The rise of targeted killing

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Targeted killings
• terrorism
• counter-insurgency
• drones
• unmanned aerial vehicles

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ERRATUM

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Philip Alston, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary Or Arbitrary Executions: Addendum, Study on Targeted Killings (United Nations General Assembly 2010).

² Some include capturing senor leaders of an armed group; see, for example, Audrey Kurth Cronin, How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns (Princeton UP 2011).

³ Alston, Report.

⁴ Stephanie Carvin, ‘The trouble with targeted killing’, Security Studies 21/3 (2012), 529–555.

⁵ ‘Attorney General Eric Holder Speaks at Northwestern University School of Law’, United States Department of Justice, 5 March 2012 <https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-eric-holder-speaks-northwestern-university-school-law>.

⁶ While designed to target individuals affiliated with the Viet Cong, Phoenix resulted in the death or imprisonment on many innocent people. Compare Mark Moyar, Phoenix and the birds of prey: Counterinsurgency and counterterrorism in Vietnam (University of Nebraska Press,2007); Nick Turse, Kill anything that moves: The real American war in Vietnam (Macmillan 2013); and Stathis Kalyvas and Matthew Adam Kocher, ‘How “free” is free riding in civil wars? Violence, insurgency, and the collective action problem’, World Politics 59/2 (2007), 177–216.

⁷ Mark Bowden, Killing Pablo: The Inside Story of the Manhunt to Bring Down the Most Powerful Criminal in History (Atlantic Books 2012).

⁸ Marc A. Celmer, Terrorism, U.S. Strategy, and Reagan Policies (Greenwood Press 1987).

⁹ A small number of airstrikes from manned platforms also took place in Somalia and Yemen, and special operations forces were used in counter-piracy operations.

¹⁰ Matthew A. Baum and Tim Groeling, ‘Reality asserts itself: Public opinion on Iraq and the elasticity of reality’, International Organization 64/3 (2010), 443–479.

¹¹ Eric V. Larson, Casualties and Consensus: The Historical Role of Casualties in Domestic Support for U.S. Military Operations (RAND 1996); John E. Mueller, ‘Trends in Popular Support for the Wars in Korea and Vietnam’, The American Political Science Review 65 (June 1971), 358–375; and John Mueller, War, Presidents, and Public Opinion (Boston MA: Wiley 1973).

¹² Christopher Gelpi, Peter D. Feaver, and Jason Reifler, ‘Success matters: Casualty sensitivity and the war in Iraq’, international Security 30/3 (2005) 7–46; and Christopher Gelpi, Peter D. Feaver, and Jason Reifler, Paying the human costs of war: American public opinion and casualties in military conflicts (Princeton UP 2009).

¹³ Patrick B. Johnston, ‘Does decapitation work? Assessing the effectiveness of leadership targeting in counterinsurgency campaigns’, International Security 36/4 (2012), 47–79.

¹⁴ Bryan C. Price, ‘Targeting top terrorists: How leadership decapitation contributes to counterterrorism’, International Security 36/4 (2012), 9–46.

¹⁵ David A. Jaeger and M. Daniele Paserman. ‘The shape of things to come? On the dynamics of suicide attacks and targeted killings’, Quarterly Journal of Political Science 4/4 (2009), 315–342; and David A. Jaeger, Esteban F. Klor, Sami H. Miaari, and M. Daniele Paserman, ‘The struggle for Palestinian hearts and minds: Violence and public opinion in the Second Intifada’, Journal of Public Economics 96/3 (2012), 354–368.

¹⁶ Jenna Jordan, ‘When heads roll: Assessing the effectiveness of leadership decapitation’, Security Studies 18/4 (2009), 719–755.

¹⁷ Jenna Jordan, ‘Attacking the leader, missing the mark: Why terrorist groups survive decapitation strikes’, International Security 38/4 (2014), 7–38.

¹⁸ Jonathan S. Landay, ‘Obama’s drone war kills “others”, not just al Qaida leaders’, McClatchy Newspapers, 9 April 2013 <http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24747826.html>.

¹⁹ Patrick B. Johnston and Anoop K. Sarbahi. “The impact of US drone strikes on terrorism in Pakistan’, International Studies Quarterly 60/2 (2016), 203–219.

²⁰ David A. Jaeger and Zahra Siddique, ‘Are Drone Strikes Effective in Afghanistan and Pakistan? On the Dynamics of Violence between the United States and the Taliban’, unpublished ms., November 2016.

²¹ Megan Smith and James Igoe Walsh. ‘Do drone strikes degrade Al Qaeda? Evidence from propaganda output’, Terrorism and Political Violence 25/2 (2013), 311–327.

²² Max Abrahms and Philip BK Potter, ‘Explaining terrorism: Leadership deficits and militant group tactics’, International Organization 69/2 (2015), 311–342.

²³ Erik Gartzke and James Igoe Walsh, ‘The drawbacks of drones’, unpublished ms., 2017.

²⁴ Kreps, Drones: What Everyone Needs to Know, ii.

²⁵ Little work in this vein has assessed how the public thinks about targeted killings carried out by special operations forces; this is a promising area for future research.

²⁶ James Igoe Walsh, ‘Precision weapons, civilian casualties, and support for the use of force’, Political Psychology 36/5 (2015), 507–523; and James Igoe Walsh and Marcus Schulzke, Combat Drones and Support for the Use of Force (The University of Michigan Press forthcoming).

²⁷ See, for example, the early critique of drone strikes by two well-known foreign policy experts David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum, ‘Death from above, outrage down below’, New York Times 16 May 2009.

²⁸ Kreps, ‘Flying under the radar’.

²⁹ Sarah E. Kreps and Geoffrey PR Wallace, ‘International law, military effectiveness, and public support for drone strikes’, Journal of Peace Research 53/6 (2016), 830–844.

³⁰ For drones, see Michael C. Horowitz, Sarah E. Kreps, and Matthew Fuhrmann, ‘Separating Fact from Fiction in the Debate over Drone Proliferation’, International Security 41/2 (2016), 7–42; and Matthew Fuhrmann and Michael C. Horowitz, ‘Droning On: Explaining the Proliferation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles’, International Organization 71/2 (2017), 397–418.

³¹ Ward Thomas, ‘Norms and security: The case of international assassination’, International Security 25.1 (2000): 105–133.

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James Igoe Walsh

James Igoe Walsh is a Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He holds a PhD in International Relations from American University. His research interests include political violence and terrorism, human rights violations, and intelligence and national security. His book, The International Politics of Intelligence Sharing, was published by Columbia University Press and was named an Outstanding Title by Choice. His work has been supported by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Science Foundation, and the Minerva Research Initiative. He is completing a book on drones and public support for the use of force.