The evolution of targeted killing practices: Autonomous weapons, future conflict, and the international order

ABSTRACT

This article examines the potential use of autonomous aerial weapons for targeted killing purposes and, in doing so, looks beyond the now-familiar “global war on terror.” We argue that the combination of novel capabilities with the pre-existing military-theoretical frameworks of advanced Western states, within which autonomous weapons will be embedded, may be conducive to an expansion of targeted killings to scenarios other than military counter-terrorism. The confluence of autonomous weapons and targeted killing practices may therefore lead to a further weakening of long-standing norms regulating the use of force, including in interstate scenarios. We also find that international regulation is unlikely to forestall this outcome, and that political-military insistence on centralized operational control may mitigate—but not negate—the disruptive potential of these developments. As a result, the possible consequences for the international order of an evolution of targeted killing practices along these lines should not be underestimated.

KEYWORDS:

• Aerial warfare
• autonomous weapon
• international order
• interstate war
• hybrid war
• targeted killing

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Martin Senn and Jodok Troy for their extensive feedback and support in preparing this article. They would also like to thank Martin Zapfe and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions, which have resulted in a much-improved version of the original manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Michael Carl Haas is a researcher in the Global Security team at the Center for Security Studies at ETH and a doctoral student at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University. His interests include modern air and missile power, the proliferation of advanced conventional weapons, and the management of future interstate military crises. His recent, policy-focused writings have been published inter alia in the RUSI Journal, The Diplomat and The National Interest.

Sophie-Charlotte Fischer is a PhD candidate at the Center for Security Studies at ETH. Prior to her PhD studies, she held a Mercator Fellowship on International Affairs. Her research focuses on the strategic implications of emerging military and dual-use technologies, contemporary arms control practices and technology policy. Her recent publications include a co-authored book chapter on the regulation of AWS in the Routledge Handbook of Security Studies.

ORCID

Michael Carl Haas http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6744-7734

Sophie-Charlotte Fischer http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8977-2423

Notes

1 We believe that the U.S. approach to targeted killing under the Obama administration was very much in line with this basic military-theoretical paradigm, notwithstanding the fact that civilian National Security Council staff and the Central Intelligence Agency attained an outsized influence over the specific process by which leadership targeting principles were applied in a particular set of circumstances (Carvin, 2012; McNeal, 2014). Early indications point toward a less centralized procedural approach under the Trump administration (Jaffe & DeYoung, 2017).