The Pros And Cons Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Since the beginning of time humans have search for the best ways to defend themselves. It started with rocks and sticks, developed into spears and swords. When guns came along it revolutionized the way wars were fought. Instead of charging with swords, fighter could take shots from farther away, keeping them a bit safer. Now it has all changed again. Unmanned aerial vehicles, drones, keep the American public safer, keep American soldiers safer, and a lot of other countries want them. The American government should keep the US drone program secret, or else it might fall into the wrong hands.

The world today is full of people that, quite frankly, want to harm America or her interests. From the terror attacks on September 11th to the underwear

bomber, America is the dream target to most radical Islamic terrorist groups. Al-Qaida, the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Shabaab, or Boko Haram, are a few of the hundreds of different Islamic terror groups that we know of.

All of the groups listed, and many others, have one common goal, destroy America and Israel. If the groups have their way, there would be a September 11th like attack daily. The United States drone program keeps Americans safer by simply killing suspected terrorists or tracking movement and keeping them on their toes which makes it harder to plan attacks. Daniel Byman (2013), a professor of foreign security at Georgetown University, believes with drones always watching, they make it difficult for terrorist leaders to plan big terror attacks (para. 32).

Kenneth Anderson (2013), a professor of international law at American University, states that unmanned aerial vehicles, drones, are vehicles that can be controlled remotely and used for surveillance and timely, targeted, more accurate strikes that keep bystanders out of harm’s way (para. 6). They keep the boots of American soldiers hundreds or thousands of miles away and allow the pilots and intelligence experts time to positively identify the target or targets and take safe, effective shots. Keeping American soldiers out of harm’s way is pivotal in today’s war on terror. This “war” is not with a country or an established military, but with an ideology. The enemies are not

dressed in fatigues or stationed in large bases. When wars are fought between countries, it is somewhat easy to guess where the enemy forces are going and it is easy to establish good targets, like attacking German munitions factories in World War II. It is a different story this time. The military cannot simply carpet bomb an enemy village in Pakistan because it is impossible to determine if all of the residence are terrorists. So there are two choices, either command a squad of commandos to go take a look, threatening the lives of brave Americans, or let a drone hover over for a few days to determine which houses to blow and which to leave alone. AFP (2014) understands that drones can get to places that a lot of different terrorists groups are (para. 4). Being able to go into these remote places and monitor the situation from thousands of miles away provides not only a tactical advantage, but again keeps soldiers away from these hot zones. Anderson (2013), believes, “America would wind down its two counterinsurgency, boots-on-the-ground wars and undertake a refocused effort against the terrorists who had set this all in motion. He framed it this way during the 2008 race. "If Pakistan cannot or will not take out al-Qaeda leadership when we have actionable intelligence about their whereabouts," he said on the campaign trail, "we will act to protect the American people. There can be no safe haven for al-Qaeda terrorists." No safe havens -- that has been Barack Obama's strategic lodestar in the war on terror” (para 2).
Drones can make it easier to find, track, target, and kill terrorists. The normal operation to find a terrorist starts with intelligence gathered on the ground. Whether it is from eye witnesses tipping off American intelligence organizations, tapped phones, intercepted computer messages, or other terrorists caught in battle, all the intel starts on the ground. After that is where it was tricky. Before drones the only way to get eyes on the targets were getting military personal on the ground in the area, or with large military planes. The drawback to the people on the ground is obvious, hard to get in, hard to get out, and hard to stay undetected. This proves extremely accurate in the desert mountain area in Afghanistan or the ungoverned tribal areas of Pakistan, where a lot of these terrorist organizations are based. The large military planes have the same intelligence gathering capability as UAVs, but they are hard to hide and do not have the same flight time as most modern drones. Drones can hover inconspicuously for hours right above the target gathering intelligence in a much safer and more accurate manner than ever before. Not only can they surveil for hours, but they can wait hours for the perfect shot on their target. Instead of flying in and bombing a house not knowing who is in it, a drone can fly above for hours waiting on the target to step outside for a smoke, for example, and then take him out. This is not always the case because mistakes do happen, but drones are far less lethal on civilians than conventional weapons.
Drones are also much cheaper than conventional weapons. An MQ-9 Reaper UAV costs around twelve million US dollars, while an F-35 Lightning is between one hundred twenty-five million and one hundred forty-five million US dollars. That is a big difference, so much in fact the government can buy twelve drones to every one F-35 fighter jet. A drone cannot do everything a one thousand mile per hour super fighter can do, but the F-35 does not have the same intelligence gathering capabilities the drone has.
There are also a few downsides to drones. Drones have been used on the American public for surveillance purposes and even to kill a suspected terrorist that was an American citizen. These uses for surveillance and the killing of the American terrorist set a bad precedent. These machines should only be used on our enemies, not our public. If America’s enemies see the US government using drones on its citizens, what is stopping the enemies from using drones on US soil? Not only does it set a bad precedent, it is also unconstitutional. Drones are so effective at surveillance, using them on American citizens could be in violation of the Fourth Amendment, security against unwarranted searches and seizures, and the Fifth Amendment, right to due process. The only exception to the Fifth Amendment is if the person in question is actively harming or about to harm the American public, not planning to harm, was the case with Anwar al-Awlaki. Barrett and Gorman (2014) believe that the US government thinks it is ok to even kill American citizens abroad that pose a threat to the United States (para. 16). Justice was served, but if the government starts taking out Americans overseas, then what is to stop them from targeting a suspected terrorist on our own soil, or worse yet, someone that does not agree with the government.
Drone pilots are also under different stressors than normal soldiers or pilots. There are differing opinions on the subject of drone pilots. One being the pilots do not understand the hardships of war like a soldier that is face to face with the enemy. Some say drone pilots sit a thousand miles away and watch the enemy on a screen and do not have the same remorse other people who have to kill the enemy have, which desensitizes them. If the pilots do not have the same feelings of remorse, they might not take into account civilian casualties or might even attack American citizens if ordered. The other opinion on the subject is that drone pilots actually get closer to the enemy than normal soldiers due to the pilots tracking the enemies for hours at a time. Kenneth Anderson (2013), a professor of international law at American University, states, “As one drone operator told me, it is not as if one sees the terrible things the target is engaged in doing that made him a target in the first place; instead, it feels, after a few weeks of observation, as though you are killing your neighbor” (para. 17).
Some say that drones lack oversight. The lack of oversight is just what the drone program needs to flourish. When the bloated government gets involved, the cost of business goes up tenfold. The only thing the drone program needs is senior leadership to get involved and leave the congressional committees and the courts out of the picture. These things are called black ops for a reason. Just like the CIA is off the record, so should drone strikes because these strikes save American lives, just as long as the people being targeted are not American citizens.
From protecting American interests to surveillance on the borders, America has a great interest in keeping drones secret. According to The USA Today (2014) understands that if one American life is saved, drones are worth it (para. 3). The more the government divulges, the more enemies have to go on to make their own elite weapons systems. If every country has drones, America’s power diminishes, and that is something no American person or American ally can afford.