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UAV

Turkey and Drone Warfare: A Winning Combination for Azerbaijan?

November 30, 2020 by Hannah Papachristidis

by Hannah Papachristidis

Death from above: the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB-2 drone going global? (Image credit: DHA via AP)

Azerbaijan’s victory in the recently concluded war with Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh can be defined by the former’s extensive military capabilities and its close relationship with Turkey. In particular, the use of Turkish-supplied drones to secure aerial dominance distinctly shaped the conflict in Azerbaijan’s favour. With fighting intensifying in late October and early November, it was feared the conflict would extend into the winter, risking significant humanitarian issues. On the evening of 9 November, however, the conflict abruptly ended with the signing of a peace deal, brokered by Russia. The deal cemented Azerbaijan’s territorial gains and, whilst not including Turkey as a co-signatory, provides significant benefits to it, as Azerbaijan’s critical ally.

The dispute surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, where ninety-five per cent of the population is ethnically Armenian, can be traced to the Armenian Genocide in 1914 and the independent Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) region within Azerbaijan that the Soviet Union created in response to the genocide. As the Soviet Union dissolved, the NKAO sought to formally join Armenia and, in 1991, the region declared independence from Azerbaijan. This led to war between Armenia and Azerbaijan and similarly ended with a Russia-brokered cease-fire in 1994. Under this deal, Nagorno-Karabakh and other surrounding regions fell under Armenian control. The cease-fire was designed to be temporary and Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan however, this status quo has remained in place for 26 years, that is until the events of this year.

Russia’s historic support for Armenia on the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh has meant the two countries have remained closely allied since 1994, albeit with Armenia becoming increasingly reliant on its ally – Russia maintains a military base in Armenia and the two countries are part of a multilateral defence agreement. Azerbaijan, on the other hand, sought to balance both Western and Russian influences in the period after 1994 and, only more recently, has the country taken steps to become closer to Moscow. It is not, for example, a party to the same treaty as Armenia.  In recent years, however, Baku has come to see Russia as the key player in efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In a signal towards improved relations, Baku has made significant investments in Russian weapons in recent years. In terms of the recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, however, Azerbaijan has relied on remaining close to its Turkish ally, with whom it shares ethnic, cultural and historical ties.

For Armenia and Azerbaijan, military capabilities are a significant part of national identity. Over the last ten years, both countries have committed a similar proportion of GDP on military expenditure and, as of 2019, both countries rank in the top 10 most militarised countries in the world. Whilst Russia has extensively supplied weapons to both countries since the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994, there is a clear asymmetry between the two foes. The value of exports from Russia to Azerbaijan in the period 2009-2019 is over 4.5 times greater than Russian exports to Armenia.

Armenia lacks the cash of its oil-rich adversary in Baku and, therefore, has relied almost entirely on Russia for its arms, provided primarily through Russian credit. Azerbaijan, however, has invested both more significantly in Russian weapons, as well as in other suppliers. When the fighting started in September, therefore, Azerbaijan was far better equipped for war than its adversary.

In Azerbaijan’s efforts to diversify its arms procurement, it has looked to the arms industries of key allies, Turkey and Israel, and it is these weapons which ensured Azerbaijan’s military strength over Armenia. In the year leading up to the outbreak of fighting, exports from Turkey rose six-fold, with sales reaching $77 million in September alone and included drones and rocket launchers. Azerbaijan was also the second-highest receiver of Israeli major conventional weapons between 2015-2019, with Israel providing sixty-one per cent of arms to Baku in the last year.

Of these exports, the weapons which shaped the conflict were, without a doubt, drones and loitering munitions systems. Turkey is a growing drone power, and reports in July suggested Azerbaijan acquired a fleet of Turkish-made armed drones, including the Bayraktar TB2. In addition to these, Israel, also a major drone exporter, has supplied Azerbaijan with the SkyStriker and IAI Harop. These loitering munitions systems, known as ‘suicide drones’ are silent aerial vehicles, capable of long-range, precise strikes, which are built to crash and explode on impact. The Harop was used extensively by Azerbaijan alongside the Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles. According to RUSI, the two systems destroyed more than half of Armenian T72 main battle tanks since the fighting began in September.

In response to the use of Turkish drones in the conflict, Canada suspended exports of drone parts to Turkey after reports by Project Ploughshares showed that Turkish drones were using sensor technology produced by a Canadian subsidiary of the US defence contractor L3Harris. Whilst this move angered Ankara, it did not appear to dissuade Azerbaijan from using Turkish-made drones in their campaign.

As the conflict swung in Azerbaijan’s favour, the violence escalated. In early October, Human Rights Watch documented the repeated use of internationally banned cluster munitions (such as the Israeli-made M095 DPCIM) by Azerbaijan in residential areas of Nagorno-Karabakh. On 28 October, Armenia fired retaliatory Smerch rockets, containing 9N235 submunitions into the city of Barda, Azerbaijan. The use of such explosives to indiscriminately target civilian populations not only goes against the UN treaty on cluster munitions but also violates international humanitarian law. Unconfirmed reports in both Armenian and Azeri media made claims that white phosphorus munitions, another internationally banned substance, had been fired by both sides.

Azerbaijan’s upper hand was secured by the taking of Shusha, the second-largest city in Nagorno-Karabakh. Significant emphasis has been placed on the city, as it gives strategic dominance over the enclave, as well as being of great cultural importance. On the same day, Aliyev received the Turkish Foreign Minister and the National Defence Minister, further signs of the countries’ intimate relationship. There is little doubt that Azerbaijan’s battlefield gains had been guaranteed through Turkish support and weaponry.

Despite its bellicose calls throughout the fighting, it seems like that Turkey will have encouraged Azerbaijan to accept the deal, in part to maintain Turkey’s relationship with Russia. Turkey has complicated relations with Russia given that they support opposing sides in Syria, Yemen and Libya however, they appear to have worked together to bring Armenia and Azerbaijan to the table. For Turkey, the deal promises a corridor across Armenia via Nakhchivan and Azerbaijan to the Caspian Sea, linking Turkey to Central Asia and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a suggestion of Erodgan’s desires to spread his influence deeper into the South Caucasus.

The various involvements of Russia and Turkey in encouraging, fuelling, and ending the conflict reflect the nuances of geopolitical relations in a highly-militarised and volatile region. That the peace deal was drawn-up by Russia, with significant advantages for Turkey, suggests the diminishing influence of the OSCE Minsk Group and the US in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute and the extension of Russia and Turkey throughout the region. Whether the Russian-brokered peace will last, however, seems uncertain. The deal consists only of nine points, with no specific details on humanitarian support nor the status of Nagorno-Karabakh itself. The Armenians remain angry and it seems likely that Prime Minister Pashinyan will not survive the crisis. Regardless of what happens next, Russia and Turkey have now embedded themselves closely in the dispute.

The conflict, moreover, succeeded in showcasing the power of cheap but efficient drones in challenging traditional ground forces. Azerbaijan’s use of these weapons provided clear evidence of how future battlefields will be transformed by unmanned attack drones and loitering munitions.


Hannah Papachristidis is a project officer at Transparency International Defence & Security, where she manages research outputs for the 2020 Government Defence Integrity Index. Hannah holds an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University and is an Emerging Expert at Forum on the Arms Trade.

 

 

Filed Under: Blog Article, Feature Tagged With: Armenia, Azerbaijan, drones, Erdogan, Missiles, Nagorno Karabakh, Turkey, UAV

PROXY Capabilities – Proliferation and Patronage: UAV Diffusion as a New Form of Proxy

April 6, 2016 by Rian Whitton

This is the third of a series of articles we will be featuring on Strife in the coming week looking at the role of Proxy Warfare in the 21st century by Series Editor Cheng Lai Ki. Previous articles in the series can be found here.

By: Rian Whitton

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Source: Russia Today

Though having existed for most of the twentieth century, the improved technological capabilities and increased reconnaissance and lethal capacities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) have raised concern about their proliferation. Through analysing developments in China, Iran and non-state actors like Hezbollah, it becomes clear that regulation is not working, and the diffusion of UAV is providing new avenues for proxy strategies.

China –Interstate proliferation a form of arms competition and proxy

Beijing has been researching unmanned aerial vehicles since the late 1950s.[1] More recently, China’s economic boom has fuelled a substantial programme of military modernisation, one of the fruits of which has been the procurement of some 50 designs.  These range from micro-drones to unmanned combat systems (UCAV’s) like the Wing Loong II (Pterodactyl), a platform whose similarities to the MQ-1 Predator led some to believe it was procured through espionage.[2]

While the Chinese rationale for UAV’s relates directly to the patrolling of Beijing’s interests in the contested maritime waters of the South China Sea and East pacific, the most striking development has been the exporting of platforms to other countries.[3] Nigeria, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have all purchased the Wing Loong I, with Jordan, a prominent US ally in the fight against IS, also rumoured to have negotiated a deal in May 2015.[4]

A number of factors explain Beijing’s success in selling UAV’s. A recent senate report noted that China was not hindered by the same export restrictions of the two premiere UAV producers; the USA and Israel. While the two countries are bound by the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and the Wassenaar Arrangement, China is not, and thus has been sheltered from competition with its more renowned competitors.[5]

Another driver is the relatively low cost of Chinese systems. The Wing Loong II is believed to cost $1 million in comparison to the $30 million Reaper.[6] Though it lacks the payload, maximum altitude and speed of its US counterpart, such deficiencies are redundant in a market strategy primarily pandering to developing countries in Africa and the Middle-East. At a 2012 air show in Zhuhai, a Chinese official explained that Asian and African countries were “quite interested in the intermediate and short-range UAVs because they are expendable and low-cost.”[7] China also attempted to capitalise on Pakistani frustration at not accessing US UAV technology by supplying Islamabad with the CH-3 Rainbow.[8] This was averted with the indigenous development of the Burraq UCAV.[9]

Worries about Beijing undercutting Washington in the sale of UAV’s led Republican rep. Duncan Hunter to urge the President to provide the Jordanian government with access to the Predator, in response to concerns that China was finalising a deal with America’s regional ally to supply a number of unmanned platforms.[10] That General Atomics (producer of the Predator) is Hunter’s largest campaign contributor should be noted, and in the face of stagnating domestic budgets, American companies are pushing for ever looser export-restrictions. Concomitantly US-aligned countries like Ukraine have begun requesting Reapers.[11] Washington’s current policy has been to help its allies by using UAV’s to provide lethal targeting information, like with French forces in Mali.[12]

With both internal and external pressure, America has eased its restrictions on exports as of mid-2015.[13]Though still abiding by the MTCR agreements, the development suggests an understanding in Washington that their stringent controls have done nothing to stall proliferation, as they risk losing market ground to China.

Iran- Middle Powers can develop significant UAV industries

The proliferation and control of UAV’s is increasingly out of the hands of great powers, with regional players like Iran developing significant capability.

The international embargoes on Tehran have so far limited it to domestic technology, but the programme; spearheaded by the Revolutionary Guard’s Aerospace division, has made considerable progress off the back of reverse-engineering US/Israeli systems.[14] An example of this is the Shahed-129 (based on the Israeli Hermes-450), which is purported to be capable of a missile payload for a non-stop 24-hour flight over 2000km.[15] Iran has also claimed to develop an air-to-air combat drone (Sarir H-110). The ability of Iran, a regional power under international embargo, to develop a thriving UAV industry primarily through the reverse engineering of Western models is impressive.

The effectiveness of regulation or embargos is unlikely to stall this development. The Iranian drone fleet is comprised mainly of small tactical platforms, and thus the majority of necessary components are accessible via the use of middlemen and front companies. In 2009, a US cable published by WikiLeaks warned about Iran trying to obtain German Limbach 550E engines and ship them to an Iranian Aircraft Manufacturing Company with faked shipping labels.[16] Such accessibility to dual-use components and off-the-shelf materials makes UAV’s a difficult category to regulate compared to more expensive systems (vis-à-vis fighter aircraft). Alarmingly, Iran’s success in procuring modern UAV technology is facilitating the diffusion to non-state proxies.

Hezbollah- Non-state proxies have increased access to UAV’s

One of Iran’s key beneficiaries; Hezbollah, has had access to drone technology for a number of years, with a fleet of reportedly 200 platforms.[17] As early as 2004, Iran ferried an update of the Mohajer, the Mirsad, to Hezbollah.[18]

This has exacerbated security concerns for Israel. In2006, Hezbollah launched Ababil UCAV’s allegedly carrying explosives against Tel Aviv. They were promptly shot down by Israeli F-16s.[19] These medium-altitude UAV’s are virtually defenceless against sophisticated air defences, but the main concern for Tel Aviv is that Hezbollah will use large quantities of low-flying miniature drones that are harder to intercept. An example this came in 2014 when a low altitude reconnaissance drone was caught loitering over an Israeli nuclear reactor.[20]

UAV’s provide Hezbollah with a number of advantages; kamikaze-style strikes could have a similar casualty rate to suicide bombings. The unmanned systems could also supply the group with accurate reconnaissance of Israeli movements while potentially directing a 60,000 strong stockpile of projectiles.[21] The psychological impact is also substantive, with insurgents appearing to strike technological parity with the world’s fourth-strongest military. This constitutes a misappropriation of awe regarding the sophistication and strategic impact of UAV’s.

Iran’s patronage of Hezbollah represents the most striking case-study of UAV’s being used as a tool of proxy warfare by competing powers, and the technology is proliferating on multiple fronts. In the ongoing Ukrainian conflict, reports suggest the Donetsk People’s Republic has deployed the Russian-made Eleron 3SV for ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) campaigns.[22] In turn, Kiev has been using modified and hobbyist UAV’s for ISR support.[23]

Looking forward

The successes of China in undercutting America by exporting cheaper drones, and the ability of Iran, despite embargos, to develop an impressive apparatus and arm its proxies, points to the fact that the stringent US-export controls and wider international regulations are not going to prevent the proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles.

While the mentioned examples relate to the diffusion of drone technology via state patronage, the economics and feasibility of drones are driving proliferation beyond arms sales.

As Woods notes, non-state actors are trying to build their own UAV’s. In 2013 alone, local law enforcement has uncovered ‘drone workshops’ in three nations.[24] In Iraq and Islamabad, ‘Drone-laboratories’ have been uncovered.[25] As Iran’s procurement through reverse engineering and off-the-shelf purchasing has shown, the acquisition of drone technology is becoming increasingly feasible, so much so that non-state actors may not have to act as a proxy and rely on a generous patron for accessing UAV’s. In 2012, the RAND Corporation study noted the possibility of insurgents and terrorists being armed with substantial fleets of small, rudimentary drones and employing swarm technology.[26] There is certainly no guarantee that even the tightest international regulation of states, or even a ban, would stop terrorist organisations incorporating unmanned systems within their wider arsenals.

Despite these concerns, three considerations should undercut hyperbole regarding the diffusion of UAV’s. Firstly, unmanned systems, though tactically convenient and incorporating multiple capabilities, have yet to prove beyond doubt their strategic war-winning ability.

Second, unmanned systems remain secondary to conventional airpower. During the 2011 intervention in Libya, NATO remote crews carried out 145 strikes, compared to the 7,455 weapons released by manned aircraft.[27] This provides some context of drone usage not as transformative but as a growing development alongside traditional airpower.

Third, the growth in unmanned systems has been mirrored by counter-measures employed by both non-state actors and states. In Mali, a document was discovered which provided practical solutions on how to foil drone strikes.[28] Militants and non-state actors are receiving the military kit, like Russian-made ‘Skygrabber’ transceivers, that can interfere with UAV signals and hack into drone feeds.[29] The Kremlin has also provided its separatist beneficiaries in the Donbass with signal jamming technology.[30] The proliferation of unmanned systems is feeding a simultaneous proliferation of ‘anti-UAV’ technology.

Technologists like Elon Musk have opened a debate on banning autonomous weapons.[31] But when it comes to regulating the systems on which the prophesied artificial intelligence might run, the ship has sailed.

Rian holds a bachelor’s degree in history & politics from the university of Sheffield. He is currently undertaking his MA in science & security at King’s where his academic interests revolve around technological innovation, unmanned systems, remote warfare and strategic culture.

Notes:

[1] O’Gorman, R.  & Abbott, C., ‘Remote control war Unmanned combat air vehicles in China, India, Israel, Iran, Russia and Turkey,’ Remote Control Project, Open Briefing, September 20th, 2013, p. 3 http://remotecontrolproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Remote-Control-War.pdf

[2]Baker, B. ‘Chinese Arms Companies Are Picking Up the Pace in Africa and the Middle East,’ The Diplomat, October 21st, 2015   http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/chinese-arms-companies-are-picking-up-the-pace-in-africa-and-the-middle-east/

[3] O’Gorman, R.  & Abbott, C., p. 5

[4] Tucker, P. & Weisgerber, M., ‘China May Be Selling Armed Drones to Jordan,’ Defense One, May 15th, 2015. http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/05/china-may-be-selling-armed-drones-jordan/112876/

 [5] Hsu, K., ‘China’s Military Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Industry,‘ U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, June 13, 2013, p. 15 http://origin.www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/China’s%20Military%20UAV%20Industry_14%20June%202013.pdf

[6] Baker, B., ‘Drone Wars: China and US Compete on the Global UAV Market,’ October 25, 2015 ‘http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/drone-wars-china-and-us-compete-on-the-global-uav-market/

[7] Standaert, M. ‘China unveils new drones aimed at buyers in developing countries,’ Global Post, November 15, 2012, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/121114/china-unveils-newdrones-developing-economies.

[8] Ali Ehsan, M., ‘Drone warfare in Balochistan,’ The Express Tribune, June 14th, 2015  http://tribune.com.pk/story/903100/drone-warfare-in-balochistan/

 [9] Baghwan, J., ‘Drone war: ‘Burraq’ turned the tide in Tirah battle, say officials,’ The Express Tribune, March 26, 2015, http://tribune.com.pk/story/859152/drone-war-burraq-turned-the-tide-in-tirah-battle-say-officials/

 [10] Tucker, P. & Weisgerber, M.

[11] ‘‘Hostile Drones,’ p. 13

[12] Woods, C., ‘ Sudden Justice, America’s Secret Drone Wars,’ Hurst company, London, 2015, p. 280

[13] Tucker, P. & Weisgerber, M., ‘Obama To Sell Armed Drones To More Countries,’ Defense One, February 17th, 2015 http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/02/obama-sell-armed-drones-more-countries/105495/

[14] O’Gorman, R.  & Abbott, C., p. 9

[15] Rawnsley, A., ‘Like It or Not, Iran Is a Drone Power: Sanctions have not stopped Tehran’s robot development,’ War is Boring, September 5th, 2014  https://medium.com/war-is-boring/like-it-or-not-iran-is-a-drone-power-e9899c954a3f#.zcv6do9u5

[16] Rawnsley, A.

[17] ‘Hostile Drones,’ Remote Control project, Open briefing, January 2016, p. 12 http://remotecontrolproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Hostile-use-of-drones-report_open-briefing_16.pdf

 [18] Dreazen, Y., The Next Arab-Israeli War Will Be Fought with Drones,’ New Republic, March 27th, 2014 https://newrepublic.com/article/117087/next-arab-israeli-war-will-be-fought-drones

[19] ‘Hostile Drones,’ p. 12

[20] Hostile Drones,’ p. 12

[21] Dreazen, Y.

[22] Dreazen, Y.

[23] ‘Hostile Drones,’ p. 13

[24] Woods, C., p. 275

[25] Woods, C., p. 275

[26] Woods, C., p. 275

[27] Woods, C., p. 279

[28] Woods, C., p. 273

[29] Woods, C., p. 273

[30] Hostile Drones,’ p. 13

[31] Roberts, B. & Musgrave, Z., ‘Why Humans Need To Ban Artificially Intelligent Weapons,’ Defense One, August 14th, 2015 http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/08/why-humans-need-ban-artificially-intelligent-weapons/119130/

 

Filed Under: Blog Article Tagged With: China, drones, Hezbollah, Iran, UAV

Is remote control effective in solving security problems?

October 20, 2015 by Strife Staff

By: Chad Daniel Tumelty

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/MQ-9_Reaper_UAV.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/MQ-9_Reaper_UAV.jpg

Editors note: Remote Control is a project hosted by the London-based think tank Oxford Research Group, set up to examine changes in military engagement, in particular the use of drones, special forces, private military companies and cyber warfare. They recently hosted an essay competition for participants in response to the question ‘Is remote control effective in solving security problems?’ Both Chad Tumelty and Archie Jobson of King’s College London achieved runner up. Strife is proud to feature them as your long read of the week over the coming two weeks.

* * *

Drones manifest both the concept and operation of remote control. As more states acquire and use drones to perform tasks previously performed by manned aircraft the effect that this transition of control will have upon wider state security will become clear. However as yet it is not. As such it is important to not only to think about how effective drones may be in solving security problems but also the wider impact this may have. The argument presented here is that the effectiveness of drones in solving state security problems will not be determined by the technology that allows them to be controlled remotely but in how states utilise that technology without impacting upon the security of other states. While drones can increase a state’s security by performing sorties that manned aircraft cannot, offering unparalleled persistence over borders and maritime interests, in areas where relations between states are strained such employment may be misperceived and create a security dilemma. Although drones enable states to conduct dangerous reconnaissance flights remotely without any risk to a pilot, epitomizing the concept of post-heroic warfare, this risks states becoming more inclined to conduct more politically precarious operations, potentially eroding security.

 

Introduction

Drones represent the perfect manifestation of both the concept and operation of remote control in technological form. The growing ubiquity and employment of drones represents one of the most salient technological developments to impact upon state security in recent times. Both the number of states acquiring drones as well as the number and variety they are acquiring is growing; with over ninety states now operating them, and a further twenty actively developing them.[2] Commonly referred to as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or more accurately remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), drones allow states to exercise many of the same operations performed by manned aircraft through systems of remote control, sometimes at greater efficiently or at lower risk. Although certain elements of some drones operations are automated, such as take-off and landing, they are often confused as being autonomous systems; ones that can perform a task or function without human input once activated.[3] While drones are being increasing used to perform security tasks instead of manned aircraft, the effect that this transition to remote control will have upon on state security is not yet clear.

The current U.S. exceptional use of armed UAVs to conduct targeted killings of suspected terrorists and insurgents outside of traditional battlefields, such as in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, by President Obama’s administration has raised both the profile and controversy surrounding drones.[4] Despite this, even before the first armed General Atomics MQ-1 Predator was tested in 2001 the use of drones was a growing feature of state security activity in non-lethal intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) roles; such as the American use of such systems in the Gulf War and operations in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as frequent Israeli deployment of drones since the 1980’s.[5]  Historically drones have been operated as such intelligence gathering platforms, most notably by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) throughout the Cold War.[6] Outside of military and intelligence applications, drones are now also being used for a variety of non-lethal ISR roles by both state and non-state actors, including counter-trafficking surveillance, border patrols, search and rescue operations, and environmental monitoring, while it is as widely considered that drones have the potential to be used in almost ‘endless’ commercial applications.[7] Many also view the limited use of UAVs by Hezbollah as the possible prelude to their widespread use by other terrorist groups.[8] Given their proliferation, it is important to understand how effective the use of remotely controlled drones will be in solving a state’s security problems but also to consider the wider impact this may have upon their security.

The impact that drones will have upon security will not be determined by the technology behind making an aircraft unmanned but on how states utilise the remote control that drones offer and how other states will react to this in turn. In order to evaluate how effective remote control is in solving security problems this essay will explore the employment of drones by states to perform security functions associated with ISR applications. It will argue that while the uses drones in such roles may increase a state’s security in a number of ways by performing onerous functions that manned aircraft cannot, the perceived low risk to their employment may potentially erode security however by increasing the inclination of states to undertake more intrusive operations against others, both politically and physically, which they would not do with manned aircraft. In order to illustrate this, this essay will consider both the ‘dull’ surveillance and ‘dangerous’ reconnaissance tasks that drones are commonly conceived as being especially suited for, as reflected in both British and American doctrines on RPA.[9] The first section will consider how by performing surveillance flights previously considered too dull for manned aircraft the remote control offered by drones can effectively increase a state’s security by enabling persistent loitering over borders, waters and other national interests, and then consider the potential impact this may have in creating a security dilemma. The second section will explore the issue of greater concern and the use of drones to conduct dangerous reconnaissance and intelligence gathering missions over an adversaries territory, and how this risks creating insecurity between states through this post-heroic use of airpower.

Dull Surveillance

It is often the limits of human endurance that constitutes the weak link in the time that an aircraft can remain airborne. Occasionally exceptional efforts have been made to overcome these limitations, such as during the Kosovo intervention when American Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit bombers flew with two crews on-board during their thirty hour roundtrip missions from their base in the continental U.S. to Serbia.[10] However pilot fatigue has mainly been the constraining factor of flight-times and not aeronautical engineering. By removing the manned element in the aircraft drones ameliorate this issue through remote control and allow for missions requiring significant endurance that have been previously classified as either too dull or difficult to be flown. For example, the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, often suggested in the U.S. as a replacement for their Lockheed U-2 spy plane, nicknamed the ‘Dragon Lady’, is able remain airborne in excess of thirty hours over long ranges but can operate either through automation on preprogramed flight paths or by pilots working in shifts through remote control, negating the constraint of fatigue.[11] Drones then, as put by former Royal Air Force Air Chief Marshal Sir Brian Burridge, enable the ‘holy grail of air power: persistence’ which in turn opens up new ways in which such aircraft can be utilised to increase state security enabled through remote control.[12]

It is through this persistence that drones offer states which confers upon them the ability to improve their security situation by increasing the protection of previously vulnerable areas or assets through extended surveillance. RPA are commonly referenced by many as a suitable solution to protecting and monitoring ‘vulnerable targets at sea’, such as merchant shipping, tankers, oil rigs and pipelines, through the exploitation of the persistence offered by remote control.[13] The British vision for drones primarily involves them undertaking many maritime security tasks, that are either not suited to naval assets or that are currently performed by manned aircraft but require multiple sorties; such tasks include littoral monitoring, anti-submarine patrols, counter-piracy tasks, fisheries protection and ocean scanning.[14]  Both the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy already employ a number of UAVs to conduct these tasks.[15] Drones can also increase a state’s terrestrial security by performing dull flights. In 2005, the U.S. Congress authorized its Customs and Border Protection to purchase unarmed Predators to conduct its border patrols and surveillance more effectively and easily.[16] Since then a number of other federal agencies including the Missile Defense Agency, Drug Enforcement Administration and Department of Transport, as well as growing number of local sheriff and police departments, have acquired a multitude of drones for the purpose of increasing U.S. national security.[17]

By offering the ability to perform flights previously considered too dull, laborious or costly drones can effectively increase a state’s security. The persistent ISR capability that drones offer through remote control at decreased manpower and aircraft fatigue means that previously vulnerable assets or exploitable areas can now be protected. For example, during initial operations in Afghanistan the U.S. Air Force was able to operate twenty four separate Predator missions to provide ‘coverage round the clock’ in supporting troops; a task that would have proven extremely demanding on both aircraft and personnel if attempted with manned assets.[18]  This capability can be easily adapted to increase national security or protect national interests. It should be noted that such operations do come at a high cost however, meaning that not all states could afford to mount such operations and most could not do so over multiple areas at once. A single Predator for example costs a little under $4.5 million, of which a quarter accounts for just the surveillance package, while it requires 168 people working across multiple areas to operate one for, and maintain it after, just twenty four hours of flight.[19] As developments in UAV technology continue to advance and market dynamics ensue it is likely that more advanced drones will be become widely available. It should be noted that not every state will require expensive high altitude, long endurance UAVs such as the Global Hawk or Predator, and will be able to adapt the wide variety of cheaper commercially available drones to meet their own unique security needs. The growing sophistication of drones costing even hundreds of dollars means that they have the potential capacity to produce significant security effects if sophistically deployed.[20]

The use of RPA in such dull surveillance roles may have unforeseen consequences however. Widespread state use of drones on interstate borders and over common waters may invoke a ‘security dilemma’; where steps taken by one state to increase their security undermines the security of other states.[21] When outlining the dilemma in 1978, Robert Jervis noted that ‘inspection devices can ameliorate the security dilemma’ by providing states with a ‘warning of coming dangers’ over their border and waters, but warned that; ‘attempts to establish buffer zones can alarm others who have stakes there, who fear that undesirable precedents will be set, or who believe that their own vulnerability will be increased.’[22] It is through such employment that drones have the potential to create security problems for states. Although the widespread use of drones by various U.S. federal agencies over its shared borders has not concerned either Mexico or Canada this is jointly due to the historical norms of friendly relations between the U.S. and its neighbours and the bi-lateral security benefits of their border protection, ballistic missile defence and counter-narcotics missions.[23]  In regions where there are contested territorial disputes, such as the South China Sea, or where relationships between neighbours are particularly strained or actively hostile, then the introduction of similar practices with drones may increase tension between states.  For example, despite repeated calls to do so the U.S. has refused to provide even unarmed UAVs to Ukraine to perform ISR roles, fearing that it might antagonise Russia further and prompt an escalation in the use of force.[24]

A way of evaluating this potential effect of such security operations with drones is through the lens of the offense-defence balance. This theory suggests that when it is technologically easier for a state to mount offensive action there is a greater probability of conflict, but when defence has the advantage the reverse is true.[25] Therefore if drones are seen as an enabler of territorial conquest and annexation then their widespread use over international boundaries and waters may induce friction between states, however if they are perceived as performing a security function then they could reduce the potential for conflict.[26] While it is difficult to classify technology as either offensive or defensive, Jack Levy has argued that some characteristics such as mobility will inherently offer greater offensive potential than others, such as armament, protection, endurance or even striking power.[27] On a similar vein, recently Peter Singer has noted how emerging technologies such as drones and robotics ‘are perceived as helping the offensive side in a war more than defence’ due to their ability to be operated remotely.[28] Although a fierce critic of the use of drones to conduct targeted killing operations, General Stanley McChrystal has reported how RPA employed in ISR roles were an effective force multiplier for the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command when he led them in Iraq, in that they provided unparalleled situational awareness and improved command and control which enabled his forces to conduct multiple commando raids per night.[29] Therefore there is the potential that drones could produce friction between states when performing surveillance security tasks over shared areas or borders, regardless of their armament, due to the inherent quality of some of their traits, including remote control, in enabling states to conduct offensive operations.

Dangerous Reconnaissance

Reconnaissance flights over an adversary’s territory have historically been the most dangerous mission undertaken by aircraft.[30]  The recent downing and subsequent execution of Jordanian pilot Lieutenant Muadh al-Kasasbeh at the hands of Islamic State and Iraq and the Levant over Syria on the 24th December 2014 illustrates the danger that ISR sorties over an enemy’s territory can entail.[31]  In addition to the risk to a pilot’s life reconnaissance flights have also carried the most political risk.  On the 1st May 1960 the Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 flying over its territory, captured its pilot Major Gary Powers, and then proceeded to arrest him for spying and paraded him on television, causing ‘a devastating blow to the U.S.’s international prestige’.[32] The ensuing political fallout meant that American manned reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union ceased; ‘What had been an acceptable risk on 1 May became unacceptable politically and militarily on 2 May.’[33]  It was these very risks that drones helped to eliminate through remote control.  As previously noted, it has been in the ISR role over hostile territory that drones have historically been employed. For example, drones were extensively employed to monitor China’s nuclear program and throughout the Cold War the NRO flew numerous drone reconnaissance sorties over the Chinese nuclear test site at Lop Nor to gain details of their nuclear testing and arsenal.[34] On the 15th November 1964 China shot down a U.S. Ryan AQM-34 Firebee in an event which ‘made the front page of The New York Times, but created little controversy.’[35] The loss of seven more drones over China between 1965 and 1975 ‘went virtually unnoticed’ with these events creating almost no political fallout despite conducting essentially the same activity that Powers had been over the Soviet Union.[36]  It is due to this record that Ann Rogers and John Hill argue that drones solve what they term the ‘Gary Powers problem’ simply by being unmanned and remotely controlled, appearing to ‘manifest a less obvious trespass than a manned incursion’.[37]  It is this perception of drone reconnaissance flights that may potentially carry with it the greatest risks to state security.

The fact that drones are piloted remotely means that the calculation of risk concerning their employment for dangerous flights such as reconnaissance sorties is altered. In other words, drones allow leaders to ‘take risks’ that they would ‘hesitate to do with manned aircraft’.[38] The legacy of RPA use throughout the Cold War as well as their current employment stands testament to this. David Dunn argues that because they are controlled remotely and therefore disembodied, drones ‘disrupt the calculus of risk’ in those who employ them by convincing them that their use in sensitive mission can be conducted with ‘domestic political impunity, minimal international response and low political risk’.[39] Peter Singer terms this the ‘dark irony’ of drones, in that by removing the potential risk of the loss of life related to dangerous missions through remote control drones ‘may seduce us into more wars’ by making it more likely that leaders would employ them.[40] The recent Birmingham Policy Commission report on drones stated that it found such arguments of drones ‘lowering the threshold to the use of force’, as they are unmanned and controlled remotely, unconvincing based on the evidence they heard.[41] It should be noted that this was only in a British context however, and this perception of drones may indeed invoke such reckless use by other states. In a 2011 doctrine publication on drones  the U.K.’s Ministry of Defence stated that; ‘an opponent that succeeds in shooting down an unmanned aircraft has little to show for it but some wreckage – which they can easily be accused of fabricating, or for which ownership can simply be denied’. [42] This illustrates that, contrary to the Birmingham Policy Commission’s findings, there may be some within British policy making circles that disregard the risk of drone employment on sensitive reconnaissance missions.

The view that drones may increase the risk of confrontation between states by presenting no risk to a pilot’s life is tied to the idea of post-heroic warfare. Coined by Edward Luttwak, post-heroic warfare describes a condition where force may be employed easily and without restraint by states provided that doing so carries no risk of casualties, enabled by the full exploitation of technologies which remove humans from harm.[43]  It is frequently noted that for many states; ‘It is becoming harder to envision sending manned reconnaissance assets into denied, hostile airspace’, due to the casualty aversion of their societies.[44] Drones solve this issue through remote control by offering leaders the ‘seductive’ ability to conduct dangerous missions without risking the sacrifice or political blowback entailed with manned aircraft.[45] In this way drones therefore embody the concept of post-heroic warfare. Peter Singer notes that; ‘By removing warriors completely from risk and fear, unmanned systems create the first complete break in the ancient connection that defines warriors and their soldierly values.’[46] The effects of this separation are not yet clear, but the wider employment of drones by many states would appear to clarify that it has changed the perception of risk in conducting dangerous or politically sensitive missions. Examples of this have already been seen with Israel’s extensive use of drones to gather targeting information and intelligence over Syria, or more recently Russia’s use of unarmed UAVs over Ukraine to support the separatists with artillery observation.[47]

Although there is some suggestion that states currently appear to view drone reconnaissance sorties as unobtrusive events politically, as these systems become more widely utilised by a greater number of actors this norm could become eroded. The Birmingham Policy Commission noted that many states are beginning to recognise that their air defence posture is unsuitable for drones and are already pursuing research and development projects into anti-drone defences in order to remedy this, indicating that this shift in norms may already be taking place.[48] For example, while current U.S. air defences can defeat a wide range of aerial threats a significant gap exists in that low flying, small UAVs cannot be detected by their ground based radar arrays, meaning that such drones could easily penetrate their airspace.[49] This is related to the offense-defence balance. Although the characteristics of drone technology may make it inherently suited to offense, the balance is also about the relative resources that a state must invest in their own defences in order to counter an opponent’s offensive capabilities; ‘When a technological innovation changes the relative costs of offensive and defensive capabilities, the offense-defense balance shifts.’[50] As most states do not possess the necessary means to counter the wide array of RPA that exist the continued proliferation of drones and their use in the air space of other sovereign state may upset the offense-defence balance. This issue may become more prominent as technical developments continue to make stealth technology cheaper and more widely available.[51] If this occurs then drones flying dangerous reconnaissance missions could destabilise relations between states, potentially leading to a security dilemma. This could be particularly perilous during periods of increased tension between states. A prominent example of this was on the 27th October 1962 when an American U-2 was shot down conducting reconnaissance over Cuba at the height of the Missile Crisis in an event that heightened tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and almost induced miscalculation at a period when the potential of a nuclear exchange was very real.[52]

Conclusion

In conclusion, while drones may be effective in solving some state security problems this may come at considerable political cost that will have a profound impact on wider state security, the effects of which are not yet clear. Drones can increase state security by performing surveillance sorties that manned aircraft cannot by offering the persistence needed to protect national borders, waters and other national security interests through remote control. In areas where relations between states are strained however such employment may be misperceived under the security dilemma. By enabling states to conduct dangerous reconnaissance flights remotely without any risk to a pilot, epitomizing the concept of post-heroic warfare, drones create a perception of low risk to their employment which may potentially increasing the inclination of leaders to take risks. This carries with it the risk that states will be more inclined to conduct more politically and physically intrusive operations that will erode relations between states impacting security. The effectiveness of drones in solving security problems will not be determined by the technology that allows an unmanned aircraft to be controlled remotely but upon how norms of use are developed over time as to how states can utilise that technology to solve their security problems without impacting upon the security of another state.

Chad is currently studying for an MA in Science and Security at King’s College London. He is writing his dissertation on the bulk collection of metadata by the U.S. National Security Agency. Previously Chad completed a BA in War Studies, also at King’s College London, for which he was awarded a first class honours. He is currently interning at Realeyes, a tech start-up, which provides facial coding and emotions analytical services to brands, advertising agencies and media companies.

[1] An earlier version of this essay was submitted in partial requirement for the postgraduate module “Current Issues in Science and Security”, at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, on the 25th March 2015.

[2] Kelley Sayler (2015), A World of Proliferated Drones: A Technology Primer, (Washington, D.C.: Center for a New American Security), p. 8

[3] Paul Scharre (2015), Between a Roomba and a Terminator: What is Autonomy?, War On The Rocks, http://warontherocks.com/2015/02/between-a-roomba-and-a-terminator-what-is-autonomy/ , 18/02/2015

[4] Kenneth Anderson (2010), Rise of the Drones: Unmanned Systems and the Future of War,  testimony submitted to the  U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, (23rd March 2010), p. 1

[5] Air Chief Marshall Sir Brian Burridge (2003), UAVs and the dawn of post-modern warfare: A perspective on recent operations, The RUSI Journal, (148:5, pp. 18-23), p. 18

[6] Thomas P. Ehrhard (2010), Air Force UAVs: The Secret History, (Washington, D.C.: Mitchell Institute Press), pp. 2-5

[7] Medea Benjamin (2013), Drone Warfare: Killing By Remote Control, (London: Verso), p. 15

[8] Brian A. Jackson & David R. Frelinger (2009), Emerging Threats and Security Planning: How Should We Decide What Hypothetical Threats to Worry About?, (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation), p. 7

[9] Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005), Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2005-2030, (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense), p. 1; and, Joint Doctrine Note 2/11(2011), The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems, (Shivernham: Ministry of Defence), p. 3-4

[10] Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005), Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2005-2030, p. 2

[11] Richard A. Best Jr. & Christopher Bolkcom (2000), Airborne Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance (ISR): The U-2 Aircraft and Global Hawk UAV Programs, (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service), p. 2

[12] Air Chief Marshall Sir Brian Burridge (2005), Post-Modern Warfighting with Unmanned Vehicle Systems: Esoteric Chimera or Essential Capability?, The RUSI Journal, (150:5, pp. 20-23), p. 20

[13] Peter W. Singer (2009), Wired For War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the Twenty-first Century, (London: Penguin), p. 227

[14] Joint Doctrine Note 2/11(2011), The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems, p. 3-4

[15] Jeremiah Gertler (2012), U.S. Unmanned Aerial Systems, (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service), p. 23

[16] Benjamin (2013), Drone Warfare, p. 75

[17] Gertler (2012), U.S. Unmanned Aerial Systems, p. 23

[18] John D. Blom (2010), Unmanned Aerial Systems: A Historical Perspective, (Fort Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute Press), p. 108; and, Singer (2009), Wired For War, p. 33

[20] Sayler (2015), A World of Proliferated Drones, p. 29

[21] Robert Jervis (1978), Cooperation Under The Security Dilemma, World Politics, (30:2, pp. 167-214), p. 169

[22] Ibid, pp. 169-181

[23] Benjamin (2013), Drone Warfare, p. 75

[24] Adam Rawnsley (2015), Ukraine Scrambles For UAVs, But Russian Drones Own The Sky, War Is Boring, https://medium.com/war-is-boring/ukraine-scrambles-for-uavs-but-russian-drones-own-the-skies-74f5007183a2, 20/02/2015

[25] Sean M. Lynn-Jones (1995), Offense-Defense Theory And Its Critics, Security Studies, (4:4, pp. 660-691), p. 661

[26] Jack S. Levy (1984), The Offensive/Defensive Balance Theory of Military Technology: A Theoretical and Historical Analysis, International Studies Quarterly, (28:2, pp. 219-238), p. 223

[27] Ibid, p. 225

[28] Singer (2009), Wired For War, pp. 321-332

[29] Gideon Rose (2013), Generation Kill: A Conversation with Stanley McChrystal, Foreign Affairs, (92:2 , pp.2-8), pp. 4-5

[30] Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005), Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2005-2030, p. 2

[31] Martin Chulov & Shiv Malik (2015), Isis video shows Jordanian hostage being burned to death, The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/03/isis-video-jordanian-hostage-burdning-death-muadh-al-kasabeh, 04/02/2015

[32] Major Christopher A. James (1997), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): An Assessment of Historical Operations and Future Possibilities, (Montgomery: Air Command and Staff College), p. 3

[33] Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005), Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2005-2030, p. 2

[34] Ehrhard (2010), Air Force UAVs, pp. 9-10

[35] Ibid.

[36] Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005), Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2005-2030, p. 2

[37] Ann Rogers & John Hill (2014), Unmanned: Drone Warfare and Global Security, (London: Pluto Press), p. 2

[38] Lynn E. Davis, Michael J. McNemey, James Chow, James, Thomas Hamilton, Sarah Harding & Daniel Byman (2014), Armed and Dangerous? UAVs and U.S. Security, (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation), p. 11

[39] David H. Dunn (2013), Drones: disembodied aerial warfare and the unarticulated threat, International Affairs, (89:5, pp. 1237-1246), p. 1238

[40] Singer (2009), Wired For War, p. 322

[41] Birmingham Policy Commission Report (2014), The Security Impact of Drones: Challenges and Opportunities for the UK, (Birmingham: University of Birmingham), p. 59

[42] Joint Doctrine Note 2/11 (2011), The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems, p. 3-7

[43] Edward N. Luttwak (1995), Toward Post-Heroic Warfare, Foreign Affairs, (74:3, pp. 109-122), p.112

[44] James (1997), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), p. 55

[45] Singer (2009), Wired For War, p. 321

[46] Ibid, p. 332

[47] Patrick Tucker (2015), In Ukraine, Tomorrow’s Drone War Is Alive Today, Defense One, http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/03/ukraine-tomorrows-drone-war-alive-today/107085/, 09/03/2015

[48] Birmingham Policy Commission Report (2014), The Security Impact of Drones, p. 29

[49] Davis et al. (2014), Armed and Dangerous?, pp. 4-6

[50] Lynn-Jones (1995), Offense-Defense Theory And Its Critics, p. 667

[51] Davis et al. (2014), Armed and Dangerous?, p. 4

[52] Rogers & Hill (2014), Unmanned, p. 21

Filed Under: Long read Tagged With: Afghanistan, drones, Predator, Reaper, security, surveillance, UAV

Drones series, Part V. The biopolitics of drone warfare

April 22, 2014 by Strife Staff

By Daniel Møller Ølgaard:

boing_blackout_emp_drone

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.

Filed Under: Blog Article Tagged With: biopolitics, drones, Foucault, governance, UAV, war

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:

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‘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.

____________________

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

Filed Under: Blog Article Tagged With: control, drones, international law, regulation, UAV

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