Stone -1Peter Singers 2012 article, Do Drones Undermine Democracy

brings to the forefront the use of military drone technology and how
there use fit into Americas rules of war. Singer makes it clear in his
article that, [I] do not condemn these strikes; I support most of them
(Singer 2012:73). He is not focusing on the issue of using this
advanced military technology, but rather he is criticizing how the
government is using them and how they are getting away with
military-like action, without a democratic congressional consent.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones, more commonly referred
to is a technology that is increasingly becoming a major part of the
United States military infrastructure and other Western nations.
Reliance on drone technology, such as the Predator and MQ-9
Reaper has increased drastically over the years, foreshadowing of
what is to come for the future of Western warfare (Wall and Monahan,
2011). Due to the fact that drones for military use has just recently
become some an integral part to Americas military action, laws and
regulations for there use have not been adapted to stay current with
the technology. This grey area that exists in laws surrounding military
drones has left the executive branch of the United States government
and other Western nations to employ drone use to how they see fit.
Singer criticizes that due to this grey area, senior government officials
are using drones in war like situations without the consent of
democratically elected representatives, a requirement for government

Stone -2to engage in warfare. To fully comprehend whats at stake with military
drone technology there has to be an understanding of the technology,
including its benefits and detriments, its psychological implications,
moral implications, legal infrastructure and the value that it provides.
Wars between countries have been an all too common practice
for resolving, albeit simple issues. In traditional warfare nation states
began with hand-to-hand combat, as seen in the crusades, eventually
evolving to trench warfare in World War I, to aerial warfare in World
War II, and now to covert operations that we dont hear about or see
today. As it is seen over the course of human history our innate nature
is to better suite our surroundings to ourselves rather than adapt to our
surrounds, this evolutionary theory has been pivotal in the evolution of
war. We adopt our surroundings to better suite us to be the most
powerful or the most feared nation, the most prominent modern day
example being the United States of America. The need to be the
most powerful nation has stemmed from the nation with the greatest
military, to the nation with the most advanced and lethal military.
Militarized drone technology was first introduced after the 9/11
attacks drones had been previously used for surveillance purposes in
the early 90s during the Balkan wars (Brunstetter and Braun, 2011).
After the attacks the United States military found an even better
adaptation of drones, militarizing them. At this point United States saw
drones as the future of warfare. George. W Bush even gave the CIA a

Stone -3secret Memorandum of Notification to engage in killing of any Al-Qaeda

members anywhere in the world, in November 2002 the CIA reported
its first public use of a targeted drone attack, and thus the beginning of
modern warfare (Brunstetter and Braun, 2011). Since then drones have
become the answer. The United States has been training more drone
pilots then bomber and fighter pilots, combined (Singer, 2013). So,
why is there this move towards these UAVs? The answer lies is in the
question.
Drones have and will continue to be surround by controversy for
the duration of the technology use, which as the trend is going, will be
for a longtime. For as long as nations have been going to war they
have debated and challenged the issues of going to war, primarily the
cost to their own nation; both financial and the cost of life. Drones are
able to alleviate these issues. The economic feasibility of the drone is
too good to pass up. The United States military has a fleet of more
than 20,000 drones, more than a third of its aircraft fleet, at a fraction
of the cost (Singer, 2013). The cost of a MQ-9 Reaper Drone, the most
advanced drone used by the United States, is a fraction of the cost of
an aerial vehicle such as a fighter jet. The Reaper costs taxpayers
around $12 million dollars while the most advanced fighter jet, the
Raptor, costs taxpayers around $190 million dollars (Kerr, 2014). On
top of the cost of the physical asset the cost to taxpayers train a

Stone -4fighter pilot is an additional $6 million versus $65,000 to train a drone

pilot (Hennigan, 2011 and Dilbert at War, 2014).
The application of drones has clear advantages to cost, and are a
an obvious choice for the government when enacting fiscal military
control on behalf of taxpayers, however the drones, are not only cost
effective but they are, life effective. While the need to reduce costs is
inherent in a democratic society so to is the need to replace labour
with capital. This gives better public perception and thus better for
politicians and theyre job security, re-election (Sauer and Schornig,
2012). Drones are Unmanned Aerial Vehicles; they can carry out the
exact same missions that boots on the ground do, without risking the
life of a soldier. Drone pilots control the vehicles from safe and
remote locations with a controller and video screens, tens of thousands
of kilometers away, sometimes even a world away (Andersen, 2014).
They give politicians the public perception of not sending its citizens to
die, while still fulfilling military operations.
While the economics behind the drones seem to be a driving
force so to is the moral and security advantages. Feeding into the
advantage of the financial costs and life costs, drones are said to
employ more accurate attacks, with better surveillance. Meaning, no
need to send ground soldiers in to survey targets, also meaning less
costs to the military. Drones may seem to be the answer to all our
issues surrounding warfare, but just like any technology they have

Stone -5serious drawbacks. One of the biggest drawbacks, also one of there
better advantages is their surveillance. Drones are a technology that is
heavily reliant on its software and technological aspects to be working
at optimum efficiency all the time, however thats not always the case
(Wall and Monahan, 2011). While drones are meant to better and more
accurately identify targets they do so only to the extent that the pilot is
able to decipher the images the drone is relaying back to the control
centre. A misinterpretation of the image creates a problem of grouping
people together and failing to differentiate, or as Kevin Haggerty and
Richard Ericson refer to as data doubling, a mistake that has lethal
implications (Wall and Monahan, 2011). Drones fail to allow a first hand
human intuition, perception and evaluation during surveillance. When
a soldier is on the ground, surveying they can better gauge the
situation and lessen the chance of mistake. Over the course of 2014,
till the end of November, the Untied States attempted to target 41 men
in Pakistan alone by drones, killing an estimated of 1,147 people
(Ackerman, 2014). While drones may seem to be able to better and
more accurately target enemies of the state, the collateral damage
that comes along with their attacks, such as civilian casualties is in
excess to that of a soldiers ability to carry out similar missions.
When a soldier enlists for the military, they understand that they
are giving up their life for their country, and that they could be taking
another humans life, a pivotal moment of a soldiers career. Over the

Stone -6years psychological effects have proven to take a toll on a soldier

returning from combat, the realization of our most animalistic instincts
that have come out, kill or be killed. In Singers article he states we
must now accept that technologies remove humans from the
battlefield, from unmanned systems like the Predator to cyber-weapons
like the Stuxnet computer worm, are becoming the new normal in
war, but these war technologies are being operated by a human,
shifting the psychological impacts of the new soldier previously
known (Singer, 2012:74). Drones have created a greater
dehumanization of the enemy. The images that appear on the screen
are not seen as humans, but merely targets of the operations, much
like a video game. The separation from a video game of killing and
reality is blurred through the loss of interpersonal interaction of the
killings and the aftermath. Drone controls are designed to be similar to
controls of video games for easier transition for controllers (Andersen,
2014). Singer, former drone pilot himself, is quoted as saying [Its] like
a video game. It can get a little bloodthirsty. But its fucking cool
(Andersen, 2014:368). Singer links being a drone pilot to an everyday
working civilian, where he says this new warfare shifted for many
soldiers from the battle space to office space, drone pilots are
engaging in lethal actions becoming a part of everyday life, further
desensitizing the weight of killing another human (Andersen, 2014).

Stone -7While drones have and will continue to have such drastic
psychological and technological implications, there use brings just as
great moral implications. Referring to the point that Khan made that
the drones are creating a negative mentality, radicalizing people more,
on the basis that one life is more valuable than another is harboring
greater moral implications. The cost of war, as overviewed earlier is an
economic and life cost, the drones being an answer to both. However
they create a moral imbalance. The lives of soldiers are supposedly
saved all while enemy citizen lives are being lost. Khan argues that
perception of enemy citizens, ones not engaged in the war, are losing
their lives on the principle that a soldiers life is more valuable then
theirs, through use of drones rather then ground intervention
(Brunstetter and Braun, 2011). A soldier should be on the ground to
show citizens the compassion and value of their lives to want to
remove the evil to help and save their lives. When soldiers are on the
ground they are able to employ human intuition in surveillance or
combat to minimize civilian casualties.
Drones diminish the moral obligations we as humans have to
care for another life with compassion and empathy. Drone use
demonstrates how civilians are inferior to the aggressors, in that
minimizing financial costs is the driving force and thats worth more
than a life. Drones kill, they do not cognitively process and evaluate a
situation, rather they are programmed to carry out a command without

Stone -8dispute or challenge. Such an example has been drone use for
European Union members, where they have obligations under the
European Convention of Human Rights, the use of drones by the
Americans on an attack of a Serbian Radio-Television station was
exempted from prosecution of the ECHR because the were no ground
troops and extraterritorial obligations were not enforced (Rosen, 2014).
Cases like this opened the door for the drones to further circumvent
executive branches permission from elected representatives.
The CIA has conducted numerous drone attacks all without the
consent of Congress due to ineffective wording of the law that such
military like missions must only be presented and then passed by
congress when it entails ground troops (Singer, 2012). The grey area
of drones for military intervention has allowed these CIA covert attacks
without the United States public knowing or in favour or against war
like measures.
The CIA is a separate entity from any control of the
democratically elected, they answer to the Commander and Chief (The
President) and only the executive branch. Through the CIA and covert
drone operations that border military intervention have diminish
democracy and the, supposedly main reasoning for the covert drone
attacks, ironic (Brunstetter and Braun 2011). The CIA acting as a near
private entity is leading the United States back into the Iraq war era, or
The Dirty War, coined by journalist and author Jeremy Scahill where

Stone -9the United States Iraq was being fought by private militaries, most
prominent of them being Blackwater. This privatization lead to chaos in
Iraq, where soldiers were not held responsible for their actions by any
governing body, not the military or the American government, the
similarity to the CIA military autonomy is eerie and concerning (Scahill,
2007).
The United States has been able to carry out target killings with
the drones in states they are not at war with, through manipulating
wording of law. They claim the ones they are targeting are considered
to be enemies of the state and thereby they are at war with, giving
them the right to carry out lethal justice. These instances have been in
target killings of suspected terrorists in countries such as Yemen and
Pakistan where no official declaration of war between the US and these
nations exist. Due to the fact that American or International law not
being current with drone use, the CIA, not the United States military
has been using these war machines to fulfill assassinations of CIA listed
criminals (Brunstetter and Braun, 2011). The CIAs, according to their
website, primary mission is to collect, evaluate and disseminate
foreign intelligence to assist the president and senior U.S. government
policymakers in making decisions relating to national security, they
have no obligation from congress, the elected officials, and are
essentially operating and engaging in war behind the backs of its
citizens through use of drones for targeted killings (FAQs CIA).

Stone -10As drones become more advanced and better to carry out covert
missions, we as a people fall into a big brother syndrome whereby a
select few in our government are making drastic decisions without a
legitimate process of groupthink. As drones continue to fall in a grey
area of laws, as Sauer and Schornig put it, they become even more so
as a silver bullet for democratic decisions. The executive branch can
act quickly without Congressional consent, and support military
missions that would not have been supported otherwise. Singer, being
a former drone pilot, recognizes that drones and his former job cannot
be unlawfully continued, setting a slippery slope for future precedent.
Singer argues, Without any actual political debate, we have set an
enormous precedent, blurring the civilian and military roles in war and
circumventing the Constitutions mandate for authorizing it (Singer,
2012:74).
With the growing interest and market for military drones, other
countries have begun to develop the technology to be able to engage
in similar actions that the western countries, primarily America has.
According to Daniel Medina of the Guardian the drone market has rapid
growth and is estimated to reach a value of US$82 billion (Baggiarini
2015). This mass market value entices research and development into
unmanned aircraft. Major Western aerospace companies do not have a
new manned aircraft under research and development (Singer, 2012).
This sector has become so big due to military intrigue and future

Stone -11reliance that the moral and proper use of drones is being neglected
and the principle greatness of unmanned aerial vehicles is being lost.
Drones have become a resource sucking agent, time, money and
knowledge is being wasted on militarization of drones rather than for
the greater good. Drones have the ability to allow easy and
inexpensive delivery of aid packages. They have the potential for such
greater use then mankind is imagining. If Unmanned Aerial Vehicles is
becoming our reality, we as a society need to harness this technology
to our space exploration where we can reach distances never before
imagined, due to biological limitations on humans and the need to be
piloting the crafts. Yet, we still fail to acknowledge that militarization of
technology for development for other uses is not the only path for
evolutions of technology.
The Advantages and disadvantages that exist for drones
technology is a growing list and will continue to grow as more and
more uses and drawbacks become relevant and recognized through
the product evolution. Drones are just at the forefront of their
development, however the way the development is headed is a
concern for the implications that drones can conjure. Drones need to
be used for more civil and altruistic purposes. More allocation of drone
development needs to be realized outside of military application, to
further greater moral application of them. In order for we, as a society
to better manipulate and abuse drones for what they can truly do,

Stone -12rather than our unoriginal uses, we must firstly create laws and
regulations to ensure that theyre being used for the optimum purpose.
We must clear the grey area that exists surrounding their use. As
Singer pointed out in his article, Do Drones Undermine Democracy
The Constitution did not leave war, no matter how it is waged, to the
executive branch alone (Singer, 2012:75). Drones are an issue, one
that needs to be tackled head on and fast, before we find ourselves
with situations of immoral, and undemocratic precedent. Drones can
be our answer to exploration beyond our imagination.