Drones : what everyone needs to know PDF
Preview Drones : what everyone needs to know
DRONES WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW® DRONES WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW® SARAH KREPS Cornell University 1 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. “What Everyone Needs to Know” is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2016 First Edition published in 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kreps, Sarah E. (Sarah Elizabeth), author. Title: Drones : what everyone needs to know / Sarah Kreps. Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2016] Identifiers: LCCN 2015040590| ISBN 978–0–19–023534–5 (hardcover: alk. paper) | ISBN 978–0–19–023535–2 (pbk.: alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Drone aircraft. | Air warfare. Classification: LCC UG1242.D7 K73 2016 | DDC 623.74/69—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015040590 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Courier Press, USA CONTENTS FOREWORD VII 1 Introduction 1 2 Armed Drone Technology 7 3 Proliferation of Drones to Other Countries 59 4 Drones for the Ground and Sea 82 5 Noncombat Technology 106 6 The Future of Drones: Nano, Autonomous Systems, and Science Fiction 145 NOTES 165 INDEX 187 FOREWORD My first encounter with the idea of a drone came in the days after the 9/ 11 terrorist attacks. I was a lieutenant in the E- 3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) office outside Boston and worked on advanced programs related to the E- 3 and other intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance sys- tems. I recall my boss telling me that our office had received a “snowflake” originating with the Pentagon. Then- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was famous for issuing snow- flakes, a system of communication between the Secretary and the many employees of DoD. This particular snowflake was essentially an all- hands- on- deck call for our community to think through ways to retrofit as many Predators as possible with Hellfire missiles. Predators had been used for surveil- lance in the Balkans, but there had been reservations about arming them with missiles. After 9/ 11, the “gloves came off” and there was no question about whether the military would now make the decision to arm Predators. The question was how to do it quickly so they could be deployed to the field. The acquisitions community, of which I was a member, was not known for expediency. The Secretary, who was known for urging a leaner and meaner system, was trying to speed things up. He succeeded. The rest of the story is somewhat famil- iar. The Air Force, along with the CIA, deployed Predators viii Foreword to who reportedly survived the strike, in October 2001, with the first strike likely a CIA strike of the Taliban’s number- three leader, Mullah Akhund, on November 8, 2001.1 After that initial introduction to unmanned aerial vehicles, often referred to as drones, I did not follow their employment much until 2011. By then I was a professor at Cornell University, having left the Air Force in 2003 to pursue a PhD that focused on issues of international security and defense policy. By that point, the wartime use of drones had not only spilled over into non- battlefield settings such as Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen but had also escalated considerably. A US counterterrorism official reported that there had been about 305 drone strikes just in Pakistan between 2004 and 2011, with an estimated 2,050 individuals killed, of whom about 392 were civilians. As a former military officer-turned political scientist, I could see the operational arguments in favor of drones but was con- cerned about the strategic and political ramifications. Drones, armed with precision weapons and able to loiter over targets, might actually be better positioned to minimize unintentional damage than alternatives such as local Pakistani air forces, for example, or ground troops. But because they imposed no risk to the country that used them, they could also create a moral hazard, being used in ways, times, and places that might not otherwise be used were these actors to use the caution that goes along with having skin in the game with manned aircraft or ground troops. Plus, from studying theories of democratic checks in wartime, I had a hunch that the populace, which would see few obvious burdens of a technology that intro- duced no casualties, would not be itching to end conflicts in which drones were involved. This could mean wars without limits in time or space. I set out to study the politics, law, and ethics of drones. My first foray was with John Kaag, a colleague who studies phi- losophy. We wrote an academic article, several op- eds, and a book on the topic. The topic of drones did not seem to be going anywhere and I continued several other projects involving Foreword ix public opinion and drones. It turns out Americans think they love drones but it is in part because of how strikes and casual- ties are portrayed in media accounts, focusing on contentious assumptions such as the targets being militants rather than the possibility that these targets are civilians. Once individu- als know of the possibility of civilian casualties, they are much more reticent in their support. In 2013– 2014, I was a resident fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where I turned to more policy- oriented questions. In particular, as a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow, I was inter- ested in drone proliferation, which is governed by the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the 1986 agreement that guided potential nuclear delivery vehicles, including drones. My colleague Micah Zenko and I worked on several articles for both Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy as well as a Council Special Report, Limiting Armed Drone Proliferation. I then had the pleasure of hosting several Council on Foreign Relations roundtables on the topic everywhere from Dallas to Boston to New York to Tokyo, where I had the benefit of hearing a range of feedback on the topic. It was around this time that Dave McBride, whom I had worked with on my first book, Coalitions of Convenience, approached me about writing the Drones: What Everyone Needs to Know book. He is a wonderful person to work with so I was tempted. Plus, it seemed like it was something I could write in my sleep after working on the topic for years. Wrong. The topic of drones is a moving target. It has evolved considerably in the last several years, as it surely will in the coming years. But it is endlessly fascinating and I hope the readers of this book agree. In my writing of the book, I must obviously thank Dave for giving me the opportunity to write it, and to the various CFR Roundtables where I received feedback on the topic of drones. I would also like to thank Amy Zegart for inviting me to pres- ent my research at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and again as a Summer Security fellow at
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