Drone warfare and contemporary strategy making: Does the tail wag the dog?

Abstract

In the traditional Clausewitzian view, political goals and policies determine the character of war, and consequently policy forms the frame in which military strategy is shaped. This paper questions whether current experience has undermined the subjugation of military technique to military strategy, and thus to policy. The example of armed drones suggests that new technique can change the nature of war, including political and ethical views of war. An earlier example of new technique – nuclear weapons – brought similarly broad changes. Against one-way determinist views of the power of new technique, I argue that the interaction of armed drones with strategy, culture and politics has barely begun.

Keywords::

• drone warfare
• strategy
• military technique

Notes

^1. Please see for full text: http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/10/print/20011007-8.html (accessed April 18, 2013).

^2.Lansford, America's War on Terror, 3.

^3.Frum and Perle, An End to Evil, 98.

^4.Hart, Strategy, 319.

^5.Gray, Weapons for Strategic Effect.

^6.Mansfield, Theorizing War, 29.

^7.Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War, 81.

^8. Hart, Strategy, 321.

^9. Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War, 9.

^10.Gray, Modern Strategy, 17.

^11. Ibid., 19.

^12.Calwell, Small Wars: Tactical Textbook, 90.

^13.Singer, Wired for War.

^14. Please see: http://wiredforwar.pwsinger.com/index.php?option = com_content&view = article&id = 69&Itemid = 71 (accessed September 12, 2013).

^15. Please see: http://wiredforwar.pwsinger.com/index.php?option = com_content&view = article&id = 51&Itemid = 2 (accessed September 12, 2013).

^16. The military concept of Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) is a theory about the future of warfare, often connected to technological and organizational recommendations for change in the US military and others. Especially tied to modern information, communications, and space technology, RMA is often linked to current discussions under the label of Transformation and total systems integration in the US military. One of the central problems in understanding the current debate over RMA is due to many theorists' use of the term as referring to the revolutionary technology itself, which is the driving force of change. Concurrently, other theorists tend to use the term as referring to revolutionary adaptations by military organizations that may be necessary to deal with the changes in technology. Other theorists place RMA more closely inside the specific political and economic context of globalization and the end of the Cold War.

^17.Der Derian, Virtuous War.

^18.Der Derian, “Virtuous War/Virtual Theory,” 771–88.

^19.Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation.

^20. Please see: http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/swj-quotable (accessed September 12, 2013).

^21.Gray, Strategy for Chaos, 121.

^22.Singer, “Do Drones Undermine Democracy?”

^23.Cloud, “CIA drones broader targets”.

^24.Mazetti, Way of the Knife.

^25.Wise, “Real War, Virtual Cockpit.”

^26. Ibid.

^27.Cole, “Convenient Killing: Armed Drones.”

^28.“Drone Warfare: American's Killing Machine,”The Economist.

^29.Mockenhaupt, “We've seen the future.”

^30. Please see for the full text of the Resolution: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/warpower.asp (accessed May 9, 2013).

^31. Singer, “Do Drones Undermine Democracy?”

^32. Ibid.

^33.Virilio, Open Sky, 43.

^34.Kaplan, Readings in the Philosophy of Technology, xiii.

^35. From the Latin dromos, signifying a race. Dromology studies how technological developments in speed influence socio-political life.

^36.Virilio, Speed and Politics.

^37.Virilio, Desert Screen, 43.

^38. Ibid., 44.

^39.Armitage, Paul Virilio: From Modernism, 104.

^40. Paul Virilio, Desert Screen, 110.

^41. Ibid., 32.

^42. Ibid., 25.

^43. Ibid., 27.

^44. Ibid., 2.

^45.Gray, Weapons Don't Make War, 155.

^46.Waltz, Spread of Nuclear Weapons, 11.

^47.Barnaby, The Nuclear Arms Race, 47.

^48.Thompson, “Sources of Exterminism,” 3–31.

^49.Ross, The Role of Nuclear Weapons.

^50. Ibid.

^51.Gurcan, “The Evolution of Deterrence,” 11–51.

^52.Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon.

^53. Ross, The Role of Nuclear Weapons.

^54. Ibid.

^55.Kurzman, Day of the Bomb, 12.

^56. Please see the interview of Leo Szilard, a physicist who helped persuade President Roosevelt to launch the A-bomb project: http://members.peak.org/ ∼ danneng/decision/usnews.html (accessed September 13, 2013).

^57.Hashmi and Lee, Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction, 5.

^58. Ibid., 12.

^59. Ibid., 12.

^60.Becker and Shane, “Secret ‘Kill List’ Test of Obama.”

^61.Al-Muslimi, “America Loses Yemeni People.”

^62.Gurcan, “Seeing the Other Side of the COIN.”

^63.Kilcullen, “Death Above, Outrage Below.”