Drone Warfare by Dave Sloggett

Author:Dave Sloggett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2015-06-04T16:00:00+00:00

Each of these four options has its advantages and disadvantages. These vary at the strategic, operational and tactical level, both militarily and politically. In the course of the book we shall analyze these in some depth to document the issues and derive a balanced view of their relative merits from the perspectives of the parties involved. An analysis of these varying issues highlights the reasons why the United States has increased its focus on drone operations in Pakistan and elsewhere, such as in the Yemen and Somalia.

From an American viewpoint, to allow the training camps to fester is to invite another attack. The do-nothing option simply carries too many risks. Of all the various diplomatic and military options available, the use of drones seems the most cost-effective in an age where austerity is a word rarely far from the lips of political leaders in the western world. The same argument also applies in Israel when it comes to the increasing presence of Al Qaeda in the Sinai Desert and Syria.

From the viewpoint of the Pakistani government and other governments that also come into the cross wires of a burgeoning drones campaign, the potential for civilian casualties and a backlash against the political leaders who appear to condone such activities is also a high-risk venture.

Of course this could be partially solved if the nature of the targeting by the drones could be so precise that only insurgents or their immediate families would be killed, eliminating the deaths of innocent civilians altogether. That is a utopian dream. It is axiomatic in war that sometimes civilians will die, caught in the crossfire of implacable opponents.

The issue is whether the level of civilian casualties can be kept below the threshold of pain that sees an entire society rise up against the attacks. In Pakistan while there are a vocal few, that the media always picks up on, there are other more pragmatic groups and individuals who recognize that solving the problem is not going to be easy and the pain of civilian casualties has to be accepted.

The reality of UMA operations

On 27 September 2010 members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) crossed the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan in what is known as ‘hot pursuit’ of a number of Taliban insurgents who were trying to escape to the sanctuary of North Waziristan, having attacked an ISAF outpost in Khost. Supported by Apache gunships with their Hellfire missile systems, the ISAF is reported to have killed forty-nine insurgents. Reporting available at the time suggested that no civilian casualties occurred.

The geography of the local terrain in the border region between Khost and Pakistan would seem to back up the claim that no civilians were killed in that particular attack. The insurgents would have been caught out in the open and the outcome of the engagement would have been conclusive. Asymmetric warfare is easy when the insurgents have somewhere to hide. If they cannot simply disappear, the odds swing back decisively in favour of the side with the greatest weapon systems.

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