Few new technologies are as closely identified with American counterterrorism, or have proven as controversial, as drones. These unmanned aerial vehicles are not necessarily military; increasingly, drones are used by civilian law enforcement, and may soon be used to provide wireless service in Africa or for instant deliveries across the United States. Even these civilian uses raise important privacy questions. But it is drones' emergence as a missile platform that has made them such a lightning rod for criticism and human rights anxiety. Increasingly, critics worry that the technology has lowered the costs of war and that their use carries deceptively heavy burdens for operators.
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Codifying the protection of civilians as a commander’s explicit objective in all operations is an essential step toward reducing noncombatant casualties.
The U.S. killing of the al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan was not justified in self-defense or under the international law of war or international human rights law. It looks more like an extrajudicial execution, or revenge murder, for past acts of terrorism.
In the culmination of a manhunt that lasted almost 21 years, the U.S. government appears to have located and killed Ayman al-Zawahiri. Here are the legal questions the Biden administration likely worked through before the strike.
The future of a post-Zawahiri al-Qaeda rests in the hands of the terrorist group’s next leader, whomever that may be.
Ukraine needs more drones. How can the U.S. best supply them?
An appreciation of the effects of targeted strikes—as well as legal and ethical assessments of them—should guide decisions about whether, when, and where to conduct strikes.
Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh reportedly may have been assassinated using a remote-controlled machine gun. Such devices are unfortunately easy to construct.
On June 20, U.S. military officials confirmed media reports that Iranian military forces successfully shot down a U.S. drone in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf.
On March 13 and 14, a German court considered two challenges to the U.S. drone program in the Middle East and East Africa. Both cases, brought before the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia in Münster, assert that Germany bears legal responsibility for the consequences of U.S.-led drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia that were conducted from the U.S. Air Force’s Ramstein base, located in southwestern Germany.
On Wednesday, President Trump issued an executive order revoking an Obama administration order that created reporting requirements for U.S. counterterrorism strikes. Read the full order below.
Executive Order on Revocation of Reporting Requirement
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: