One thing Barack Obama and Mitt Romney agree upon, we know from the foreign policy oriented third presidential campaign debate, is the use of unmanned drones in anti-insurgent, anti-terror operations.
Obama has overseen an intensification of the use of this technology in the region of Afghanistan, Pakistan and southern Yemen. Romney commented in the debate that he would not depart from this policy, that he supported it 'entirely', that 'the President was right to up the use of that technology', and that Americans should continue to use drones 'to go after the people who represent a threat to this nation and to our friends'.
Romney did not volunteer how he had arrived at this position or how he might understand the moral rules by which he would govern application of this policy. 'I believe', he said, 'that we should use any and all means necessary to take out people who pose a threat to us and our friends around the world.'
The practice of using drones demands a less complacent approach than this, since it raises difficult questions about the conduct of war.
Some who support their use argue that collateral damage caused by drone strikes is far lower than that caused by conventional weapons like missiles or artillery. Thus, some have suggested drone strikes would have been a preferable response by the Israelis to threats from the Gaza Strip in 2008.
According to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, of the 1390 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip during the January 2009 Operation Cast Lead, 759 had not taken part in the hostilities. In other words, although the operation was conducted by a modern, technologically sophisticated army, it caused over 50 per cent collateral damage.
But in a densely populated area, neither can drones isolate the targeted individuals. Moreover, the drone program is ongoing, and we cannot yet tally its full casualty list.
There are other issues raised by Obama's published guidelines for drone usage: for example, how do we define a serious as opposed to a speculative threat? Does that mean a military aged male spotted from several thousand feet digging a hole in a suburban roadside?
Well, perhaps. As Noah Schachtman at the Brookings Institution has pointed out, throughout the US drone campaign in Pakistan and possibly in Yemen, targets have been chosen for elimination based on their intelligence 'signatures' — that is, 'their behaviour, as captured by wiretaps, overhead surveillance and