse of UAVs in a particular context, yet it does show that UAVs’ latent potentials do not seem to have caused any signifi cant change in how the US military operates. If UAVs did not exist, then it seems unlikely that targeted kill- ings in Pakistan and elsewhere would simply stop. They might happen on a reduced scale, but would likely be performed by cruise missiles and special operations forces—a shift in tactics that might also produce greater numbers of American and civilian casualties.

Thus far, UAVs have only been used to replace humans and manned vehicles in missions that were already being carried out and have followed a developmental path that refl ects the strategic goals of the USA. At the same time, drones have helped to promote a more ethically sensitive way of performing these missions. A cruise missile and a UAV may both be used to destroy the home of a suspected terrorist, yet a UAV can monitor the home for hours and help to ensure that the attack only comes when the terrorist’s civilian family members leave the building. Drones do not guarantee that attacks are only launched when civilians are a safe distance away—they may be used indiscriminately, just as any other weapons may be—but drones expand the potential for acting with much greater respect

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for civilians. In other words, even when UAVs are misused in the War on Terror, we should condemn those misuses while still recognizing that we are only objecting to specifi c practices of employing UAVs and that alternative methods for targeting suspected terrorists may be considerably worse.

For evidence that we should avoid confl ating certain uses of drones with drone technology itself, one need look no further than the opera- tions that have been conducted by the US military. The strikes that attract criticism are almost invariably targeted killings, and not the hundreds of ground support missions that drones have been involved in. The ground support operations are fairly unproblematic from a moral and legal per- spective. These are an established part of war and are usually conducted against people who are clearly combatants because they are actively fi ght- ing. The fact that critics generally reserve their negative evaluations for targeted killings while saying little or nothing against drones in more con- ventional military roles reveals that the underlying moral concern is with the practice of targeted killings and associated actions like infringing on the sovereignty of foreign states or conducting military operations outside of war. Conversely, targeted killings involving other methods, such as the special operations raid that killed Osama Bin Laden or the cruise mis- sile strikes on Al Qaeda training facilities in 1998, have been contentious because they target individuals or violate state sovereignty and not because of the methods employed. With this in mind, we can advance the debate over drone warfare by drawing a clearer distinction between drones and the countless different ways in which they can be used.

DRONES’ MECHANICAL FAULTS AND TECHNICAL LIMITATIONS

Some of the objections to American UAVs are directed against their tech- nological faults. Medea Benjamin says that drones are not viable because they are prone to crashing, their controls malfunction, and they can be intercepted when their systems are not properly encrypted. 2 Other com- mentators have likewise cited these as reasons for thinking that drones are dangerous and perhaps unethical. Chamayou says that ‘drones are fragile weapons, riddled with faults and deep contradictions.’ 3 He goes on to argue that they are susceptible to hacking and that they can only be used when air superiority has been achieved. To some extent, this is a strange argument for Chamayou to raise. He, like Benjamin, shifts between saying

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that drones are questionable because they grant their users too much power over their opponents and saying that drones are questionable because of their myriad technical faults—propositions that are diffi cult to reconcile—yet it is worth considering whether the reasoning underlying the latter point is sound.

Efforts to show that drones are objectionable because of their pro- pensity to suffer from technical faults make the same mistake as those that are too heavily based on evidence drawn from drones’ use in the War on Terror. That is to say, these objections appeal to characteristics of a particular type of drone at a particular moment in time, even though these characteristics are probably transient. It is possible for those who produce and use drones to be guilty of negligence if they deploy machines that have been inadequately tested or that have known technical faults. Identifying negligence is particularly important if the faults make drones susceptible to capture by enemies or to attacking civilians. Nevertheless, claims of negligence can only be fairly directed against specifi c devices that have technical faults and not at drones as a class of technology. We might reasonably blame the manufacturers of a new type of drone for a faulty targeting system that leads to a mistaken attack on civilians, but such an incident would not demonstrate any fundamental fl aw in drones that should lead to their prohibition as a class of machines. When it comes to American UAVs, there may be grounds for arguing that developers and military leaders were negligent in taking inadequate safety precautions, but the fault for this would lie with specifi c people and the faulty UAVs they employed, not with UAVs as such.

When it is framed as a general objection against drones, criticism of drones’ technological limitations depends far too much on a momentary lack of sophistication that is typical of new weapons and weapons plat- forms entering military service for the fi rst time. The early tanks deployed on the Western Front during the First World War fell victim to mechanical faults in astronomical numbers. 4 Some early fi ghter planes were armed with machine guns that were mounted above the plane’s propeller, but pilots risked shooting themselves down if poorly synchronized bullets broke the propeller or ricocheted back at the pilot. 5 Even rifl es can be faulty, as evidenced by the fi rst version of the American M16, which was prone to jamming when it was fi rst released during the Vietnam War. 6 In some instances, these mechanical problems caused deaths and injuries, but it would be inaccurate to say that there is something inherently wrong with tanks, aircraft, or rifl es based on these initial faults. The same is true of drones, especially when they are at this nascent stage.

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This is not to say that the concerns raised by Benjamin and Chamayou are completely misguided. Deploying weapons that have been inade- quately tested can disrupt military effectiveness, pose a danger to civil- ians, and even threaten national security. The decision to deploy drones without adequate testing or without adequate safety measures in place is ethically signifi cant as this is arguably a case of negligence on the part of the weapons’ developers and the commanders who oversaw them in the fi eld. This failure should give us cause to insist on more rigorous testing of drones in the future and more effective information security procedures, especially if drones become more autonomous. And if this type of failure is persistent, then it could even indicate deeper problems within the US military and the fi rms that develop its technologies. However, based on the available evidence, this conclusion would be premature. For now, it appears that drones went through the same awkward start as other weap- ons introduced in previous wars and that additional precautions may be able to prevent these mistakes from happening as new types of drones are introduced.

CIVIL–MILITARY TECHNOLOGY SHARING Some critics argue that drones link civilian and military technologies in troubling ways. Roger Stahl criticizes the use of civilian technologies in military products. As he points out, ‘weapons manufacturer Ratheon hired a team of videogame designers to create a more ergonomic and intui- tive control experience that resembled a souped-up PlayStation’ and they ultimately designed a control system ‘based on an Xbox processor.’ 7 Peter Singer invokes similar reasoning when he calls attention to the US mili- tary’s decision to model some drone controls on those of the PlayStation game console or to make the Crusher robot controllable with an Apple iTouch. 8 Galliott characterizes the use of videogame technologies in drones and other weapons systems as disconcerting because ‘people often do things in video games that they would not do in real life and that this may somehow carry over to the use of unmanned systems.’ 9

There are also concerns that the technology sharing could benefi t the military by making it possible to recruit soldiers who already know how to operate the weapons and vehicles that they will use in military service. According to Singer, ‘[b]y using video game controllers, the military can piggyback on the billions of dollars that game companies have already spent designing controllers and training up an entire generation in their

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use.’ 10 And Benjamin fi nds that ‘[t]hose deeply involved in the military’s UAV programs themselves say appealing to youth gaming culture was one of their explicit goals.’ 11

Commentators who accuse drones of merging military and civilian technologies in problematic ways raise a number of interrelated points that need to be disentangled. Some of their ethical concerns could moti- vate a reevaluation of how drones and their associated technologies are produced. In particular, there is a danger of civil–military interaction being an avenue for wasteful spending or of collaboration leading to links that erode the division between the military and civilian industry. We should, of course, be alert to new developments in civil–military coopera- tion that could compromise the integrity of those in one or both domains. Nevertheless, the practice of borrowing or licensing existing technologies for use in drones is not inherently problematic. There is reason to think that technology sharing is harmful when there is clear evidence of waste- ful spending, misappropriation, or inappropriate recruiting practices, but critiques of civil–military technology sharing do not stop at these clear cases of corruption. As the above examples illustrate, many commenta- tors suggest that even mundane instances of technology sharing induce civilians to join the military, train civilians to fi ght, or trivialize war. That is to say, these critics suggest that any form of civil–military sharing could infl uence how people think about war. This type of ideational critique is most prominent when the offending technologies cited by critics of drone warfare are associated with entertainment, as evidenced by the objections to using Xbox controllers in military roles. These critiques suggest that there is something disconcerting about the military borrow- ing civilian entertainment devices—especially when soldiers may be using similar devices to kill people.

It is unclear why it should matter, at least from a moral perspective, that some technologies have both civilian and military applications. Global positioning systems (GPS) are used in missile guidance systems as well as in the commercially available devices that guide drivers. Some synthetic materials, such as nylon, have their origins in military research programs. And certain techniques for food preservation, including canning and the substitution of margarine for butter, were fi rst adopted by armies strug- gling with logistical impediments. These kinds of technology sharing are not morally problematic, especially when the military and civilian applica- tions of the technologies are usually far removed from each other. It is

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unlikely that many people who play an Xbox or use an iTouch know that these devices have military applications (unless they are already in the mili- tary and familiar with the control systems), which makes it unlikely that using these devices will increase support for military operations or other- wise cause problematic shifts in civilians’ attitudes toward war.

It makes sense for developers to create controls that will be familiar to most users, as in the case of drone controls being modeled on controls used for videogame consoles. Armed forces regularly make use of skills that soldiers have learned during civilian life. They seek recruits who are in good physical condition, which usually assumes that they were physi- cally active prior to joining the military. They likewise seek recruits who are intelligent, which requires previous education in civilian schools. The military’s practice of taking advantage of recruits’ capacities and actively seeking those whose civilian aptitudes would make them good soldiers typically goes unnoticed, so why should we respond harshly when militar- ies try to make the best use of recruits’ experience in playing videogames or using other digital media?

Technology sharing seems benign when it is largely invisible and cannot have any plausible persuasive function. Stahl’s comment about an Xbox processor serving as a model for the design of the Predator is a prime example of this. 12 It would be concerning if Xbox was used to promote the use of Predator drones or if Predators were used to advertise game systems, as this would represent a dangerous effort to infl uence people’s judgments about drones through subversion. It is not clear why it should matter that military and civilian technologies share some parts when this cannot plausibly be a mechanism of promoting war or discouraging civic engagement in military affairs. If anything, it is less objectionable for the military to borrow existing technologies or even to license them from civil- ian companies than for the military to spend taxpayer money on unneces- sary research and development costs.

We should conclude that while it is good to carefully scrutinize the rela- tions of production that make drones possible and to actively resist waste- ful spending, the unrestrained growth of the military–industrial complex, and the production of militaristic propaganda, we should not assume that all civil–military relationships are harmful. Drone technologies have been characterized by a high degree of civil–military interaction and yet much of that interaction seems to be benign and insuffi cient to suggest that there is something morally objectionable about drones.

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THE EFFECTS OF MEDIATION ON CIVILIAN POPULATIONS A related concern about drones is that they may raise new prospects for manipulating the civilian public. Because drones mediate war, placing machines between the human opponents on either side, they could argu- ably be used to create a distorted view of what war is like and what its effects are. This mediated vision of war could also infl uence civilian audi- ences’ attitudes about drones or about war in general by making it easier to selectively present information about how attacks are carried out and what costs they have. Civilians could not only be prevented from seeing the unfortunate consequences drone strikes may have on innocent people but might also be distracted from ever engaging in critical inquiry by the fl ashy videos of drones launching precise attacks against enemy military targets. Moreover, this infl uence could arguably be enacted via the kind of civil–military technology sharing I discussed in the previous section as civilian media producers are often complicit in creating the military spec- tacles for civilian audiences. 13

This concern is probably most effectively and famously expressed by James Der Derian in his discussion of the concept of virtuous war. 14 Der Derian does not focus on drones, but rather objects to a pervasive ten- dency in the representation of war that drones and other precision weap- ons participate in. As he sees it, contemporary wars and representations of war are marked by the logic of ‘virtuous war,’ which is a way of showing the action of combat without the consequences. Details like dead bodies, displaced populations, and ruined infrastructures are omitted to give the appearance that war is a relatively clean and casualty-free activity. This is a trend Der Derian thinks is increasing and that is closely related to robotic weapons. As he says, ‘[t]he low risk, high yield strategy of virtuous war has a logic of its own, in which the human role is shrinking in numbers and signifi cance in an increasingly robotic battlespace.’ 15

Many others have expressed similar concerns, either by relying explic- itly on the concept of virtuous war or by developing other accounts of the underlying phenomenon of the sanitization of war. Stahl high- lights the extent to which drones are part of a larger process of merg- ing entertainment and war, with the result that civilian culture becomes militarized. He argues that militainment has expanded dramatically in recent decades and has become more insidious as it has shifted from treat- ing audiences as passive spectators to treating them like ‘virtual citizen- soldiers’ who are active participants in simulated wars. For Stahl, drones

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are particularly important in this process because they make it possible to wage war in the manner of a ‘sci-fi dystopia.’ 16 The ethical problem he raises is that militarized culture encourages citizens, who should be critical judges of war, to become engaged in fantasies in which they are compla- cent members of the military. Military entertainment thus appears to be a way of subverting democratic accountability and ensuring that citizens will be too busy playing war to raise any concerns about real wars.

Finally, Apel argues that real information about war is presented in care- fully constructed ways that are apt to mislead viewers. ‘Like video games, the footage of war experience edited and set to music appeals to the young and creates a decontextualized and depoliticized effect that heightens vis- ceral sensations while derealizing the less entertaining effects of war.’ 17 Apel cites drones as a prime example of this tendency as she argues that videos of drone attacks posted online glorify the strikes by showing their technical precision for those who like to see ‘things blow up without see- ing the blood and gore.’ 18 As with Stahl, this characterization of the per- suasive effects of media identifi es drones as being a particularly insidious tool for manipulating civilian audiences.

Those who object to biased ways of presenting war are correct in not- ing that there is something disconcerting about using drones or other technologies to conceal the costs of fi ghting. I agree with them in think- ing that it is unethical to use drone footage or other types of imagery to deceive the civilian public or to escape regulative constraints. Citizens of democratic societies must have access to information about war; they need reliable information to make reasonable decisions about whether to support military actions, weapons procurements, and the policymakers who are responsible for making military policy. Without this information citizens may not be able to exert the pressure on elected offi cials that is essential for maintaining popular sovereignty. Nevertheless, as with the other problems I have discussed, this critique is an instance of legitimate fears being poorly framed.

This objection, like so many of the other criticisms raised against drones, picks out a few possible misuses of drones while ignoring the many ways in which drones might be used responsibly. It is true that drones could hide the costs of war from drone operators or the general public, and that some videos may have had this effect because they were carefully edited or framed inaccurately. But as I will discuss later, it is also possible for drones to be used to provide more accurate information and increase gov- ernment accountability. Drones do not simply increase the prospects for

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dissimulation. Rather, they increase the prospects for dissimulation while also, and unavoidably, raising unprecedented prospects for accurately rep- resenting war. They may be used to mislead or to inform. Deciding which role they play is a political challenge that is best approached through the kinds of regulations I will discuss later. In particular, the possibility that drones may distort war highlights the importance of having independent oversight of drone use and ensuring that members of the military are not able to alter the videos before they are reviewed by oversight bodies.

Most weapons of modern warfare conceal the casualties they infl ict. In fact, this critique of drones could be applied more accurately to the many weapons that not only fail to show the consequences of their use under certain conditions but may not even be able to show those conse- quences under ideal conditions . Bombers, artillery, mortars, and landmines are regularly used against unseen enemies without producing records of their consequences. That is to say, they naturally hide the costs they infl ict even under ideal conditions because video records are not a normal by- product of operating these weapons. Policymakers and members of the military may sometimes hide the costs of drone strikes, but they do this despite the fact that the mediated nature of drone operations makes them naturally amenable to creating video records. Drones’ latent potentials do not increase the scope of immoral conduct (the concealment of war), but do signifi cantly increase the opportunities for disseminating information about war. We should not condemn drones for the misuse of the video records. Rather, we should recognize that drones increase the prospects of making battlefi elds more transparent and condemn the people who fail to take advantage of this capacity.

MEDIATION’S INFLUENCE ON DRONE OPERATORS Many critics of drones raise concerns about the effects that distance and mediation may have on soldiers’ ethical sensitivity. Two closely related concerns tend to come up. First, there is the chance that distance may reduce soldiers’ ethical awareness or attention to the consequences of their actions. According to this reasoning, a soldier that is considering whether to attack people who are nearby is more inclined to empathize with those people than a drone operator who is stationed thousands of miles away. The soldier on the ground may be in daily contact with people from the area and could have a sense of their humanity, while the drone operator would only perceive the people as potential targets. Johansson says that

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‘one problem with the use of UAVs today is that the operators may be based on the other side of the globe, making it all dangerously similar to a computer game.’ 19

Second, there is the possibility that drones may reduce empathy because of the mediated nature of their violence. Drone operators never see their targets with their own eyes. Rather, they see targets on a computer screen, and often from a different perspective than one they would ordinarily have when interacting with other people. This mediation, critics argue, makes it diffi cult for drone operators to see their targets as people and therefore undermines any sense of shared humanity that may sustain ethi- cal obligations. Enemark argues that ‘[t]he ethical rules of war arguably derive largely “from our physical embodiment” which in turn gives us “our sense of agency and responsibility for our actions.”’ 20 And accord- ing to Chamayou, the view drone operators have of others ‘serves not to represent objects but to act upon them, to target them. The function of the eye is that of a weapon.’ 21

Although analytically separable, since one is based on physical prox- imity and the other is based on the computer that mediates the interac- tion between the drone operator and a target, these criticisms are often applied together as two mechanisms that combine to lower drone opera- tors’ empathy. Benjamin argues that ‘[w]hen military operations are con- ducted through the fi lter of a far-away video camera, there is no possibility of making eye contact with the enemy and fully realizing the human cost of an attack.’ 22 Thus, she raises concerns about distance and mediation jointly degrading drone operators’ capacities for acting humanely. Sparrow makes a similar point, though calling attention to the absence of the affec- tive links that he thinks moral valuations depend on. ‘Emotions such as compassion, joy, love, or empathy or moral attitudes such as respect are unlikely to develop or be sustained in a context where warfi ghters are thousands of miles away from their purported objects.’ 23

These objections to the use of drones do have some degree of sup- port. It is well-established that people tend to form a much stronger sense of ethical responsibility when they are in close proximity or share an identity. 24 There may be biological roots to this that have developed over the course of human evolution. 25 However, critics of drones fail to recognize the vast differences between domestic and military contexts. In domestic settings, we are primed to avoid harming other people and respect their rights against being attacked. War is clearly a radically different context. Soldiers are expected to kill each other. They are

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primed to see their enemies as hostile and dangerous people who have to be killed—perhaps even as subhuman monsters who are inherently threatening. Belligerents prepare soldiers for war by deliberately sup- pressing feelings of empathy that could hinder combat effectiveness, and they have proven to be very effective in leading soldiers to kill each other at close range.

Claims that distance or mediation cause an escalation of violence are not supported by evidence from previous confl icts. This could hardly be more obvious as the entire history of warfare until the twentieth century is a testament to how easily people can kill each other at close range and without any technological mediation. Soldiers have killed each other in droves with swords, spears, arrows, and blunt objects. A number of recent studies have shown that wars have actually infl icted far fewer casualties as violence has become more heavily mediated. 26 Moreover, even in an era when most weapons are used at long range and are in some way mediated, atrocities continue to be carried out when these supposed barriers are not in place. The most egregious humanitarian disasters of the past two centu- ries were largely carried out without help from distance or mediation. The Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the ‘killing fi elds’ in Cambodia come to mind as just a few of the many examples of atrocities perpetrated at close range.

It is interesting that Dave Grossman’s in-depth study of the psychol- ogy of killing has become the most commonly cited source of evidence that distance facilitates killing. 27 In some respects this is understandable. Grossman argues that people have a natural aversion to killing, especially at close range. This would appear to suggest that any weapon that is able to mediate or increase the range of violence would lead to more killing. Grossman’s argument is doubtful given the massive body of evidence to show that people can kill at any range and the empirical shortcomings of many of his cases. 28 However, even if we assume that there is a natu- ral aversion to close-range combat, Grossman argues that this feeling is suppressed by military training. Indeed, many of his other writings are directed at showing how easily the aversion to killing can be overcome. He even goes so far as to argue that violent video games have desensitized players and turned them into killers. If this were true, then Grossman’s work could hardly be mobilized as evidence that close-range war is less violent or more ethical than remote war. On the contrary, he suggests that the real concern is the military indoctrination that cultivates a willingness to kill, not a particular weapon.

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Of course, soldiers do sometimes empathize with their opponents— even to the extent that they refused to attack them. Soldiers’ narratives of battle are replete with moments in which a soldier decided not to shoot an enemy who was temporarily humanized. These moments appear to have much less to do with distance or mediation than with mutual recognition of shared humanity or feelings of pity. Michael Walzer discusses several examples of soldiers who decided not to attack opponents because these feelings were so profound that they outweighed the intense political forces driving the soldiers to kill each other. The soldiers he describes decided not to attack opponents who were naked, alone, or otherwise unable to fi ght—soldiers who appeared to be helpless and non-threatening . A passage from George Orwell is particularly effective in conveying this experience:

At this moment a man, presumably carrying a message to an offi cer, jumped out of the trench and ran along the top of the parapet in full view. He was half-dressed and was holding up his trousers with both hands as he ran. I refrained from shooting at him…I did not shoot partly because of that detail about the trousers. I had come here to shoot at ‘Fascists’; but a man who is holding up his trousers isn’t a ‘Fascist,’ he is visibly a fellow-creature, similar to yourself, and you don’t feel like shooting at him. 29

The absence of threat is the central theme across Walzer’s stories of sol- diers who do not attack. Soldiers who are threatened by enemies must fi ght in self-defense, especially when they are at close range, while those who face non-threatening or distant enemies have greater freedom to refl ect on the act of killing and consider whether it is warranted. These stories therefore indicate that having a signifi cant advantage over oppo- nents and being physically distant from them might actually increase the prospects of soldiers showing empathy because it allows soldiers to make ethical decisions without having to worry about being attacked by the enemy whose life is spared.

Concerns over drones eroding ethical sympathies through distancing and computer mediation also rely on incorrect assumptions about how wars are waged when drones are not involved. The assumption seems to be that, in the absence of drones, soldiers would fi ght each other on relatively equal terms in face-to-face combat. But of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Most soldiers already fi ght in ways that put them at great distances from their opponents or that rely on com- puter mediation. Pilots who fl y combat aircraft frequently drop bombs on

THE MORAL LANDSCAPE OF DRONE WARFARE 69

unseen opponents from thousands of feet in the air or launch missiles at enemy aircraft that may only be visible as small blips on a radar. At times, strafi ng brings them close enough to see their targets, but only for brief glimpses. 30 They never have an opportunity to watch their opponents as intently as UAV pilots do. Soldiers who operate indirect fi re weapons like artillery, mortars, and long-range missiles are not only distant from their opponents but may also have little sense that they are fi ring at people at all. They direct their attacks against points on a map or grid coordinates relayed by soldiers in the fi eld.

Even for soldiers who are physically present on the battlefi eld and not inside vehicles, it is often exceedingly diffi cult to experience the human- ity of enemy combatants or to see those enemies in ways that might inspire some sense of empathy. During the recent confl icts in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was more common for Coalition soldiers to be wounded or killed by improvised explosive device (IEDs) than by enemy fi ghters they could see. 31 As Bellavia, a veteran of fi ghting in Fallujah says, ‘[i]n modern warfare, that man-to-man challenge is often hidden by modern technol- ogy  – the splash of artillery fi re can be random, a rocket or bomb or IED can be anonymous.’ 32 During combat, soldiers are apt to seek cover and concealment, which further impede direct contact. They camoufl age themselves to avoid being identifi ed as humans. They fi ght from inside of buildings, trenches, or bunkers, shielding themselves from enemy fi re, as well as from any sympathetic view they might receive from their adversar- ies. They do everything they can to be invisible to the enemy, or at least to only become visible for that instant when they are fi ghting and not apt to inspire feelings of empathy.

If anything, it seems that drones might be able to generate more opportunities to empathize with opponents. Because UAV operators can loiter over target areas for hours without facing any personal risk, they may watch potential targets without fear of being attacked and have more opportunities to understand and even empathize with them. UAVs cam- eras may likewise provide a much more intimate perspective than a soldier could have otherwise. Their overhead view gives their pilots an excellent view of the people in the target area, and when those pilots spend hours or even days tracking a potential target, they understand that person and others who may be affected far more by an attack than they would in a brief close-range gunfi ght.

Other types of drones may not be able to match UAVs when it comes to giving operators a clear view. Unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs)

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will have limited visual fi elds as they move across the ground and may be seen by enemy combatants, who could attempt to avoid detection. Naval drones are likely to be employed for intercepting boats and aircraft, which provides little opportunity for visually identifying human opponents. Nevertheless, these constraints on visibility are due to the terrain these drones operate in and the kinds of threat they may face. Even when they lack the same ability to track potential targets as UAVs, it is at least clear that drones will uniformly reduce the costs associated with attempting to visually identify and track enemies, while also increasing the accuracy of visual identifi cation with the assistance of optical equipment, which pro- vides much higher resolution than a human eye.

Of course, the visibility of potential targets does not guarantee empa- thy. It is obviously possible for a drone operator to remorselessly kill enemies and civilians alike. My point is not that drones will make the battlefi eld more humane, only that their latent potentials are such that we should expect that they will not cause any new problems associated with dehumanization and that they may provide new opportunities for visual experiences that could generate feelings of empathy. Based on these latent potentials, it is unfair to blame drones for making it easier to kill or to commit atrocities.

THE DRONE ARMS RACE In Chapter 2 , I discussed some of the many reasons why drones are attrac- tive to states and violent non-state actors and argued that their strong appeal ensures that they will become more widespread in future confl icts. The prospect of drone proliferation may be concerning in itself and has led some commentators to argue that drones could be morally problematic because of their potential to trigger an arms race. Sparrow contends that armed forces will be forced to develop drones to compete with potential opponents that have them. ‘Robotic weapons – and drones in particular – greatly accelerate the tempo of battle, which in turn places pressure on rival militaries to adopt these systems to be able to operate at the necessary pace.’ 33 As he sees it, drones will be not only attractive for the reasons I have mentioned but also necessary for any states or non-state actors that may wish to wage wars. One might imagine an evolutionary process taking place, in which belligerents that lack drones are either destroyed or forced to develop them, much as European states were once compelled to develop standing militaries for fear of being overwhelmed by rivals that did so. 34

THE MORAL LANDSCAPE OF DRONE WARFARE 71

Boyle presents a particularly bleak vision of the future of international secu- rity by identifying fi ve negative repercussions associated with a drone arms race. 35 First, other states may use drones in ways that confl ict with American interests. Second, they may undermine the existing international system and the logic of nuclear deterrence. Third, ‘lethal drones create the possibility that the norms on the use of force will erode, creating a much more danger- ous world and pushing the international system back towards the rule of the jungle.’ 36 Fourth, drones will create power asymmetries between those who have them and those who do not. Finally, drones will interfere with civil lib- erties by making it easier to conduct domestic surveillance.

Some of these arguments provide strong prudential grounds for the USA and its allies to oppose the proliferation of drones, yet they gener- ally fail to identify any moral concerns that could support a prohibition on drones. There is no compelling moral reason to think that weapons development should be restricted to prevent challenges to the USA, and still less reason to think that nuclear deterrence is morally preferable to deterrence based on less destructive weapons (especially since drones do not prevent nuclear deterrence from operating).

Drones are apt to create a security dilemma for states and non-state actors alike. This is ‘a situation in which each party’s efforts to increase its own security reduce the security of others.’ 37 Because most available drones are offensive weapons platforms that derive their capacities for risk management from their ability to launch attacks away from the areas where drone operators are based, they are particularly likely to prompt rivals to develop their own offensive drone capacities to counter any unmanned threat they may face. The USA is largely responsible for initiating this security dilemma and has been justifi ably criticized for doing this with- out taking adequate steps to impose restrictions on drone operations. 38 However, now that multiple states and non-state actors are involved in developing drones, the groundwork for a multilateral drone arms race is fi rmly in place. States and non-state actors now have strong incentives to develop drones faster than their rivals and equally strong disincentives against unilaterally attempting to limit drone production.

A drone arms race is arguably already in progress, with many states and non-state actors making greater use of drones while also attempting to improve their capacities for building and maintaining drones domesti- cally. We can see European states beginning to create their own drones, China unveiling drones that are closely modeled on American UAVs, 39 and Russian drones operating in Syria, 40 as well as US forces developing

72 M. SCHULZKE

weapons that can destroy enemy drones. 41 Security dilemmas are usually a cause for concern as they may produce confl icts as a by-product of cycles of competition and escalation. Butterfi eld argues that ‘the greatest war in history could be produced without the intervention of any great criminals who might be out to do deliberate harm to the world’ simply because their efforts to provide for their own security may lead them into confl ict. 42 If competition is carried out primarily, or even partly, through the develop- ment of drones, then one may wonder whether the pursuit of technological advantages in war could provoke dangerous escalations or even cause wars.

Fears of arms races increasing the likelihood of confl ict and intensifying wars are well-founded because many arms races are driven by an urge to create more powerful weapons. Arms races that result in the introduction of more destructive and expensive weapons that are less suited for being used in accordance with just war restrictions are objectionable. The race to develop bigger and more powerful nuclear devices during the Cold War is a prime example of the negative repercussions this type of competition can have. It increased American and Soviet capacities for using force in immoral ways and caused repeated confl icts that risked escalation into an immensely destructive war.

I argue that drones are causing a much different kind of arms race. Thus far, the rush to develop drones has resulted in a proliferation of machines that are designed for reconnaissance and precise strikes against military targets—machines that allow belligerents to wage wars using more restricted levels of force and show heightened respect for non-combatant immunity. Moreover, the leading contenders in this race are armed forces that already have immensely powerful weapons, including nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). By arming themselves with drones, these belligerents are not increasing their existing capacities for immense destruction but rather developing the means of engaging in more limited and targeted acts of violence. This kind of arms race marks an encouraging improvement in weapons innovation as older and more destructive weapons are increasingly marginalized by the competition to introduce more precise weapons. ‘For the fi rst time, we are directing our defense laboratory wizardry along the azimuth of self-restraint.’ 43

Belligerents that do not wish to comply with the principle of non- combatant immunity may choose to develop drones for attacks on civil- ians. Drones could be fairly effective instruments of civilian victimization, but the incentives for using them in this way are not very strong. There are already countless varieties of ranged or indirect weapons, such as rockets,

THE MORAL LANDSCAPE OF DRONE WARFARE 73

artillery, IEDs, and landmines that can be used to carry out cheap and terrifying indiscriminate attacks. These organizations hardly need drones to harm civilians and are apt to prefer powerful weapons that are better suited for mass casualty attacks.

One could argue that the character of the drone arms race could change and lead to the creation of weapons that are less capable of being operated in accordance with moral and legal restrictions, yet this does not appear likely for two reasons. First, part of the impetus for developing more pow- erful weapons in the past was due to the weapons’ inaccuracies. The Soviet Union developed far more powerful nuclear warheads than the USA and had a nuclear strike doctrine that was more heavily based on attacking civilian populations (‘countervalue targeting’ in the language of nuclear strategy). 44 This was partly due to the Soviet’s poorer targeting systems, which were unable to accurately hit American nuclear facilities and had to compensate for that weakness by delivering more destructive warheads. By contrast, the USA had more accurate targeting systems and correspond- ingly tended to favor strikes against enemy military targets (‘counterthreat targeting’). Drones make it possible to identify and attack targets with greater accuracy than ever before, thereby obviating the need for ‘coun- tervalue’ strikes or for overpowered WMDs.

There is a chance that the current trends in drone innovation will not persist and that drones will one day become more destructive and indis- criminate weapons, despite indications to the contrary. It would be naïve to suggest that this is an impossible outcome, especially given the chal- lenges inherent in predicting the unintended consequences of technologi- cal development. Nevertheless, this risk is outweighed by the potential for drones to mitigate wars’ destructiveness and can be managed politically. In recent decades, states have made unprecedented efforts to reduce stock- piles of, and prevent violence using, a broad range of morally question- able weapons, including nuclear weapons, landmines, weapons platforms in space, and chemical weapons. 45 As I will discuss in Chapters 7 and 8 , efforts to regulate war and the use of particular weapons can also help to ensure that drone development continues on its current trajectory.

CONCLUSION In this chapter I have explored some of the many criticisms that have been raised against drones to clarify what is at issue in the debate over these revolutionary new weapons platforms and how the moral questions surrounding them should be evaluated. My goal is not to show that these

74 M. SCHULZKE

criticisms are simply wrong as some raise some very important concerns that should weigh into our analysis of drone warfare. Rather, I contend that these arguments have overstated legitimate worries that are best addressed via political solutions. Each of the arguments are informed by some reasonable moral concerns, such as the morality of killing suspected terrorists based on poor evidence or the potential for footage of combat to be presented in misleading ways, yet they fail to provide grounds for thinking that drones are inherently immoral or even that drones will typi- cally be used immorally in practice.

The limitations of these critiques of drones hold two central lessons. First, they indicate the importance of distinguishing between the moral issues related to drones’ inherent characteristics and those related to how drones are used in practice by particular belligerents. In particular, these critiques show that drones do not raise any genuinely new problems— problems that do not affect other weapons and tactics that are already widely used by violent actors. The problems refl ect general moral issues pertaining to how military force is applied, and in many cases, they are problems that drones may actually help to alleviate. Thus, we can see that drones could mediate violence and that they make it possible to conduct targeted killings, but that they mediate violence in ways that are prob- ably less morally concerning than indirect fi re weapons and that may infl ict fewer civilian casualties than alternative methods of targeted killing. Second, these moral concerns highlight the necessity of fi nding political solutions to the moral controversies surrounding drones. I will discuss these insights in more detail over the following chapters as I consider the moral advantages that drones present and respond to other criticisms that have been raised against drones and that are grounded in just war theory.

NOTES 1. Steve Niva, ‘Disappearing Violence: JSOC and the Pentagon’s New

Cartography of Networked Warfare.’ Security Dialogue 44, no.3 (2013):185–202, p.195.

2. Medea Benjamin, Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control (New York: OR Books, 2012).

3. Grégorie Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone (New York: The New Press, 2015), p.75.

4. John Frederick Charles Fuller, Tanks in the Great War 1914–18 (Uckfi eld: Naval & Military Press, 2011); Peter Hart, The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

THE MORAL LANDSCAPE OF DRONE WARFARE 75

5. Stuart Robson, The First World War (New York: Routledge, 2007), pp.73–5

6. Gordon Rottman, The M16 (Oxford: Osprey, 2011). 7. Roger Stahl, Militainment, Inc.: War, Media, and Popular Culture (New

York: Routledge, 2009), p.91. 8. P.W.  Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Confl ict in the

21st Century (New York: Penguin Press, 2009). 9. Jai Galliott, Military Robots: Mapping the Moral Landscape (Burlington,

VT: Ashgate, 2015), p.142. 10. Singer, Wired for War , p. 68. 11. Benjamin, Drone Warfare , 86. 12. Stahl, Militainment, p.91. 13. Colin McInnes, ‘Spectator Sport Warfare.’ Contemporary Security Policy

20, no. 3 (1999), pp.142–165; Colin McInnes, Spectator Sport War: The West and Contemporary Confl ict (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002).

14. James Der Derian, ‘War as a Game.’ The Brown Journal of World Affairs 10, no.1 (2003): 37–48; James Der Derian, Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network (New York: Routledge, 2009).

15. Derian, ‘War as a Game,’ 41. 16. Roger, Militainment p.47. 17. Dora Apel, War Culture and the Contest of Images (New Brunswick, NJ:

Rutgers University Press, 2012), p.181. 18. Ibid., p. 182. 19. Linda Johansson, ‘Is it Morally Right to Use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

(UAVs) in War?’ Philosophy & Technology 24, no. 3 (2011):279–291, p.285.

20. Christian Enemark, Armed Drones and the Ethics of War: Military Virtue in a Post-Heroic Age (New York: Routledge, 2013), 85.

21. Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone , p.114. 22. Benjamin, Drone Warfare , p. 156. 23. Robert Sparrow, ‘Building a Better WarBot: Ethical Issues in the Design

of Unmanned Systems for Military Applications.’ Science and Engineering Ethics 15, no. 2 (2009):169–187, p.181.

24. David Miller, ‘The Ethical Signifi cance of Nationality.’ Ethics 98, no. 4 (1988):647–62.

25. Michael Ruse and E.O. Wilson, ‘Evolution and Ethics.’ New Scientist no. 108, (1985):50–52; Michael Ruse, ‘Evolutionary Ethics: A Phoenix Arisen.’ Zygon: Journal of Science and Religion 21 no. 1 (1986):95–112.

26. See for example: Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (New York: Viking, 2012); Joshua S.  Goldstein, Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed Confl ict Worldwide (New York: Penguin, 2011). The accuracy of studies is debated, but at a mini-

76 M. SCHULZKE

mum, these studies demonstrate that mass killing is by no means a mod- ern phenomenon that depends on distance or mediation.

27. See for example: Enemark, Armed Drones and the Ethics of War , pp.93–4; Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone , pp.115–118; Jai Galliott, Military Robots: Mapping the Moral Landscape (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015), pp.128–142.

28. Grossman’s evidence is heavily based on S.L.A.  Marshall’s research (S.L.A.  Marshall, Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000)), but Marshall’s fi nd- ings are dubious. They were collected unscientifi cally, and some may have been falsifi ed. For more detailed discussions of this, see: John Whiteclay Chambers II, ‘S.L.A.  Marshall’s Men Against Fire: New Evidence Regarding Fire Ratios.’ Parameters Autumn, (2003):113–21; Evan Thomas, ‘A Myth of Military History.’ Newsweek December 11, (2007) http://www.newsweek.com/myth-military-history-94505 [Accessed 21 May, 2015].

29. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 2006), p.140.

30. Dan Hampton, Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat (New York: Harper Collins, 2012).

31. Gregg Zoroya, ‘How the IED changed the U.S. military.’ USA Today December 19, (2013) http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/ 2 0 1 3 / 1 2 / 1 8 / i e d - 1 0 - y e a r s - b l a s t - w o u n d s - a m p u t a t i o n s / 3803017/ [Accessed 1 December, 2015].

32. David Bellavia and John R. Bruning, House to House: An Epic of Urban Warfare (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), p.112.

33. Robert Sparrow, ‘War without virtue?’ In Killing By Remote Control , edited by Bradley Jay Strawser (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013): 84–105, p.87.

34. Charles Tilly, ‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime.’ In Bringing the State Back In , edited by Rueschmeyer, Evans, and Skocpol (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

35. Boyle, ‘The Costs and Consequences of Drone Warfare,’ p.23–26. 36. Ibid., p.25. 37. Jack Snyder and Robert Jervis, ‘Civil War and the Security Dilemma.’ In

Civil Wars, Insecurity and Intervention , edited by Barbara F. Walter and Jack Snyder (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), p.16.

38. Boyle, ‘The Costs and Consequences of Drone Warfare.’ 39. Franz-Stefan Gady, ‘China Unveils Its Largest Killer Drone To Date.’ The

Diplomat September 02, (2015) http://thediplomat.com/2015/09/ china-unveils-its-largest-killer-drone-to-date/ [Accessed 1 December, 2015].

THE MORAL LANDSCAPE OF DRONE WARFARE 77

40. Jamie Crawford, ‘Russia launches drones in Syria.’ CNN September 22, (2015) http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/21/politics/russia-flies- drones-over-syria/ [Accessed 1 December, 2015].

41. Joseph Trevithick, ‘The U.S.  Army plans to obliterate Russian and Chinese drones with a huge chain gun.’ The Week July 23, (2015) http://theweek. com/articles/567635/army-plans-obliterate- russian-chinese-drones-huge- chain-gun [Accessed 1 December, 2015].

42. Herbert Butterfi eld, History and Human Relations (New York: Collins, 1951), pp. 19–20.

43. David A. Koplow, Death by Moderation: The U.S. Military’s Quest for Useable Weapons (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 18.

44. Charles L.  Glaser, Analyzing Strategic Nuclear Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990).

45. Guido Den Dekker Dekker, The Law of Arms Control: International Supervision and Enforcement (London: Martinus Nijhoff, 2001); David A.  Koplow, Death by Moderation: The U.S.  Military’s Quest for Useable Weapons (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010); David A.  Koplow, Non-Lethal Weapons: The Law and Policy of Revolutionary Technologies for the Military and Law Enforcement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

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