Daniel Bruntstetter’s article, “Drones: The Future of
Warfare?” discusses the argument of whether or not drone warfare will be how
wars are fought in the future. He uses the technical advantages and tactical
limitations to support his argument against drone warfare completely taking
over military options in war. I agree that drones will not be able to take over
all other options for military action. Brunstetter argues that it is important
to consider the tactical limitations that prevent drones from becoming the
superior option for military action in war. The first limitation is that drones
require air dominance in order to be effective for the War on Terror. In order
to obtain air dominance and avoid engaging in war, the country using drone
warfare must first obtain consent from local governments. It is not a simple
task to achieve air dominance in the area that the individual is choosing to
attack, resulting in a huge limitation for drone warfare. I can understand how
if air dominance is not secured it would be difficult to use drones. However, I
had always considered the United States as capable of overriding the rules of
other countries to engage in military action. It was surprising to me that lack
of air dominance would prevent the United States from using drone warfare in
countries such as Pakistan.
Another tactical limitation that is
discussed by Brunstetter is the idea that killing targets of terrorism with
drones will eliminate the opportunity to obtain additional information. I agree
that it is important to capture terrorists as a pathway to the long-term
positive outcome in the fight against Terrorism. Otherwise, we cannot use these
individuals as a resource to search for other individuals from terrorist groups.
I also question how an individual operating a drone can be positive whether or
not they have actually killed the terrorist with their missile.
In his
article, Brunstetter also discusses the risks of drones to the humans involved
in the process. These five areas of risk supported my previous opinion of
drones as dangerous to both the individuals involved in the attack and the
innocent victims killed. I agree with Brunstetter that both the advantages and
limitations to drone warfare must be considered first before adopting the idea
that drone warfare will be the sole future military action of the United
States. Humans are still at risk, whether or not they are in a computer room
shooting off missiles or fighting on the battleground. The individuals
operating drones are risking their lives to serve the wishes of the Obama
Administration. Only time will tell whether the positive will outweigh the
negative outcomes with using drones to combat the War on Terror.
Nice post. I think it accurately points out the flaws in drone warfare and serves as a pretty good assessment for why we shouldn't rely on this method as our only military exercise.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with this post. Although drones are a new technological advancement, it still has many limitations. I am a little confused on why we would want to kill the targets immediately. Wouldn't the United States want to use the target as a resource? This makes me wonder if the United States is on a killing spree.
ReplyDeleteDanielle brings up a good point. As stated in the article, every time we kill a certain target, we are destroying potentially useful knowledge. Even though it is much easier said than done, I think it would be prime to create more efforts of capturing targets, rather than exterminating them.
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