The rise of targeted killing

Targeted killings have become a central tactic in the United States' campaigns against militant and terrorist groups in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Both ‘demand’ and ‘supply’ factors explain the rise of targeted killings. Demand for targeted killings increased as the United States faced new threats from militant groups that could not be effectively countered with conventional military force. Concerns about the political consequences of long-term military involvement overseas and American casualties led political leaders to supply more targeted killings. The conclusion discusses how this tactic may have unintended consequences as other states follow the United States use of targeted killings.     

The limits of robotic solutions to human challenges in the land domain

In the face of rapid technological change and the creation of ambitious military modernisation programmes, this paper argues that land forces, in managing the relationship between force levels and the adoption of military robotics, must recognise that there are inherent limits to techno-centric force reduction efforts and realise the inefficacy of substituting skilled soldiers with robots. It begins with an overview of how the proper integration of robotics into a military’s force structure can improve capability, save lives and potentially reduce costs, but suggests that common accounts of robot utility are exaggerated and endanger the risk assessment processes governing the adoption of said technologies and relevant personnel settings. The paper explores the limits of robotic solutions to military problems, discussing their technical limitations, redundancy and related issues that, when combined with a technico-moral skills degradation problem also detailed within, point to the need to reshape force structures to suit the adoption of robotics while preserving existing levels of human staffing.     

Drone Strikes and Grand Strategy: Toward a Political Understanding of the Uses of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Attacks in US Security Policy

This article analyzes the political utility of US drone strikes theoretically and deductively. Placing strikes within the context of the theorized political functions of force and considering how they fit into two grand strategies, restraint and selective engagement, I argue that these strikes buy the United States relatively little in the way of political effects assuring its own security because the terrorism threat they are intended to combat is a limited one within the skein of US global interests. Furthermore, their contribution to counter-terrorism efforts is likely to diminish with the adoption of armed drones by non-state actors. Drone strikes can, however, provide leverage over recalcitrant US client states while reassuring liberal partners and giving them some leverage over US choices. In addition, within the counter-terrorism sphere, drone strikes are less likely to inflame popular opinion than are alternative uses of force. This analysis contributes to an increasingly rigorous examination of the strikes’ role in US foreign and security policy.     

Drones,spies, terrorists,and second-class citizenship in Pakistan

This essay reviews seven recent books and reports that focus upon the use of US armed drones in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). This essay synthesizes a historical account of the program, critically interrogates key arguments and evidence advanced by the authors, and draws attention the particular problems that confront those who live in the FATA and the second-class citizenship that the Pakistani state has bestowed upon them for reasons of domestic and foreign policy concerns. This review essay does not intend to be the final word on any of the ongoing policy debates. But it does hope to enable a wider audience to take part in these important deliberations.     

Great-power Responsibility,Side-effect Harms and American Drone Strikes in Pakistan

In International Relations (IR), the actions of great powers are usually assessed through their direct effects. Great powers are generally considered to be responsible for the consequences of their actions if they intentionally caused them. Although there is discussion on “double-effects” and “side-effect harms” in the realms of philosophy and political sociology, these largely remain absent from the field of IR. This article bridges that gap by clarifying a set of yardsticks through which side-effect harms of great powers’ actions can be evaluated, including “capacity”, “historical precedent”, “voluntarism” and “unintentional causality”. These yardsticks are deduced through the Theory of Special Responsibilities, which combines elements of Constructivism and the English School. The theoretical framework presented is then applied to the case of American drone strikes in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. A number of terrorists in FATA have relocated elsewhere within Pakistan to escape these strikes, subsequently harming individuals in new locations. The article asks: who bears responsibility for the harm brought to civilians by these dislocated terrorists? Analysis from the perspective of the theoretical framework, constructed and applied here, suggests that even if the US may claim not to have directly intended such an outcome, it still shares some responsibility for the harm to innocent civilians.     

Vicarious warfare: The counterproductive consequences of modern American military practice

This article examines contemporary modes of American warfare. It posits the concept of “vicarious warfare” as a means of capturing prominent patterns in warfighting approaches. Although rooted in long-standing traditions of military practice, vicarious warfare is sufficiently novel as to be identifiable as a distinct phenomenon. The precise manifestation or combination of vicarious methods vary according to the specific circumstances and political contexts prevailing in different theaters. However, America’s general preference is to fight its wars by delegating tasks to proxies and limiting exposure of its own military to danger. Where U.S. forces are employed directly, this takes place largely in the shadows. Such approaches have clear attractions, offer undoubted tactical advantages, and permit successive administrations to maintain a persistent tempo of operations that evades rigorous democratic scrutiny. Yet, prominent cases and numerous studies suggest that vicarious warfare has a high potential to generate counterproductive effects and significant strategic harm.     

Rethinking Military Virtue Ethics in an Age of Unmanned Weapons

Although most styles of military ethics are hybrids that draw on multiple ethical theories, they are usually based primarily on the model of Aristotelian virtue ethics. Virtue ethics is well-suited for regulating the conduct of soldiers who have to make quick decisions on the battlefield, but its applicability to military personnel is threatened by the growing use of unmanned weapon systems. These weapons disrupt virtue ethics’ institutional and cultural basis by changing what it means to display virtue and transforming the roles soldiers perform and the nature of the military profession itself. I argue that in light of these challenges to virtue ethics, at least as it is traditionally understood within the armed forces, soldiers operating unmanned weapons require a more heavily rule-based approach to military ethics.     

United States defence contractors and the future of military operations

ABSTRACT

The United States’ global strategic outlook has shifted markedly since the end of major combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the United States’ strategic posture shifts, the nature of military operations is simultaneously changing rapidly. Many analysts predict that cyber-operations, autonomous weapons systems, artificial intelligence, and clandestine special forces operations will be central features in future conflicts. Although often overlooked by scholars and policy analysts, defence contractors are integral to the development and implementation of these emerging categories of warfare. This inquiry examines the evolving nature of the American defence industry and the roles corporations play in current theatres of conflict. Surprisingly, rather than becoming less reliant on defence contractors after their much-maligned performance in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, American military and intelligence agencies have become more dependent on the private sector as technology becomes increasingly central to warfare.     

Innovation for seapower: U.S. Navy strategy in an age of acceleration

ABSTRACT

A call for innovation as a means to outpace the acceleration of technological change and to bolster capabilities quickly is a central theme of contemporary U.S. Naval Strategy. The need for innovation is accepted, but the integration of readily available technologies into the Fleet is slow. Innovation unfolds according to “Navy-Time,” a cycle lasting between a long-decade and thirty-years. To accelerate the innovation process in the U.S. Navy, the article offers a Concept of Operations for Innovation that outlines how a deliberate process of analysis, weaponisation and integration can move new ideas and weapons into the Fleet in a strategically relevant time-frame.