Drone Warfare.

Under the Obama administration, the use of aerial combat drones, such as reapers and predators, to target leaders of of Al-Qaeda and other militant groups in Pakistan have increased substantially. These attacks have served to accomplish many U.S. objectives as it allows precise attacks on the leaders of the opposing belligerents without risking the lives of soldiers. However, the use of drone warfare has met with significant opposition from the Pakistani locals and government, as well as the United Nations Human Rights Council. The increased use of drone attacks have been attributed to many cases of civilian casualties in Pakistan. By design, the use of drone warfare also constitutes as targeted killings, which some say are essentially assassinations.

I support the use of drone warfare, but I think there needs to be more clarity and regulations regarding its exercise. Operating under the Special Activities Division of the CIA allows the U.S. government to withhold information regarding targets and operations. It's a powerful tool, and thus it needs to be kept in check.

What are your thoughts on the use of drone warfare by the United States?

As a brit i cant speak for america...nor my own country to be honest, but i will voice out my own opinion, i personally think that Drones should be used only in extreme circumstances as not only are they incredibly expensive but the chance of civilian and allied casultys are pretty high, thats not saying i disagree with them, Drones have also saved lives of soldiers stuck in combat and have been proved to be useful in most circumstances. So i would like to see Drones being used but for assassinations and covert operations i think we should stick to good old special forces, like america with their Navy SEAL and england with the SAS, those two being two of the most fearsome, successful forces in teh world :)

War isn't a game. It seems that this country (I'm American btw) is losing touch with what war is all about. Its about killing people and being killed. If America isn't prepared to lose soldiers in a war, then the war should not be fought at all. Its that simple.

I never thought of using drones as assassinations. That's essentially what it is. It's not as precise as it should be and essentially kills any one nearby, civilians or otherwise. Drones are dangerous weapons that shouldn't be abused. And they shouldn't substitute for actual ground warfare. Part of war is witnessing man's atrocity's, not pushing a button from the safety of your headquarters.



I understand the need to not sacrifice soldiers needlessly. That's fine. But don't just use drones when soldiers could get the job done much more efficiently without the collateral damage.

I think you might be confused on what a drone is. The drones mentioned, such as the predator and reaper drones, are UAVs that are remote controlled back here in the U.S. When we use them for 'targeted killings', we're essentially controlling them and launching missiles from them from an air force base.




Drones are also very cheap when compared to developing modern day fighter jets. The MQ1 Predator program was around 2.3 billion and each Predator itself was 5-8 million. The F22 Raptor program was more than 65 billion with each unit another 150 million (excluding pilot training). Although the capabilities of drones are a lot less when compared to fighter jets, they can perform similar jobs without risking the life of a pilot as well as the ability to stay on standby and patrol for hours or even days.

Most of the time that's not true. Drone operators can take control thousands of miles away, which is one of the reasons why they're effective. All Reaper drone operators are stationed inside the continental U.S. at Creech Air Force Base.



It's targeted killings, and it's another way of saying assassinations (similar to terrorists vs. freedom fighters).

http://harvardnsj.com/2010/06/law-and-policy-of-targeted-killing/

edit: Yeah I wrote tactical killings by accident in my previous post, sorry.

From wiki: In the 1832 treatise "On War", Prussian military general and theoretician Carl Von Clausewitz defined war as follows: "War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will."

I find that to be an apt description of war. Of course, that's my opinion and your opinion is different. Who's right? It's not so simple.

The only restrictions on war are the decisions which are perceived as inhumane by other nations of nearly equal power or decisions which would anger the 3rd party nations. Other than that, "all is fair in love and war".

To be completely honest, I think it's a great idea and expect this kind of technology to become extremely prevalent in the military forces of major countries across the globe within the next ten years. The recent use of drones as tools for assassination is not surprising in the least. It is, in any other manner, incredibly expensive and hard to assassinate the leader of a country.

Do they need to be regulated? No, I could care less how the U.S. government uses their weapons against the enemies of their nation. It helps them accomplish their goals, ending the war faster.

Drone Warfare is great. I could care less for American soldiers or any soldier mainly because they chose that path. Assassination is the best weapon in war. Kill 1 save 1000. Still there should be some agency to prevent the misuse of this assassination weapon.

I think you might be confused on how a drone actually works.

Speaking as a member of the USAF and more specifically as a member of the career field that deals with the Pred/Reaper drones), you honestly have teams of people working with ONE drone. Fayte was right in his explanation; when you're working mission you aren't stuck in a desert 15000 miles from home, you're 10 minutes from the Wal-Mart just down main street. You've got a certain number of people each looking at the video feed who have gone through months of training on how to tell what is what when looking through a camera at 25000 feet. That analyst is calm, got a good nights sleep, and had a big ass meal before he got on shift.

All opposed to a pilot who's flying at the speed of sound, who has to concentrate not only on flying the plane, but also finding the target(s) and being sure not to hit friendlies. I'm not saying that a pilot is incapable of doing that job, we don't use UAV's for every little thing, but it's certainly much easier a job for the analyst team back home than the pilot there right now. As for calling them assassinations...well I can't really argue with that, but which would you rather risk to kill a group of terrorists? Ten soldiers with a family who loves them back home? Or a 50,000 dollar missile?

Of course, this is my job, so I may be a bit biased :P.

Sorry if I was unclear, but I was explaining to Fayte that these UAVs are controlled in an air force base back here in the US, and not in the area of engagement. I also want to let you know that I do support the use of drones since they provide the U.S. with a substantial amount of advantages and can maintain its presence for days, as you've mentioned.

I'm curious to hear from you regarding the how regulated and declassified most drone operations are. Do you mainly use drones for escort and reconnaissance or are you using them to attack militant groups and leaders? Have you ever taken the lives of civilians with an attack, or under an order?

I rather send a $50,000 guided missile in to take out a group of terrorists rather than a well trained team of people with families. Prime example of using your resources efficiently and effective. People are the most valuable components to any organization, putting them at risk is just plain stupid when you have other alternatives...in this case a missile with pinpoint accuracy. So what if there are a few cases of civilian casualties? There have been countless friendly fire cases as well. Drones offer a the same service as a NAVY SEAL team (in the sense that they take out the target) without any casualties on our side. I'm sure the US Army has done this risk benefit analysis already before they actually decided to implement drones.

Simply put they are efficient and effective so they have my full support.

I've got no problem with drones being used, they do their job with minimal risk and high reward, simple as that. Maybe one of these days we'll develop a "single man missile" which would be the ultimate assassination weapon and have no unwanted casualties.

All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.
Sun Tzu

Drone ops are heavily regulated, but of course not all of it is declassified (I'll tell you what isn't classified)

We can use drones for whatever is required for an operation, be it for escort or attacks on militant groups. I can't tell you of any specific operations or how they went, but I can tell you that we take great pains to ensure we have the right people before we are authorized to strike. In fact, it's often that we tell some commander no, or some commander tells us no, because there was not enough to get PID (positive identification) that it was a lawful combatant we were looking at.

Now that last bit of your sentence got me thinking a little more, and I want to make one thing very clear; the CIA does not have free reign over drone operations, we do not just point and click, America does not use drones as a toy nor wield them with lack of judgement. The United States, nor members of it's armed forces, do not, DO NOT, intentionally or purposefully engage civilians of any kind. Ever. Period. End of Story.

Thank you! I'm getting tired of people always criticizing America over being the top superpower.

We're past the cold war, and not really the corrupt dogs like we use to be. Otherwise we wouldn't have declassified the "mk" projects.

The Prince does what the fuck he wants. The military industrial complex debates, re-defines, and covers up the official definition of "civilian." (The language of operation is now "non-combatant")

Drones are "cheap," effective, and unlabeled. They have become the weapon of choice for non-covert----covert operations. They're even good propaganda.
A new face, for a new era of supposed superpower.



(And, don't wave your affiliation around like that. Makes you look like a sockpuppet douche.)

And when you wave your "I think I know how the world works" flag and assume it means you're politically savvy makes you look like you're some kind of self righteous cock sucker.

I prefer my "cynical asshole" pennant, to adorn the points I make.
Righteous or otherwise, drones are used to instill fear in the government's enemies.

You can deny whatever you want, but when nobody is around to watch, Geneva goes out the window.