David Eden

March 8, 2015

English 1000

Journal 4

In this journal, I wanted to look at the opposing view points of some critics of drone strikes, and see their validity.

BOYLE, MICHAEL J. "The Costs And Consequences Of Drone Warfare." International Affairs 89.1 (2013): 1-29. Academic Search Complete. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.

In this article, Boyle discusses three of the main arguments that have surfaced while discusses drone activities: that drones are more effective at killing terrorists with minimal civilian casualties, that drones are better at killing high value targets, and drones diminish terrorist groups from being able to launch an attack.  Drone strikes have been keep very classified over the years, and the actual death count has been a mystery for years to the public.  There have been some estimates released over the years, but the numbers vary drastically which only makes the public more suspicious of the government.  This number is also skewed because anti-American newspapers or anti-war papers also inflate the numbers, or they switch the names of militants to civilians to cause more dramatic articles.  The US Military has been able to underestimate the numbers effectively by adopting a controversial death count, which inflates the number of militants killed and lowers the number of civilians killed, which also includes what has been know as “guilt by association.”  When talking about the second argument, Boyle says states that the government has been open about its willingness to use drone strikes on high valued targets, and that it will not hesitate to use drones instead of troops.  But the government also uses drones on middle level operatives of terrorist groups, who can be much more affiliated with tribes.  This could lead to swelling in the numbers of new terrorists that could be ready to fight.  For the third argument, Boyle states that drone strikes don’t just neutralize terrorist groups, if fact they scatter them out, sometimes t different countries like Yemen, Syria, and other neighboring countries.  This posses an even bigger problem for the US, because they cannot launch strikes into those countries, and sometimes these countries have much more organized and stronger anti-American groups.

While reading this article, I started to think about how these arguments could be seen as very valid.  But after going back over his arguments, I questioned if they really help the United States and their war on terror.  Especially the last argument, and I agree that drone strikes and their known presence would help to deter terrorist groups from training outside, but if they force these middle tier terrorists to seek refuge in other countries, that would poses much bigger problems.  It would start to share their anti-American views globally, and it would mean more believers, and they could start to operate from unknown places, leaving our military useless to fight them.  It even could allow them to combine with other radical groups, and could give them a much broader and larger recruitment pool to find willing soldiers.  However, drone strikes do help when taking on higher profile targets, which are usually in more heavily guarded or remote locations, which would be very costly if they were to use troops.  This reduces the rick to our soldiers and their lives, but some argue that it increases the risk to civilians near or around the target location.  This has been hard to prove, and since the government hasn’t provided an exact number of civilian deaths, speculation and guessing have driven the number sky high.  And the government still wouldn’t release a number, which makes me question how open our government is about its dealings with drones and their missions.

If I were to synthesize this article, I would say that Boyle would argue that drones are not the best solution to our activities in the Middle East.  He would agree with the other authors about the legality of the strikes, and how our involvement in the view of the public in foreign lands is not great.  By weighing the costs and benefits of the drone strikes, Boyle would definitely seek other options.

For my next article, I would look to question some of the activities in region, as well as some of the government programs that operate drones in the Middle East.  I would also start to look at some of the activities that separate drone pilots form normal pilots, and how each one id affected by its daily activities.