Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and
Geopolitical Issues
Edited by Marjorie Cohn
(Interlink Books, £15.99)

THIS book targets particular aspects of —  or dilemmas posed by — armed drones, with its contributors tackling  the moral, legal and geopolitical issues raised by the production and use of this new weapon.

Most chapters relate to the US use of battle drones in the Iraq and Afghanistan theatres of war and in countries where the US is not currently engaged in military combat such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. There are also contributions examining privacy issues associated with US surveillance drones and the legality of Israel’s use of armed drones to conduct extra-judicial killings.

The book underlines how this changing face of warfare could violate international law, one example being the assumption that the September 11 terror attacks were acts of war rather than criminal acts, allowing the US to justify its use of drones in a global “war on terror.” The damage drones cause to international relations, the risks of “blowback” and the dangerous precedents set by the US which could be exploited by other nations who acquire drones in the future, also come under scrutiny.

What the book makes clear is that as technology rapidly evolves, it becomes increasingly divorced from concepts of morality, ethics and law which cannot keep pace. Drones symbolise this disjunction and are altering how war is waged.

Only a few nations possess and use armed drones, most notably the US and, at a time when the US is struggling to continue projecting its power abroad, such weapons may seem a tempting alternative to the costs of boots on the ground, body bags and the public backlash associated with more conventional forms of warfare.

Along the Pakistan-Afghan border, a drone-fired missile is sometimes the first and only contact the local populace have with the US and, as retired general Stanley McChrystal has commented: “The resentment created by American use of unmanned strikes is much greater that the average American appreciates.”

Such insights make Drones and Targeted Killing of interest both to those unacquainted with drone warfare and the dilemmas it poses as well as to those with a long-standing interest in such issues.

Tomasz Pierscionek