Argument: Using drones blurs the distinction between war and peace.

The use of drones further blurs the already worryingly indistinct line between a state of war and a state of peace. The drone attacks are taking place in countries where the United States does not have any legal authority. The United States is not officially at war with Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia, yet has launched hundreds of attacks on these countries and their citizens. The assumption is that a state can be at war with a non-state actor such as a terrorist group and therefore is free to target them wherever this group may be found. This means that the US is prosecuting a war in which only it thinks it is at war while sovereign countries like Pakistan are targeted despite believing they are at peace. It is the use of drones that makes it easy to circumvent sovereignty and attack targets on another country’s soil so creating the ambiguity.

Equally worryingly is the blurring of the distinction between civilian and combatant. Firstly the U.S. has decided to define any adult male in the target area as a terrorist when many are most likely nothing of the sort. [1] Secondly the Geneva conventions and their 1977 additions at their heart have the assumption that civilians cannot engage in a war – they are innocent bystanders. This however has been changed by the use of drones; it is a civilian agency, the CIA, which controls the drones and pulls the trigger. This makes the CIA combatants so breaking the obligation not to engage as soldiers. This means that U.S. civilians lose their protected status and the U.S. can’t complain if U.S. citizens are targeted in retaliation as the terrorists can no longer distinguish between those who are targeting them and those who are not. [2]

[1] Hammond, Jeremy R., ‘The Immoral Case for Drones’, Foreign Policy Journal, 16 July 2012.

[2] Hallinan, Conn, ‘CIA’s Drone Wars Blurs Distinction Between Military and Civilian Combatants’, Foreign Policy In Focus, 6 October 2011.

Candidate 1: "It is absolutely not the case that UAVs will mean unnecessary attacks that would not otherwise be made; all the targets are checked by a large number of national security experts and the attacks are signed off by the President himself. The attacks are therefore taken very seriously by the administration. Moreover that the attacks are low cost is exactly what we want – the capability to strike our enemies without losses to ourselves or any collateral damage should be prized not shunned."
Candidate 2: "Any other nation seeking to take a precedent from the use of drones would have to be involved in a conflict against a terrorist organisation that poses a credible, clear, and present danger and not be able to fight those terrorists by other means. The situation in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia is in many ways unique in that these are states that have either failed or are near failure. As a result the sovereign government cannot be relied to combat terrorists on their own soil."
Candidate 3: "Getting special forces or allies on the ground is not always an option. In countries like Somalia and Yemen where there have been conflicts between factions the authorities will not always cooperate and even if they do they may not control the territory where the strike team would need to operate. There will also be many times where it is simply too dangerous to try and snatch someone. If that person is a danger they need to be stopped in the quickest way possible; and that will be by the use of the UAV that is already far above monitoring the target."
Candidate 4: "This is a conflict situation, a war, pure and simple. While this is a new kind of conflict; when the opponent is a non-state actor states have to be able to strike at these groups that intend to attack them even when they are sheltering in other states. Such attacks should also not include the state where those groups are sheltering unless that state is supporting that group as was the case in Afghanistan.

Yes the distinction between civilian and combatant is blurred by this conflict but this is something that happens regardless of whether the United States uses UAVs. It is the terrorists themselves who through their horrific attacks by ‘civilians’ on civilian targets that strip away the distinction. The United States has to be able to respond with whatever method is most likely to prevent more of these terrorist attacks."

This is a conflict situation, a war, pure and simple. While this is a new kind of conflict; when the opponent is a non-state actor states have to be able to strike at these groups that intend to attack them even when they are sheltering in other states. Such attacks should also not include the state where those groups are sheltering unless that state is supporting that group as was the case in Afghanistan.

Yes the distinction between civilian and combatant is blurred by this conflict but this is something that happens regardless of whether the United States uses UAVs. It is the terrorists themselves who through their horrific attacks by ‘civilians’ on civilian targets that strip away the distinction. The United States has to be able to respond with whatever method is most likely to prevent more of these terrorist attacks.
