Ethical Drone Usage

Drone Wars:

An Ethical approach to the War on Terror

An unmanned aerial vehicle, generally known as a drone, is an aircraft without a human pilot onboard. Basically, it is a large remote controlled plane that can conduct military surveillance and coordinated, accurate airstrikes on targets. The plane can either be controlled by computers in the vehicle or under the remote control of a pilot on the ground. Currently, the United States relies more and more on unmanned aerial vehicles to target terrorist groups around the world. The advantages that Drones bring to the table will alter how the United States conducts counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. The idea behind the use of drones is that drone attacks will deter future terrorist attacks while keeping the US military safe. However, there are activists that argue that drones are unethical because they cause innocent civilian casualties. Even though there is an occasional event of collateral damage, the use of Unmanned Drones is the morally ethical option to improve the ongoing military efforts of the United States.

The usage of Unmanned Drones provides the Military with many advantages. First, they do not deploy US Military Personnel into harm’s way. The reconnaissance that used to have to be acquired by a forward deployed unit of the military, can now be done by flying a drone over the area of interest. Next, Drones bring the military real time reconnaissance that the military can then use in their decisions to launch attacks. Drones can “loiter, maintaining what one former CIA director described as an ‘unblinking stare’ over a chosen area for up to 18 hours. Thanks to the drone's ability to watch and wait, its ‘pilot’, often thousands of miles away, can patiently choose the best moment to fire its missiles, both increasing the chances of success and minimizing the harm to civilians.(The Ethics of Warfare)” In other words, they can watch, unknown to the enemy, and identify the correct...