drones

Wahaishi is gone, but AQAP will thrive in absence of political solution

June 16, 2015 by Strife Staff

By Joana Cook:

Al-Wahaishi, leader of AQAP, was reportedly killed this morning in a drone strike in Yemen. Photo: EPA (published under fair use policy for intellectual non-commercial purposes)

News broke this morning of the death of Nassir al-Wahaishi, the second in command of al-Qaeda, and the leader of its strongest affiliate group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Penninsula (AQAP). Wahaishi was reportedly killed in a drone strike, said to have taken place in the port city of Mukallah, Yemen. While this strike is certainly significant, especially in its symbolic value, it is unlikely to quell the threat AQAP poses as long as a political solution in the country remains out of reach.

Officially formed in January 2009 from Saudi and Yemeni branches of al-Qaeda, AQAP is often cited as the most lethal branch of the organization, largely due to the bomb-making skills of Ibrahim al-Asiri. Al-Asiri has been the key figure from AQAP linked with the many threats that have emanated from the country in recent years. These have included the 2009 underwear bomber who attempted to detonate a device on a commercial liner over Detroit on Christmas Day, as well as the 2010 cargo plane plot which saw explosives hidden in US-bound printers. Most recently, AQAP had claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris.

The death of Wahaishi follows on from other significant blows for the organization in recent years, such as the death of Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-born English-speaking cleric who was killed in a drone strike in September 2011. Even post-mortem, Awlaki has continued to be one of the most influential figures in encouraging Westerners to travel abroad and engage in violence – through recordings of his speeches and his writing – and is cited by many traveling to Syria and Iraq to fight today. Drone strikes have also consistently cut down AQAP leaders like regional leader in the Baitha province Qaed al-Thahab in August 2013, and more recently this year Nasr Ibn Ali al-Ansi, who announced the Charlie Hebdo attack.

However, such deaths have not reduced the strength of the organization, which has only continued to grow in capacity and membership. AQAP has proven its ability to thrive in Yemen, where the central government has been unable to provide basic governance and accountability to its citizens.

In 2011, now ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh recalled troops from areas such as Jaar and Zinjibar to secure his position in the capital against peaceful protestors when his position came under threat during the Arab Spring. The removal of government forces in this period left a power vacuum that AQAP filled, quickly installing their own version of law and order when the government proved unable to do so.

AQAP was able to hold these positions for just over a year, allowing it plenty of space to regroup and strengthen. In March 2015, the failing security situation in the country left an open opportunity for AQAP to seize a significant foothold in the important port city of Mukallah, in Hadhramaut province. Here, they released over 300 prisoners from the city’s central prison, including other important members of AQAP such as Khalid Bartafi. The advance into Mukallah was another case of the organization capitalizing on the unrest in the country, and the additional strength it has been able to gain in such situations.

Drone and air strikes targeted at the organization, which are often used as band-aid solutions, have also severely impacted local populations. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, hundreds of civilians have been caught up in these strikes and killed, often perpetuating a cycle of resentment for the government and its partners, and driving further recruitment for AQAP.

AQAP has been shown to thrive in periods when the reach of the central government has been restricted, and in periods when discontent with the government has risen. What’s more, local recruitment has not always been premised on individuals who aspire to attack the West, but is often driven by grievances against the government; AQAP has been seen to step in at times of vulnerability and provide services, law and order, and accountability for victims and frustrated parties that the central government has been unable to provide.

While the death of al-Wahaishi will certainly provide some short-term interruption for the organization, they have already named Qassim al-Rimi as the group’s new leader. However, like the many strikes before it, Wahaishi’s death will not provide a lasting solution to depleting AQAP in the country. To ensure lasting stability in Yemen, current initiatives like those in Geneva that have brought the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels to the table, are the primary hope for peace and stability in the country.

The country’s population is increasingly suffering from a desperate humanitarian situation that has left upwards of 80% of the population reliant on humanitarian aid. Tens of thousands have been internally displaced, while fighting and air strikes continue across the country, overshadowing the great hope that the National Dialogue Conference once presented to the country.

To challenge groups like AQAP in Yemen, and ensure others such as ISIL do not also try and gain a foothold in the country, only national peace and unity in the form of an inclusive, political solution will provide the necessary remedy.

Joana Cook is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of War Studies. She is also the current Editor-in-Chief of Strife and a Research Affiliate with the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society (TSAS). Her work more broadly focuses on women in violent extremism, countering violent extremism and counter-terrorism practices in Yemen, Canada and the UK. Her PhD thesis specifically examines the role and agency of women in security practices in Yemen. She has been featured on BBC World News and in the Telegraph, the Washington Post and Radio Free Europe, amongst others. You can follow her on Twitter @Joana_Cook.

Review: 'Sudden Justice: America's Secret Drone Wars' by Chris Woods

June 15, 2015 by Strife Staff

By Harris Kuemmerle:

Chris Woods, Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone Wars. London, UK: Hurst Publishers., 2015. Pages: 400. £20.00 (hardback). ISBN: 9781849044028.

The recent growth over the past decade in the scope and complexity of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in warfare is remarkable not only for the immense pace by which the technology and procedural practices have matured, but also for the open secrecy under which that process has been shrouded. While their existence is common knowledge, true transparency as to the use of drones remains limited. As a result, getting a firm understanding of the historical evolution and contemporary role of drone warfare is a challenging prospect. But that is exactly what Chris Woods sets out to do in his book, Sudden Justice, which attempts to present an accessible and engaging narrative outlining the history and use of drones in warfare, while also coming to terms with some of the most pertinent moral and ethical questions that the use of drone warfare poses for the 21st century.

The book begins with a description of the genesis of the drone technology. It’s a history that is inexorably linked to a pair of individuals called the “Blue brothers”, and one which poetically echoes the history of the birth of aviation a century earlier. The Blue brothers were Colorado siblings whose ambition and a fateful flight across Latin America set them on a path which would see them – in partnership with the “Moses of modern drones”, pioneering Israeli engineer Abe Karem – essentially start up the entire drone industry in their garage. In the process they saved the fledgling drone industry from the same perceptions of inadequacy by established interests that once haunted the fledgling civilian and military aviation industry in the 1910s and 1920s. It’s undeniably a great story and an excellent, almost light-hearted, place to begin the historical narrative.

However, it does not take long for the history of drones to turn darker with the move into the post-9/11 “War on Terror” and the drones’ transition into the new role of both spy and assassin. The book charts the initial failures of the drone programme at the onset of the Afghan war, to the eventual rise of the targeted killing programmes in Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan during both the Bush and Obama administrations.

It is here that the book comes into its element; presenting a chilling tale of secrecy, bureaucratic infighting, ruthless pragmatism, and just what happens when humans are given the power to kill almost anyone on demand with only a few minutes notice. Indeed, the author seems almost in awe of the power and technical accomplishments of the drone programme; detailing their capabilities and clinical efficiency, yet also in equal measure presenting that path towards the modern state of drone warfare as a cautionary tale.

The chapter on the valuation of human life and the psychological impact on drone operators drive home the human consequences of drone warfare; with the description of the cold ‘boxes’ in which operators pilot their craft especially unsettling. Concrete rooms, lit bright by screen light, in which pilot and operator fight a cripplingly boring covert war against an unknown enemy on behalf of often equally unknown ‘customers’ who they communicate with via dedicated online chat rooms. In that space it becomes easy to see how the human life on the monitor can be reduced to a few words; words such as ‘target’, ‘rifled’, ‘kinetic’, ‘kill’.

To that end, it’s in its description of the behind-the-scenes workings of the programme where Sudden Justice presents its most interesting questions. Is assassination legal or justified? Are civilian casualties ever justified? What role should private military corporations be allowed to play? Are drones even legal? These are the critical questions that underlie many of the issues that Chris Woods tackles, and he generally succeeds in presenting these issues clearly and providing a fair judgement. However, the book does not really set out to give a final answer to any of these questions, which is both a limitation and a quality. Sudden Justice simply presents the issue as fairly and as completely as possible, leaving it up to the reader to decide. It’s a refreshingly honest and factual take on a muddled topic. Though one which may leave readers wanting more finality.

Furthermore, while Creech Air Force Base (from where the majority of the drones are piloted) is discussed in great detail, the author chose not to personally visit the site. The author felt visiting the site would not be necessary or in the interest of the work. However, I would argue that the decision not to go may have missed out on key first-hand insight into elements of the day-to-day processes of running the drone programme, which could have expanded upon our understanding. Although the decision not to go is not in itself a serious limitation, it is definitely a missed opportunity.

A more serious limitation is that while it is clear that Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan during the War on Terror served as the proving grounds for the concept of drone warfare as we know it today, their use has greatly expanded since 2003. By focusing on that area and time almost exclusively, Sudden Justice limits its applicability to a wider contemporary debate. For example, the author does not discuss in any great detail the implications for the further expansion of drone use outside of the US and UK to countries such as Russia, China, and Pakistan. Indeed, the limited scope of the book leaves some critical questions untouched: what are the implications for global security for other countries bringing online drone programmes? Will these countries use the legal framework developed by the US and UK during the War on Terror?

Likewise, the consequences of drone warfare in the context of inter-state global security more generally is not directly dealt with. While these issues are not within the aims of the work, their exclusion leaves the book somewhat unable to move beyond drones in the War on Terror and into the area of drones in contemporary global security. Though its discussions of the history, application, and legal and ethical aspects of drone warfare during the War on Terror remain excellent and widely applicable.

Sudden Justice is an excellent book which tells the story of the historical evolution of drone warfare, with only a few notable limitations. Sudden Justice is a must-read book for anyone interested in drone warfare. It effectively straddles the gap of being both clear and entertaining, while also offering insights for both experts in the field and the average reader.

Harris Kuemmerle is a PhD Researcher in War Studies at KCL. He received a BSc in International Relations from Plymouth University and a MSc from SOAS, University of London in Asian Politics. His professional experience includes working in journalism and US congressional elections. His areas of interest include; water politics, the impacts of water on state and human security, environmental security, health and security, US foreign and domestic politics, European politics, UK politics, UK foreign affairs, South Asia, and the domestic and foreign affairs of India and China. A native of the US, he has been based in the UK since 2008. Harris is a guest editor at Strife.

Drones series, Part V. The biopolitics of drone warfare

April 22, 2014 by Strife Staff

By Daniel Møller Ølgaard:

The current debate on armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, focuses mostly on legal implications and moral implications of their use. Issues such as civilian deaths, as well as the strategic implications and tactical advantages of drones are reigning supreme in the academic and public discussions. Yet these examinations fail to look at the wider implications of drone warfare. Through the prism of ‘biopolitics’, we can expose how war and governance is transformed and how increasingly life itself comes to be categorized and populations come to be controlled through the use of armed UAV’s.

A Biopolitical Understanding of War

With the emergence of a liberal paradigm, where the right of the individual trumps the rights of the sovereign, a global system of liberal governance is changing the way in which war is conducted. This has been characterized as the ‘liberal peace project’, and is associated widely with Kant’s notion of perpetual peace through the pursuit of cosmopolitan values.

As such, the concept of war is changing. Today, according to Derek Gregory, ‘vulnerabilities are differentially distributed but widely dispersed, and in consequence … late modern war is being changed by the slippery spaces through which it is conducted’.[i] As we enter a ‘global state of war’ where threats to liberal life are indeed seen as omnipresent, political and technological measures of control aimed at categorizing bodies and dividing populations become the basic principle of liberal governance in securing populations.

In drawing on Foucault’s notion of ‘biopolitics’, this form of control can be examined in terms of power directed at the control of populations; a ‘governmentality’ that works through the promise of protecting life rather than threatening it. As a consequence, ‘biopolitics is the pursuit of war by other means'[ii] and is weaved into all layers of socio-political action on an increasingly global scale.

To perform this, the state apparatus of modern liberal states are, according to Julian Reid and Michael Dillon, ‘comprised of techniques that examine the detailed properties and dynamics of populations so that they can be better managed with respect to their many needs and life chances’.[iii] Yet, in order to enhance life, the principal task of liberal governance must first be to define life along the line of those who are to be protected and those who are deemed threats.

The Virtue of the Drone

Several authors have pointed to an emerging drone strategy that, rather than identifying ‘known’ individuals from personal characteristics, focuses on examining, characterizing, dividing and targeting certain patterns of life as threatening. These signature strikes are performed on the basis of the movement of bodies. For example, simply being approached by suspected Taliban members can make you a target of drone strikes.[iv] This clearly indicates a move away from the official US emphasis on drones as tools to eliminate identified individuals, to a strategy ‘which takes as its target potential rather than actual risks’.[v] Characteristically, in defining legitimate targets for drone strikes outside of war zones the US defines combatants as all military-age males killed in a strike zone unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.

Consequently, for Shaw, ‘dangerous signatures or patterns of life are assessed on their very potential to become dangerous’.[vi] Anyone in the proximity of a suspected threat is in essence targetable, and as the focus shifts from known threats to potential risks, everyone in essence becomes a potential subject to surveillance, control and punishment. It is here the drone most clearly emerges as a ‘technology of control’, that directs it power at groups and populations on a wider scale, rather than the individual body. The population subjected to its power is transformed from corporeal, fleshy bodies to sets of digital data that are categorized, catalogued and evaluated. In this way, life comes to be life as information; a mass of data on maps of movement rather than fleshy bodies.

In fact, it is the very lack of the human, both in terms of the digitisation of the body of the victim, but also specifically the lack of a pilot, that renders the drone a tool of a ‘clean’ war where the operator is situated in another space, free from the fog of war[vii] and is thus rendered less likely to fall short to human error. This is clearly reminiscent of Foucault’s notion of biopower that hides its use of violence and ‘gives to the power to inflict legal punishment a context in which it appears to be free of all excess and violence’.[viii]

Drones, Discipline and Global Governance

Yet, rather than punishing and targeting threats with the aim of integrating them into the global state of liberal governance, it seems that the drones are a tool to patrol and control; preventing threatening life from entering the global. What makes the drone so significant to how power and governance is imposed globally is its role as a technology of control that is in a sense enforcing a global liberal governmentality; a technology that is comprised of biopolitical techniques that examines, divides, and seeks to control populations through a promise of enhancing life for those living outside the targeted areas.

In essence, drones can be said to perform what Vivienne Jabri has characterized as ‘policing access to the modern’[ix] and to pre-empt threatening life from entering space deemed ‘safe’. Drawing on Foucault, one might even characterize the armed drones as a manifestation of the late modern Panopticon, a conceptualization of the omnipresent ‘tower of control’ patrolling the distant borderlands. This form of governance works not only through kinetic violence; it utilizes fear and anxiety that spreads through the population of the targeted areas. It does not impose control exclusively through death, but rather through the constant potentiality of death. In this way, areas such as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan are moving ever closer to a space of total control. Here, to quote Foucault, in ‘this enclosed, segmented space … in which each individual figure is constantly located, examined and distributed’ a ‘compact model of the disciplinary mechanism’ is formed.[x] Except, in the case of drones, the surveillance of each individual figure becomes biopolitical as the tools of control are focused on life as mass rather than on individual bodies. Areas such as the FATA becomes sites of assessment and control, visible tropes of biopolitical power that focus on dividing the global population through technologies of control, to impose governance on a massive, global scale.

The drone, rather than a mere weapon, is a biopolitical tool aimed just as much at examining populations as it is killing individuals. The armed drone has both the capabilities and the (biopolitical) agency to categorize, catalogue and kill bodies,and its violence directed at ‘them’ is masked behind the promise to enhance life for ‘us’. As such, the conditions and capabilities for examining, categorizing and dividing bodies on an increasingly global scale are greatly enhanced with the emergence of the drone as a tool of war.

______________________

Daniel Møller Ølgaard is an MA candidate at the Department of War Studies. He is a former intern with the Foreign Affairs Spokesperson of the largest Danish government party, and writes for the Danish political magazine RÆSON (www.raeson.dk). His research focuses broadly on poststructuralist theory and international politics with a special focus on resistance movement

NOTES
[i]Derek Gregory, ‘The Everywhere War’, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 177, No. 3 (2011), p. 239.
[ii]Michael Dillon & Julian Reid, ‘Global Liberal Governance: Biopolitics, Security and War’, Millennium – Journal of International Studies, Vol. 30, No 1 (2001), p. 41.
[iii]Ibid.
[iv]Ian Shaw, ‘Predator Empire: The Geopolitics of US Drone Warfare’, Geopolitics, Vol. 18, No. 3 (2013), p. 548.
[v]Ibid.
[vi]Ibid.
[vii]The term was coined by Carl von Clausewitz and was made famous by former US Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, which illustrates the difficulties of making decisions in the midst of conflict, chaos and uncertainty.
[viii]Michel Foucault, ‘Society Must be Defended: Lectures at the Collegé de France 1975-76′, Picador (2003), p. 203.
[ix]Vivienne Jabri, The Postcolonial Subject: Claiming Politics/Governing Others in Late Modernity (Routledge, 2013), pp. 31-56.
[x]Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Penguin, 1991), p. 197.

Drones series, Part IV. ‘May you die in a drone strike’: Yemen, AQAP and the US drone program

April 18, 2014 by Strife Staff

By Dr Victoria Fontan:

Drones are slowly making their way into our modern lives. They can now deliver books, medical marijuana, or beer to sailors at sea. In the next few years, drones will dramatically change our lives. Farea al-Muslimi, a Yemeni youth activist, explains how they have already changed the social fabric of his country.[i] ‘May you die in a drone strike’ has now become people’s favourite curse, and when a parent wants a child to behave, he/she only needs to threaten to ‘call the drones,’ and the child will comply with any request. In the Global North, drones bring modernity to your doorstep. In Yemen, they deliver death.

Competing numbers of casualties

The exact number of drone strikes in Yemen cannot be fully ascertained, due to the covert nature of US operations in the region. While the first strike was carried out in 2002, all others have taken place after President Obama took office in 2009.

The table below summarises the data collected by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, New America Foundation, the Long War Journal and the Government of Yemen on drone strikes in the country.

In Yemen, drone strikes are only part of the story regarding the targeted killings performed by the United States government against, allegedly, Al-Qaeda in the Arabic Peninsula (AQAP). Other types of attacks can be launched from US Navy warships or army bases in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, whose fighter planes also participate in the US war on AQAP in Yemen.[ii] The public is being reassured that targeted killings are all carefully regulated, and that only terrorists are dying, minus a few collateral deaths that outweigh the potential civilian deaths resulting from an actual act of terrorism.[iii]

Grounds for targeted killings

On what grounds can a targeted killing take place? Al-Muslimi has had a lot of time to reflect on this. His village, Wessab, was targeted by a strike on April 17^th 2013.[iv] Six days later, he testified before the US Senate on the attack. An anti-drone activist since then, he explains that two are types of killings. Under the first type, the United States Department of Justice provided three clear conditions for a killing to take place: the person has to be designated as a person of interest and he or she must represent a direct threat to the US; the target cannot be captured; and, finally, the operation must not target civilians.[v] The other type is the ‘signature strike’, whereby any high-ranking military officer can order the death of anyone displaying suspicious behaviour.[vi] There lies a rather complex problem for any civilian: ‘What is suspicious behaviour in the US is completely normal behaviour here,’ explains Farea. ‘It can represent every single Yemeni in Yemen. If I am with you, going to a wedding outside Sana’a, we will obviously be between the age of 15 and 65, we will be carrying guns [they are part of the Yemeni dress code], and we will be a group, [that’s] enough! It is not even intelligent criteria anymore.’

Questions of effectiveness

These criteria raise many questions. First, if anyone can potentially be targeted, how effective can the strikes be in relation to weakening AQAP in the region? Moreover, are the conditions highlighted by Barack Obama ever being met? Several attacks come to mind, some of them involving drones, others both drones and missiles sent from US Navy ships. The first one is that of al Majaala, on December 17^th 2009, portrayed in Jeremy Scahill’s 2013 documentary Dirty Wars.[vii] The target of this attack was Mohammed al-Qazimi, a former alleged al-Qaeda associate who had spent five years in a Yemeni jail, and had been released shortly before the strike. Since he had returned to Maajala, he had been passing by an army checkpoint morning and afternoon to go and buy his daily bread and khat.[viii] He could easily have been arrested and tried at any time for any crimes he was accused of. Did he represent a known threat to the Yemeni government? It is unlikely that he would have ever been released from prison if he did. Fifty-five people died on that day, including 14 women, seven of which were pregnant, and 21 children.[ix] A second attack of interest is that of Qawlan, on January 23^rd 2013.[x] On that day, a known opponent of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Rabieh Hamud Labieh, was travelling by car. Labieh was a democratically elected local councillor who had turned against former President Saleh during the 2011 Arab Spring-related demonstrations. Labieh was notorious for having denounced the smuggling of government weapons between Sana’a and Saleh’s countryside stronghold right after his demise. He had been an opponent to the new regime, arguing that the country was still a dictatorship. Once again, why should he be targeted by the US government, except to contribute to a Yemeni government purge? Eight people died on that day, all civilians with no connections to AQAP.

AQAP, the ‘moderates’ and anti-US sentiment

Al-Muslimi remarks that the strike against his own village in April 2013 has increased anti-US sentiment throughout the region, hence boosting the local support for AQAP by default. The fact that AQAP now occasionally compensates villagers after drone strikes is a politically savvy move, clearly winning local hearts and minds in the process and also undermining the Yemeni government, which rarely offers compensation after strikes. Abdul Rahman Ali Barman, director of HOOD, a Yemeni-based Human Rights NGO, makes a more disturbing assertion regarding AQAP.[xi] Barman argues that moderates within the organization have been purged to the benefit of hardliners, all thanks to drone strikes. He mentions the recent killing of two moderate al-Qaeda officials by a strikes, Fadel Qasr and Mohammed el-Hamda. According to him, Qasr and el-Hamda were members of the AQAP council, the Shura, which decides on operations across the country. They both had withdrawn during the vote on several operations, which they did not agree with. Their names and locations were conveniently given to the Yemeni government, which then forwarded them to the US.[xii] According to Ali Barman, AQAP’s military leader, Qasm al-Raimi, is actually very close to the previous and current governments. If this is indeed the case as Ali Barman alleges, then indirectly, the US government would be aiding and abating AQAP, helping it purging its moderates. Of importance here is the idea that moderates within AQAP and other al-Qaeda related organizations seem to be more inclined towards addressing social justice issues, rather than directly challenging the State into the formation of an exclusive Caliphate.[xiii]

Drone strikes and targeted killings in Yemen are a very complex affair, much more so than the US government would like to admit. All parties involved, except the local population, seem to be benefiting from them. Ali Barman recalls the funeral of the Al-Maajala victims with emotion, especially an old lady who pleaded, referring to the US: ‘They even have laws that protect animals, why can’t they just consider us like their animals?’ Drones and the protection of animals in the US are two great signs of progress. In Yemen, they bear a sinister meaning. If the drone program continues in Yemen, the support from the population towards AQAP is likely to become much stronger, this due to the fact that many more civilians die in strikes than AQAP operatives, and that when AQAP members are targeted and killed, there are many candidates to replace them, often being more radical than their predecessors. Since it is public knowledge that the Yemeni government provides its US ally with the necessary intelligence before a strike, popular support can only go one way, that of AQAP.

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Dr. Victoria Fontan is an MPhil Candidate in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. She carried out research on drone strikes in Yemen in January 2014. This article is based on a series of stories published on her blog, which can be found at www.victoriacfontan.com. In July 2014, with some families of drone victims, she will contribute to the establishment of a network aimed at the systematic compilation of evidence after new strikes.

NOTES
[i] Interview with Farea Al-Muslimi, Sana’a, Yemen, January 7^th 2014.
[ii] See http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/americas/article3647656.ece
[iii] See Barack Obama’s remarks at the National Defense University (NDU): http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/remarks-president-barack-obama
[iv] See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtQ_mMKx3Ck
[v] See the US Department of Justice White paper for more information: http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf
[vi] President Obama stated in the NDU speech referenced above that this type of strike would be examined. The Wedding Party strike of December 2013 suggests that ‘signature strikes’ are still active, since the wedding convoy was mistaken for an AQAP convoy: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/12/us-drone-strike-wedding-party-yemen_n_4434127.html
[vii] For a detailed account of the US government involvement in Yemen and the Majaala attack, see: http://www.thenation.com/article/159578/dangerous-us-game-yemen?page=0,2
[viii]Khat is a locally grown leaf that is chewed daily for its stimulant properties.
[ix] See Al-Karama and HOOD’s report on drone strikes in Yemen for more details: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zixkp3osuKQJ:en.alkarama.org/documents/ALK_USA-Yemen_Drones_SRCTwHR_4June2013_Final_EN.pdf+Al-Karama+and+HOOD’s+report+on+drone+strikes+in+Yemen&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=safari
[x] Interview with Mohammed al-Qawli, Qawlan, Yemen, January 8^th 2014.
[xi] Interview with Abdul Rahman Ali Barman, Sana’a, Yemen, January 9^th 2014.
[xii] In December 2013, the Yemeni parliament almost unanimously called for an end to drone strikes in their country. The vote was a clear disavowal of Yemeni President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s support for and collaboration with the drone program. See: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/15/world/meast/yemen-drones/
[xiii] The author has recently initiated a research on the issue of moderate al-Qaeda affiliates in Fallujah, Iraq. For preliminary results, see: V. Fontan, ‘Out beyond Occupy Fallujah and the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham, there was a field’, in Harmonie Toros & Yannis Tellidis (eds.), Researching Terrorism, Peace and Conflict Studies: Interaction, Synthesis and Opposition (Routledge, forthcoming in August 2014).

Drones series, Part III. War, peace and the spaces in between: Drones in international law

April 15, 2014 by Strife Staff

By Dr. Jack McDonald:

128382_600 — ‘Use Drones Responsibly’ (cartoon by Randy Bish)

The Legal Regulation of UAVs

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)[1] don’t have to be used as weapons, but military UAVs require the same regulation as any other weapon system. Since the American use of UAVs to conduct targeted killings of people it defines as militants and terrorists, activists in a number of countries, notably Code Pink, have argued that their use should be stopped, and that these systems should face greater regulation.[2] Even though war and armed conflict are activities in which killing is legally sanctioned, the law of armed conflict places restrictions on the use of weapons, as well as deeming certain classes of weaponry to be illegal. The division between the two is neither neat, nor particularly logical without reference to the history of treaty law banning particular methods and means of warfare. Weapons that cannot be used without breaking key principles of the law of armed conflict (military necessity, proportionality and distinction) are illegal in essence. Weapons that are arbitrarily deemed illegal by treaty are also unusable by states adhering to commonly accepted interpretations of the law of armed conflict. The general consensus is that UAVs aren’t inherently illegal, but, like any other weapon, they may be used in an illegal manner.[3] The furore over the regulation of UAVs does, however, raise a number of issues about the role of international law in regulating the use of violence in war and armed conflict.

Processes of Banning Weapons

It appears unlikely that UAVs will be banned by a specific convention, however the calls for greater regulation of their use, particularly by non-state organisations, illustrates a key issue with the regulation of warfare in the contemporary world. The law of armed conflict is state-centric: states agree amongst themselves the precise wording of treaties to which they agree, determine for themselves the national interpretations of those treaties, and act accordingly. As students on War Studies’ International Peace & Security MA will no doubt be aware, international law is therefore constituted by politics, power, belief and practise. Over the past twenty years, however, NGOs have played an increasing role in the formation of international law.

The law regulating the use of weapons places limitations upon lawful means in warfare. Even if states differ in their interpretations of where the boundary between innately unlawful and lawful weapons lie, they all recognise that some means and methods are manifestly illegal. The starkest example of this lies in the arguments that comprise the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion on nuclear weapons.[4] It is difficult, if not impossible, to discriminate between civilians and permissible military targets when using nuclear weapons (setting aside the point that strategic nuclear weapons were routinely aimed at population centres) and it is hard to conceive of a weapon with such disproportionate effects. Despite this, some states argued that the weapons were not illegal in and of themselves. The primary means of determining the legality of a given weapon is the ‘Article 36 process’. This refers to article 36 of Additional Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions (1977) that requires states to consider and examine whether new means and methods of warfare could breach any current provision of international law. States make a point of ascertaining whether the weapons that they use are, in effect, admissible to the legal framework of armed conflict and warfare.

The issue highlighted by the prospect of UAV regulation is that states appear to consider them legal, following article 36 considerations, but activists seek to push states to either regulate them further, or ban them entirely. Specific treaty bans on types of weapon are enough to render them illegal, but these require the acceptance of states. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines, resulted in the widespread adoption of the landmine ban (the Ottawa Treaty), was not supported by notable states such as America, Russia and China. The subsequent effort to push states to ban cluster munitions attracted less support, and, again, lacked the support of significant military powers. Although NGOs have been able to influence a large number of states, without the support of an overwhelming majority of states (and, most importantly, permanent members of the United Nations Security Council) their ultimate influence is limited. The key issue here is the legitimacy of the means warfare, and the role that law plays in legitimising political violence. It is in this regard that international law appears to be somewhat out of step with significant sections of popular opinion. While states do ‘hold the cards’ to the extent that NGOs have no legal authority over their actions, it is clear that NGOs play a role in delegitimising some means of warfare in the eyes of the public. Adhering to legal obligations, such as the Article 36 process, doesn’t necessarily legitimise a weapons system in the eyes of the public, whereas an NGO criticising the use of a weapons system, such as UAVs, doesn’t make that system illegal.

Non-Obvious Warfare and International Law

The key challenge of UAVs is that they enable the conduct of hostilities in a manner that was previously unthinkable. The idea that a state could use violence by ‘remote control’ is nothing new, as Michael Ignatieff’s reflections on the Kosovo conflict made clear prior to the rise of UAVs.[5] However, the degree of precision in remote warfare was previously low – Tomahawk missiles might be able to strike a target, but they could not do so in the manner that UAV operators are able to alter predicted blast patterns in near-real time.

Evolving technology, and novel uses of technology, enable armed conflicts to be conducted in a manner far beyond the imagination of those who laid the foundations of the law of armed conflict. One way of thinking about this is the relationship between the visibility of an armed conflict, and the law that regulates it. The law of armed conflict is founded in visible or ‘obvious’ warfare. As Martin Libicki outlined in a 2012 Strategic Studies Quarterly article, novel technologies permit war to be fought with entirely non-visible, or ambiguous means. The use of UAVs exacerbates this (Libicki referred to it as ‘drone warfare’).[6] Where, for example, is the ‘battlefield’ in UAV use?[7] What use is the concept of ‘combat’ where one participant is half a world away, in an air-conditioned environment? These issues pre-date UAVs, but the maturation of this technology enables violence to occur in situations far removed from those commonly associated with armed conflict. Whether this is a positive or negative development is a matter of opinion at this stage, but it also exposes key aspects of warfare which were previously taken for granted.

The protection of non-combatants is a key purpose of the law of armed conflict. A significant issue with the use of UAVs is that their lack of visibility deprives third parties to a given armed conflict of the ability to separate themselves from it. Even if we take as a given that an armed conflict exists between America and al-Qaeda (which is by no means certain, or accepted by critics) then one conducted by UAV strikes and other sporadic bursts of violence make it extremely difficult to determine the places in which people are at risk of being killed by error or accepted consequence. Even if the American use of UAVs is (as claimed) more precise than any previous era of warfare, this method of warfare also deprives those affected by it of simple means of protecting themselves. By this, I mean that civilians who are no part of the purported conflict have no method of disassociating themselves from it. In any ‘normal’ armed conflict, a civilian who wishes to preserve their life (above their livelihood and normal way of life) usually has the option of becoming a refugee when they perceive the approach of military forces. The lot of a refugee is far from safe, nor should it be considered as a ‘good’ outcome in the normal sense of the word. However, as the current Syrian civil war demonstrates, civilians are able to separate themselves from violence that would otherwise kill them, even if it results in an often harsh existence. Where states choose to wage war by non-obvious means, civilians have no way of ascertaining their immediate danger. An armed conflict might pass them by without ever entering earshot, or it might result in their death for standing too close to people that a state, halfway around the world, has determined are lawful military targets. None of this is explicitly illegal, but the continued use of UAVs by state militaries is likely to lead to further pressure from NGOs and the public as a result of these issues. I doubt these will lead to a ban, but states will have to argue their case for the continued use of UAVs beyond their ‘simple’ legality.

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Dr Jack McDonald is a research associate and teaching fellow at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London.

NOTES

[1] Or ‘drone’, ‘unmanned combat aerial vehicle’, ‘remote piloted air system’, depending on the writer.
[2] See, for example, http://droneswatch.org/ a coalition founded by Code Pink
[3] The end use of UAVs for targeted killings presents a host of legal issues. The best single volume introduction to the subject is Finkelstein, Ohlin and Altman Eds.’ Targeted Killings: Law and Morality in an Asymmetrical World (Oxford University Press, 2012)
[4] Commonly referred to as the Nuclear Weapons case. It is worth reading the full opinion, as well as the various decisions on pages 42 onwards http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/95/7495.pdf
[5] See Michael Ignatieff’s Virtual War (Vintage: 2001)
[6] http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/2012/fall/libicki.pdf
[7] This is a key criticism of the American use of UAVs, as well as a wider theoretical point. See, for example, Mary Ellen O’Connell Unlawful Killing with Combat Drones: A Case Study of Pakistan, 2004-2009 (SSRN: 2009) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract-id=1501144

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