You hear it before you see it: a mixture of a deafening bang and a controlled whoosh, almost as if the sky was breathing a concussive sigh of relief. Your eyes track a piece of technology bearing down from the east, too high in the sky for your untrained eyes to catch the distinctive figures etched imperceptibly on to its cold and unforgiving metal face, but close enough to set an alarm ringing in your head. Within seconds, your body is jolted alive with adrenaline. Your fingers drop the mug you were clinging to and it clatters noisily to the floor; you are on your feet, an atavistic instinct pushing you into action. This is the reaction of a person whose institutional memory has warned them of the dangers of the metal aircraft that speeds suddenly across the skyline; this is the reaction of a person who knows what tragedy the drone strike is going to write into the history of his village.
Back in the control room, a soldier bends with concentration over a dimly-lit computer screen, his fingers gripping the remote controls of the drone, his eyes trained on the red dots marking his enemies on the landscape. He sees only the screen, and thinks only of the mission; of how lucky he is to be able to combat militants from the safety of a computer desk, rather than having to enmesh himself within hostile territory. He thinks only of the utility of the drone and its potential to prevent further harm. This is the thought process of a duty-bound soldier, at work with a new tool.
From either perspective, it is hard to distinguish who is the proverbial “enemy.” Thus, in an argument about the merits of drone warfare, people are drawn inadvertently to advocate on behalf of their own emotional response. Drone Wars: Transforming Conflict, Law, and Policy, edited by Peter L. Bergen and Daniel Rothenberg, accomplishes what most other books, articles and essays arguing either for or against drone usage have not: it paints a level-headed, clear, methodical yet lively portrait of the nuances of the dialogue surrounding unmanned military technology. Where most books fall into the trap of advocating too strongly on behalf of one end of the spectrum, Drone Wars cuts an even center by serving as an anthology—a compendium of thoughtful reflections on drones as a technology, their interplay with politics, and the ethical debate that sits at the center of drone contention.
Discourse on drone warfare can arguably be boiled down to a dispute over the ethical ramifications of technology-driven warfare versus resourcefulness of drone usage. Much has been written by pundits and critics about the possibility of militarized technology supplanting the values of ethics and the laws of war, so it was with trepidation that I delved into Drone Wars — a book further cataloguing the raging debate over the usage of drones. I was worried that it would assail its readers with purely ethical arguments. That is not to say that ethical arguments are inherently bad, but a critique built only on the ethics misses the opportunity to examine objective elements of the usefulness of drones. Luckily, Drone Wars didn’t fall into that trap. By the time I finished the second essay within the book, I was hooked.
The novel is an anthology whose constituent parts are reaped from a gold mine of relevant and knowledgeable sources. From its opening essay—a narrative recounting a journalist’s first-hand experience of the manner in which a militant cell in Waziristan responded to a drone strike during his time in captivity—to its closing essay—an analysis of what drone warfare spells for the future of data-driven conflict penned by Daniel Rothenberg—the book presents interesting and well-supported insights into information about the discussion on drone warfare.
What Drone Wars accomplishes exceedingly well is that it removes the reader from the emotional narrative of a person caught in the cross-hairs of the 21st century’s most deadly method of warfare and puts them in the center of a whirlwind of academic perspectives, some from journalists who have either experienced a drone strike personally, or have reported in the wake of one, and others from professors who have used their academic clout to lobby behind think-tanks seeking to unearth the reality that drone warfare has developed. Spared the burden of being assailed and afforded the intimacy of that sort of narrative, the reader is left to examine the arguments being made in Drone Wars without stumbling over the usual emotion-fueled responses of man. Objectivity is the largest strength of the book—ironic, given the proclivity of drone opponents to decry the detachment involved in drone strikes as a major flaw in their usage.
If anything, this removal from emotion makes the book even more effective at making its case. But what exactly is its case?
Interestingly enough, Drone Wars is the sort of book that can get away with deflecting away from a specific argument by virtue of its self-elected task to provide a full picture of the discourse on drone usage. It elects to present often conflicting viewpoints about the legality and ethics of drone warfare. And while the editorials and academic essays that compose the book might hail from people with very different perspectives on the United States’ recent embrace of drone warfare as the new advance in anti-terrorism, they are interconnected by the underlying questions that they force the reader to grapple with, namely:
- How does the Obama Administration define civilians within war zones, and does this narrow definition present an opportunity for minimization of civilian casualties?
- Just how precise are the “precision strikes” that are often touted as the reasoning behind Drone usage?
- What effects does this new method of warfare have on international opinion of the United States, and is its callousness creating new enemies within affected areas?
- Should control of the drone program be removed from the control of the C.I.A and placed in the hands of the Pentagon? Which organization is better equipped to make rational and informed decisions about the program’s goals.
- What does the development and refinement of drone technology mean for the future of warfare—will advancements continue to be made and, if so, how will they affect the conventional structure of armed forces?
These questions are left sizzling in the back of your mind as you thumb through Drone War’s pages. It’s a thought-provoking collection of essays that seeks not to sway, but to thoroughly inform and, by extension, urges its reader to become acquainted with the available information on drone strikes. As a believer in the importance of a well-informed citizenry, not easily swayed by propagandized arguments, I can appreciate the almost scientific way in which Drone Wars’ collection of essays picks apart both sides of the debate and lays them bare for the reader to analyze. Because the argument about drones is polarized by chiefly emotional appeals, the key to supplanting the opportunity for the reader’s “heart-strings to be played” is elevating them above the subjectivity that normally exists. Equipped with a wealth of knowledge, the reader can make their own academic judgments about the viability of a drone program. By giving its reader that freedom, Drone Wars asserts itself as a book interested in stoking thoughtful debate, rather than purely impassioned argument.
Image Credit: Flickr/Don McCullough