Latest in Drone warfare
The hype about medium-altitude long-endurance drones pays too little attention to their vulnerability.
Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh reportedly may have been assassinated using a remote-controlled machine gun. Such devices are unfortunately easy to construct.
The U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions on July 6 submitted a report claiming the January done strike in Iraq that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani constituted a violation of international law.
Are you paying attention to Operation Odyssey Lightning, the U.S. air campaign underway for a full month now in Libya? Not many people are, which is interesting considering that we are approaching 100 airstrikes there in four weeks.
IT'S OUR SIXTH BIRTHDAY!
Over the past decade, military drones, whether weaponized or merely equipped for surveillance, have been at the center of many heated arguments, whether about targeted killing, counterterrorism, the supposedly "too easy" resort to force through drones, and a host of other controversies.
A busy day with a nice collection of stories (coincidentally all from the Washington Post this time around):
Stephanie Carvin (Carleton University, Canada, and friend to several of us at Lawfare) and Michael John Williams (NYU) are international relations scholars who focus on national and international security. They each write about strategy, but in strikingly broad and interdisciplinary ways.
Editor’s Note: The U.S. drone program – as Lawfare readers well know – raises contentious policy issues as well as criticisms of its legality and morality. Many of these policy issues come to the fore in Yemen, where chaos and civil war are sweeping the land. Jillian Schwedler, a professor at Hunter College and expert on Yemen, argues that the U.S. drone campaign in Yemen is backfiring, enraging locals and contributing to a range of U.S. policy failures there.
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Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone
By Scott Shane
Published by Tim Duggan Books (2015)
Nearly three years ago, testifying before a congressional hearing, I observed that “the [Anwar] Al-Awlaki case will be someday the subject of a truly wonderful book. It’s a very complicated and interesting history.”
Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War
By Peter W. Singer and August Cole
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2015)
Reviewed by Charles J. Dunlap, Jr.