Drone Warfare:
A cost benefit analysis of the United States’ use of unmanned aerial assault vehicles.
Michael Ernst
Abstract:
As the global war on terror evolves so do the strategies used in fighting it. One of the more prolific tactics is the United States’ use of unmanned aerial assault vehicles. Although these unconventional tactics have come under scrutiny, there are instances where they have been effective. The ensuing pages will present a cost benefit analysis of the United States’ drone program. The intent of this analysis is to compare the monetary costs of the program to the success rate, and to also highlight the costs that these missions incurred by the United States in the form of public perceptions and attitudes. I argue the drone program, that the United States is currently using to combat suspects in the Global War on Terror, is less beneficial than traditional operations to the United States, its citizens, and nations in which these strikes are being carried out. The analysis presented with this data is important because as terror evolves it is essential the methods used to efficiently contest it do as well.
Introduction: The Beginning of the United States Drone Program.
After the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, high ranking officials in the United States military and leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency realized they needed to adapt a policy and strategy to combat the non-traditional terror organizations posing a major threat to the security of the country. One key adaptation to previous policy was the introduction of two separate unmanned aerial assault vehicle, or drone programs. These programs were created to carry out unmanned missile strikes on determined targets. One program run by the military carries out missions in active theaters of war. The other program, which is administered by the CIA, completes strikes against terror suspects in countries which the United States has not formally declared war on[1]. Although both programs are equally important the program that is administered by the CIA will be the main focus of the following analysis.
Just two months before September 11, the United States’ official stance on the use drone strikes was that they were not to be used outside the theater of war, because they denied those targeted, due process. After the terror attacks in New York, that stance began to shift, and the Bush administration defined terrorism as an act of war. After reworking this definition, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military force bill, allowing the CIA to carry out targeted assassinations.[2] The CIA’s first confirmed drone strike against a terror suspect occurred when a Predator surveillance drone equipped with a hellfire anti-tank missile killed Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi in November of 2002 in Yemen.[3] al-Harethi was wanted for the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, but five other unknown people who were in the vehicle with him also perished because of the strike.[4] As soon as the first strike was carried out, the entire CIA program became controversial for three reasons. The first of these reasons being that unknown targets were killed, next the strike was carried out in a country in which no declaration of war had been levied, finally the strike was carried out not by members of the United States military, but instead civilian members of a government agency. The program has gone on to carry out strikes in non-warring countries other than Yemen as well, most notably Pakistan and Somalia; these countries account for a majority of total strike deaths with more than three-thousand total which is why they will be focused on.[5] One thing that we can be sure of is that the program is expanding. In the last decade the United States has increased its number of drones from fifty to seven thousand five-hundred, around four-hundred of which can be armed.[6] The number of drones that the U.S. operates, and the number of strikes carried out continues to climb as the War on Terror continues, and in the last ten years the drone has become a pivotal tool in America’s arsenal against terrorism.[7]
Review and Analysis of Previous Work Pertaining to the Costs and Benefits of Drone Use:
As the global War on Terror continues, questions about some of the more nontraditional polices that the United States has elected to use in order to remain in the fight have arisen. These questions are whether or not the strikes are legal in non-theaters of war, do strikes bring forth unintended consequences such as: civilian deaths, the falling out of public opinion of the United States both domestic and abroad, and the creation of propaganda capable of recruiting for the very people that the War on Terror is fighting. This paper analyzes whether drone strikes are a cost effective tool in combatting terrorism for the United States. The drone program has a clear monetary cost, and a less clear moral and legal cost, which I will address. The financial cost benefit analysis is important for evaluating the efficiency of future counter terror polices of the United States. The more challenging of the two questions is that of the strategic cost benefit analysis. It may seem obvious that the United States wants to do everything possible to limit both civilian and soldier casualties, while effectively carrying out missions, and at first glance the drone program may seem like a good choice to achieve these goals. As data collected from the past decade shows this assumption may be too hasty. The unmanned missions have far from a perfect success rate, as defined as the completion of a mission through the destruction of militant targets with no civilian or friendly casualties. It is true that UAVs allow for the casualty rates of friendly troops to be zero, but they certainly do not guarantee to limit the unintentional loss of civilian life, or the problems associated with it.
Research on the topic of American drone strikes is quite extensive, and covers a wide range of topics and issues, including the questions I intend to address in my paper. Most of the sources I cite observe a particular situation related to the topic, and then offer expert analysis and insight into said topic. For a cost benefit analysis, this type of observational research coupled with studies, experiments, and polling data fits best into my research plan. The citations I use draw their own inferences on the benefit of the United States drone program, examining factual evidence from drone strikes that relates to the financial and strategic costs of this untraditional type of warfare. These inferences allow me to draw my own conclusion and answer whether the costs of the United States’ current policy involving the calculated use of weaponized drones to assassinate militant individuals in countries without a formal declaration of war outweigh the benefits for the continuation of the program.
Strategic Cost Benefit Analysis Part I: Foreign Public Perception.
To begin to analyze the question of strategic costs of drone strikes it helps to define what is meant by strategic costs. The term strategic costs refers to a multitude of different things in this paper, the first being the cost of the public’s perception of drone strikes. Because this policy affects the image of Americans, as well as the livelihood of those living in countries which are being targeted, both group’s feelings and perceptions are important to this portion of research. One of the simplest and most straight forward ways to gather information from a large group of people like the a population of country is through a poll, so I turned to polls to answer the question how do people living in drone affected areas feel about drones. PEW research center provides several different polls accounting for the feelings of people especially in Pakistan. This is a good sample to study seeing how eighty-six percent of drone strikes carried out outside of a theater of war are within the country of Pakistan.[8]
The study reflected here found its results by conducting 1,203 face to face interviews between the time period of April 15 to May, 7 2014. These samples were all of people over the age of 18 years, and were representative of roughly 82 percent of the total population.[9]According to PEW Research center, the overall opinion of the United States, while still dismal, has improved in Pakistan over the last three years, but the Pakistani people are overwhelmingly against drone strikes with only three percent of citizens claiming that they approve of strikes targeting extremist organizations within their country.[10] Many of these people believe that these strikes are being carried out without the permission or knowledge of the Pakistani government; therefore, violating the country’s sovereignty. An even higher rate of citizens believe that these strikes are killing innocent people.[11] The negative opinions of America that people from other countries have formed due to drone strikes are not the only cost associated with the perception that the strikes are killing innocent people. A costly situation that has arose from people’s concern about deaths of innocents is the idea drone strikes can now be used as recruitment tools to build up the number of militants in terror organizations. Essentially, every time a drone strike is carried out, even if it’s successful, terror leaders can spin the results saying that innocent people were killed by the United States and replace the people who were killed, exponentially, who were in reality, not innocent but members of a terror organizations. This idea is illustrated in several different documents, but can best be seen when a senior Obama administration official is quoted saying that: “Casualties were often in single digits and those reporting hundreds of civilians dead were foolishly using enemy propaganda.”[12]
The inflation of civilian death toll numbers is in fact a propaganda tool used by terror organizations, but the numbers that have been collected seem to show that the civilian deaths do reach well over the single digits. Data collected by the New America Foundation shows that between 2004 and 2012 there were 334 strikes in Pakistan, 40-50 in Yemen, and three to nine in Somalia. All of these strikes combined for upwards of 3,191 deaths, eighty-five percent of which being militants. This means that fifteen percent of drone related deaths or 479 people were civilian.[13] Some speculation for reasons to why the United States’ official count is so much lower than others is that the Government defines any male of military age in the area as a militant.[14] The problem with the cost of perception in this case is that whichever number is actually true really doesn’t matter. What truly matters is what the people of the country believe. The Polling data, as well as information and quotes collected, paint a picture that the people living in afflicted areas believe that innocent people are dying, and some have begun to retaliate.
The thought of blowback, or retaliation especially on home soil, from drone strikes killing innocents came to a reality in June of 2010 when Pakistani American Faisal Shahzad said before a judge that he placed a bomb in Times Square as payback for the use of drone strikes: “Well, the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don’t see children, they don’t see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody. It’s a war and in war, they kill people. They’re killing all Muslims.”[15] The data presented here is an example that the mind set of retaliation and the use of drone strikes as propaganda and recruitment tools have become a very real and present cost, stemming from the public’s perception, to the benefit of the drone program eliminating select targets.
Strategic Cost Benefit Analysis Part II: Domestic Public Perception.
The other portion of the world’s population whose opinion has a monumental effect on the strategic costs of the drone program is that of the American citizens. The research gathered by PEW about the feelings of Americans about unmanned aerial assaults, as expected is quite different than that of people living within struck areas, when looking at the issue from a cost benefit analysis perspective. To attain information for this study, PEW called 1,008 people 18 years or older living in the continental United States between February 7 and February, 10 2013. The sample population was asked a number of questions pertaining to politics and the use of drones in foreign countries.[16] When Americans are asked, fifty-eight percent of them claim that they approve of the use of drones to target extremist groups.[17] The same poll shows that the people of America are also extremely worried about the fact that drones are possibly killing innocent human beings. Eighty percent of the people surveyed said that they were at least somewhat concerned about the endangerment of innocent people, with forty-two percent saying that they were very concerned.[18] Obviously the American public’s perception of the drone program does not have the same tangible results as that of Pakistani’s. The chances of terror groups using propaganda to recruit an American citizen to join forces are slim, but a negative perception from the American people could have an even more dangerous effect of the drone program in the way of shutting it down.
Currently in this country there is still more than enough support for the program to continue with its normal operations, but if the trend of concerned voters continues to climb toward worry, if not dislike of the program it could spell certain disaster for drone strikes. The final problem with negative domestic perception again comes in the way of propaganda. The terror groups that are being targeted by the CIA’s drone program have the agenda to bring the United States down from its position of a world super power. Being able to show that the citizens of a country don’t support decisions made by their own government allows for the leaders to discredit American policies and government. Furthermore the fact that people living in America are worried about innocent people dying in other countries validates the recruitment tool terror organizations are using by making claims that the government is killing civilians.