The Moral Justification for Drone Use

There Are Worse Things Than Death: The Moral Justification for Drone Use

Whenever someone brings up how terrible a war was, they focus on the number of people who died.  When people want to discuss the morals of drone use, they focus on the civilian death toll.  Under international law the rules regarding proportionality, the amount of force allowed compared to the overall objective, focus on costs solely in terms of human life:

“Launching an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, is prohibited.”(The Laws of War)

The literature and academics rarely address the fact that for some of those involved in war, there are worse things than death during conflict.  When discussing why drone use is moral Bradley Strawser argues that the military institutions in the United States have a moral obligation to soldiers to never prut their lives at risk unnecessarily.  Drones, which allow a soldier serving in Nevada to attack militants serving in Iraq in a matter of minutes, help keep soldiers off the battlefield.

“The best empirical evidence suggests that drones are more precise, result in fewer unintended deaths of civilian bystanders, and better protect their operators from risk than other weapons, such as manned aircraft, carrying out similar missions. Other things being equal, then, drones should be used in place of other less accurate and riskier weapons.”(Strawser in The Guardian)

While this is arguably a valid argument regarding the morals surrounding drone use, it fails to address the vulnerability of an often forgotten subset of the population - women and children.  Often times the impact of physical intervention on vulnerable populations is overlooked when discussing the morality of drones.  Patrick Lin and Drew Cohen take up this line of thinking in their articles on the ethics of drone warfare.  They argue that drones are

“unaffected by emotion and adrenaline and hunger. They're immune to sleep deprivation, low morale, fatigue, etc. that would cloud our judgment. They can see through the "fog of war", to reduce unlawful and accidental killings. And they can be objective, unblinking observers to ensure ethical conduct in wartime. So robots can do many of our jobs better than we can, and maybe even act more ethically, at least in the high-stress environment of war.” (Lin: Drone-Ethics Briefing)

This argument shows that because drones are able to separate soldiers from conditions under which they would be more likely to commit atrocities, they can help mitigate the occurrence of atrocities during conflict.  

The flip side of this argument comes from theorists such as Christian Enemark who would argue that emotions are a necessary component of ethics because robots lack the compassion needed to make the decision to kill a human being.  (Enemark: Armed Drones) While this argument may be true for fully autonomous weaponry, I think Lin and Cohen's point is more valid regarding the current use of drones.The comparable rates of PTSD between on-the-ground combatants in Afghanistan and Iraq and drone operators in Nevada suggests that drone operators are not as emotionally removed regarding the impact of their actions as Enemark would argue. (NYT: Drone Pilots & PTSD) They are removed just enough to prevent atrocities, but not enough to encourage them.    

How Drone Use Has Changed Somalia

In 1993 Canadian soldiers were accused of murdering civilians in Somalia.  Four years later reports surfaced that Belgian troops had been committing atrocities against a population they were supposed to be protecting.  Photographs were released showing Belgian soldiers urinating on dead Somali men and burning a man alive over a camp fire. (Justice for Crimes Against Humanity pg. 138)

In addition to these abuses there have been reports of high levels of rape of women and children from soldiers, peacekeepers, and those offering humanitarian assistance.  Thousands of women and children were subjected to severe physical and psychological abuse throughout the decades of conflict in the country.  (HRW: Abuse in Somalia)

Today, America and her allies are fighting to eliminate the terrorist group al-Shabaab, which openly declared allegiance to al Qaeda.  This group is located in Somalia and Kenya and has been responsible for several hundred deaths over the last couple years.  The US has chosen a targeted killing policy (using drone strikes) to help eliminate the threat al-Shabaab poses to stability in the region. (BBC: Who is al-Shababb)  Since strikes began 100 militants have been killed, several of which have been senior members of al-Shaabb.  (NYT: US Targets al-Shabaab) Five civilians have been killed in these strikes.  While the loss of civilians is lamentable, and should be taken very seriously, the benefit of using drones has significant consequences for Somalia.  If drones are able to help eliminate the threat posed by al-Shabaab without putting more forces on the ground, the US can help eliminate the possibility of further atrocities being committed by foreigners.

UN Scandal Surrounding Rape in Central African Republic

“This is something that has happened repeatedly and it happens a lot and it gets covered up.” -Elliot Hill on abuse of civilians by invading forces. 

Obviously this argument creates a significant moral dilemma for makers and implementers of foreign policy. How much weight should be given to each type of atrocity when determining appropriate forms of intervention in conflict?  I'm not trying to argue that it is worse for a woman or child to be raped than for a man to be killed.  Is it fair to say that the rape of 100 women should be viewed as less terrible than the death of a single man? I cannot say what the appropriate solution to this problem is, but it is a problem that has been mostly ignored by literature regarding drone use, and that in and of itself is a problem.

The lives affected by conflict situations are often those of the most vulnerable within the population, but often their voices are never heard.  During peace negotiations, trials for crimes against humanity, reintegration processes, and even aid disbursement, women and children have no voice.  They have no say in the conflict and they often have no say in rebuilding their lives afterwards.  It is important for theorists moving forward to help give this population a voice, to make sure that those most affected are finally heard. Because for some populations, there are worse things than death, and if drone use can help mitigate those atrocities then we, the aggressors, have a moral obligation to do so.

Francesca