Drone Policy Scrutinized

The media and blogosphere are abuzz these days on drone policy as Obama nominee for CIA director John Brennan, a strong supporter of ongoing drone strikes, undergoes his hearing.  The Diane Rehm Show on NPR hosted an interesting conversation on the subject yesterday. A colleague of mine at CUA also wrote a piece on the ethics of drone strikes while reflecting on just war tradition (this became an issue b/c a leaked Justice Department memo used just war theory as part of its legal basis for drone strikes.

The Administration touts the drone program as a success based on the number of kills and the assumed reduction in insurgent attacks which would have taken innocent lives. The truth is, counterfactuals are difficult to measure, and it's difficult to verify the effectiveness of a program when its mostly run under the radar. At the same time, the very success of the drone program may be related to its clandestine nature.

Activists, reporters, and human rights groups have been arguing that drone strikes, or more accurately civilian casualties associated with drone strikes, are creating more enemies (Brennan disputes this argument).  More awareness = more backlash = more legal, diplomatic, and PR obstacles for the CIA and military to clear. While the intelligence community might believe that such obstacles would hinder the effectiveness of drones there might be some argument for claiming that it could improve the program in the long run by a) developing strategy, technology, and operational doctrine which aim to further reduce collateral damage; b) providing greater clarity on rules which may protect our interests as other actors begin to acquire drone capabilities; c) give drone attacks greater public legitimacy here and abroad - it remains high among the U.S. public, but may drop with more attention.

Now that the "cat's out of the bag" meaning increased scrutiny domestically by Congress and public,  and more countries will acquiring or expanding use of drone technology internationally, it will be interesting to see how drone surveillance/strikes and its legal framework unfolds. Will other countries build their legal basis for strikes based on precedence set by the U.S. actions? Imagine a scenario where Mexico kills suspected drug lords in Tijuana; China conducts surveillance on Tibetans; or Iran attacks suspected U.S. military facilities in Iraq.

Some other interesting tidbits I learned from this week's burst of news: U.S., Great Britain, and Israel are the only three countries with armed drones. China is probably next. Also, Pakistan, which in the past publicly condemned but privately condoned drone attacks may be shifting its position. To date, the U.S. has conducted more strikes (347) in Pakistan than any other place. Washington post has a nifty tracker for this data along with data for Yemen and Somalia, the two other countries where drone strikes have been a regular occurrence.

Update #1: Washington post reports Obama Administration still has not revealed how drone policy would become more transparent.  As Karen DeYoung argues, "The question now is how much more the administration can say without violating secrecy restrictions on its own covert actions [or I might add compromising the security of missions involving drones]".