The Ethics of Drone Warfare

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ETHICS OF DRONE WARFARE
Ethics deals with morally accepted principles that govern a society, individuals, or an organization. Ethics also deals with an approved code of conduct that guides a given course of action. A drone is a remote-controlled aircraft that is used by nations in war, the drone when used during war automatically locates the targeted terrorist or sworn enemy to the state and kills. Furthermore, the use of drone must be ethical in that it should not violate human rights or civilians and due care should be taken when launching it since it carries missiles that are deadly to any civilian who is not a target. The reasons also as to why the drone is not dangerous is because technology should be cultivated into activities despite its negatives effect on humanity. Any head of state whose administration wants to initiate signature or targeted drone attack is justifiable due to several reasons, for a fact, the use of drone attacks does not call for battlefield warfare as compared to other forms and kinds of war. While different types of conflict like drawing battlefield may create many casualties; drone attack causes few losses if not used under reasonable and due care.
In Obama’s flowery speech about drone attacks that was and is still used by the United States, he put out clearly that drone attack is an effective means of responding to the terrorist attack by the Islamic States like Al-Qaida, ( Barack Obama 1 ).

Obama further stated that their counterterrorism plan included cooperation with other countries, gathering information, arresting, and prosecution and finally detention of these terrorists, but his effort was shut out, (Obama). And therefore the use of drone came as a last resort in his administration. Secondly, Obama says that it is possible to deploy Special Forces in every country that has terrorism linked to and also landing boots of Special Forces, may just fuel more wars and may create many casualties who are only civilians, (Obama1). Now amidst complains by non-governmental bodies and even civilians both in the USA and worldwide about the use of the drone, Obama further literates, that sending troops to capture terrorist always poses many risks to both Special Forces and civilians. This is because since some of the terrorists live in caves and barricading their homes will result in fierce gun exchange like the case of Osama Bin Laden, and these risks call for the use of useful means of “eliminating” the terrorist and that is drone warfare, (Obama 1). United States has also deployed forces in countries like Somalia under AMISOM troops to show their efforts in combating terrorism using other means.
Now there is a question as to why the war that is fought by drones, which is technology- based “battlefield” is proper, reasonable, conforming to some standards of correctness. Various theories have tried to explain the just cause for war. Is the battle being fought just? The mostly raised question, yes the fight is reasonable based on the following arguments. The Jus, Ad Bellum Convention, outlines whether the war is just, and based on Barack’s speech, the fight is just. This is because the terrorist is posing a threat to Americans and humanity as a whole. The reasons as to why the USA is deploying forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, is always to protect the lives of civilians and also Americans. And accordingly the United States according to Obama’s speech pursued all the available courses of action, like arresting, interrogating, prosecuting, and detaining terrorists. The administration also seeks permission of the country to deploy even forces to fight terrorism. Now launching drone attacks always comes as a last resort when any other way has hit a dead end. Any drone warfare has to be declared by proper authority, like Congress in Obama’s speech. Consequently, he called for the use of the drone, (Alexander Moseley 1).
Any drone warfare launched must have possible chances of success amidst the environment of risks like explained elaborately by President Obama in his speech in 2013 May, where the attack made Osama killed and even his son who participated in several terrorist attacks. For this reason, the drone targeted to specific terrorist must have higher chances of success and not miss, and the offense should be launched with care so as not to cause any harm to civilians.
Then war must also possess right intentions and not retaliatory attacks, and this is another important for the condition for fighting a just war (Alexander1). The intent of fighting any war should be right like in 2013 speech at National Defense University that the war was against terrorism propagated by the Islamic States like Al-Qaeda. Waging war against a country should not cause economic issues in a nation and the intent should be political and not self-interest. Therefore the war has to be just, in all perspectives. There should also be moral guidelines on how the battle is fought under discrimination and proportionality under the convention of Jus In Bello (Alexander1). Perception deals with legitimate targets of warfare, while proportionality deals with the kind of force that is appropriate to the legit aims. When launching a war the launching party or nation should also look at the responsibility that lies with war, like war causalities which are the risk that occurs in any other war be it drown attack or just conventional war in the field. The principle of responsibility goes back to the doctrine of Jus, Ad, Bellum, and Jus In Bello (Alexander1). When everything is observed, there come ethical practices of the use of the drone.
Another thing that comes out clearly when waging war against terrorism is to consider the effect of the use of force or coercion on the civilians. In Barack’s speech, he outlined the difference in risks that arise when soldiers go to the ground and when then the drone is used to fight terrorists. And he said drone has a particular or legitimate target as compared to army fighting terrorists in the specific region that are cohabited by other people who are only (Obama1). Force and coercion always have a relation to violence in that, any part that is going through the terrorist attack, civilians always go through aggression. Due to this, the force applied should be considerate to avoid a higher number of casualties of war. There ought to be a difference between force and violence, with the latter resulting from excessive use of energy or power during the war (Dewey 361). During the war, it is ethical whether there is a use of the drone that, violence should not erupt due to use of excess energy.
Any use of energy that is more than its purpose becomes violence forthwith (Dewey 361). And for this reason, appropriate force should be applied so as not to destroy in that given state. About this, individual’s sates should not use power at their disposal to cause infringement on the rights of individuals. However, use of force can also be justified in situations where this is the only means to the end. Here, when the country only to use power, coercion to achieve purpose like peace and stability in a particular region, then the use of force is legitimate (Dewey 366). Secondly, the coercive power is justifiable since to contain an individual like in nature of war, a terrorist to act in a particular manner or disclose relevant information, you have to use law whose instrument is the force. To proceed, when there is the destruction of property, violence arises, and if and only if when war causes this do we say that, there has been using of undue force on terrorist and mistakenly on civilians (Dewey 367). Finally, the use of force and coercion must be proportional to the threat to security posed and like in Obama’s speech, the kind of strength used on Mali, Afghanistan, was necessary since these counties cohabited sworn enemies of USA.
Drones also pose some risks to the soldiers operating them as brought out in Obama’s speech in 2013 May; this is because for you to manage the UAVs commonly known as the drones. This is because soldiers have to be 100 miles away from the area to be struck before launching the attack (Harry Van der Linden 169). Some objections have been raised about drone killings in Yemen and FATA, Central Intelligence Agency CIA also killed a number with the airstrikes and brought some casualties in Pakistan and for this objection were raised against Obama’s administration use of drones and termed as unjust (Harry 170). And this raised eyebrows as to whether there was need of military involvement in these countries. In 2013, President Obama defended the use of drones in the targeted killings and maintained the Congress authorized them, and this too justifies the authority of the attack (Harry 171).
To further justify the use of the drone, is that drone has a higher level of accuracy, in that it hits just the legitimate target, i.e., the principle of discrimination and this brands drone as separated warfare with a high probability of success. Drone warfare also makes warfare risk free as a compared to going on the ground and it need not much public approval, but just support of Congress said Obama in his speech that caught the whole world ( Harry 174). There has been success witnessed from the drone warfare generally and less number of war casualties. This came after making comparisons with other causalities seen in other battlefield setting warfare.
Though there have been attempts on which Human Rights Watch called for the ban the use of robots alias drones in warfare, in 2012 there was such ban; the USA has continued to use drones warfare (Harry 188).
In conclusion, drone warfare has both merits and demerits and for any nation that is willing to initiate its use must be ready to manage the faults like casualties of soldiers operating it and also the death of civilians. However, drone warfare has taken the war to a non-battlefield setting which also has promoted peace in those areas when violence is not applied. Also, drone warfare has cooled down terrorism since it targets legitimate terrorist or enemy.
Works cited
Dewey, John. “Force and coercion.” The International Journal of Ethics 26.3 (1916): 359-367
Moseley, Alexander. “Just war theory.” The Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology (2009).
Obama, Barack. “Remarks by the President at the National Defense University.” Remarks presented at the National Defense University, Fort McNair, Washington, DC (2013).
Van der Linden, Harry. “Drone warfare and just war theory.” (2015): 169.