Professor Jacqueline Hazelton analyzes the use of drones in the context of US foreign policy on Lawfare:
Analyzing drone strikes in this way determines that they provide little political benefitto the United States. As a tactical use of force against terrorists, attacks by U.S. unmanned aerial vehicles in under-governed spaces without public permission by the state may achieve short-term goals such as leadership decapitation at relatively lower financial and human cost than strikes by crewed craft. Drone strikes can support a handful of partnerships with weak, repressive states facing domestic terrorism or insurgency that the United States believes also pose a threat to itself. But the strikes cannot generate significant popular or state support for U.S. interests or policies or do serious political damage to U.S. adversaries. …
Questions about drone strikes must stretch beyond concerns about anti-Americanism, radicalization, and terrorism to consider the strikes’ political utility for broader U.S. interests. This analysis finds that whether one identifies anti-Americanisms as a significant threat to U.S. interests or not, and whether one identifies terrorism as a major threat to the United States or not, the role of drone strikes in assuring U.S. security at home and abroad is quite limited and likely to become more so as counter-drone efforts and others’ acquisition of drones reduce U.S. air supremacy, as seen with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and as the United States again faces state rather than non-state adversaries.
And leaves me with the question of whether the use of drones was purely a decision based on the politics of the moment by President Obama, or served more purposes than that. I’d like to think that his ability to plan for the long-term dictated the multi-purpose use of drones.
On another level, the development and use of drones is an effective demonstration to the world, to allies and enemies alike, of the efficacy of just such weapons – and possibly an inspiration. I can’t help but wonder if the enemies would have pursued the development of weaponry delivered by drones if the United States had declared that an investigation had yielded negative results?
