As part of their efforts to track and kill terrorists, governments increasingly rely on drone strikes, a technology that allows the pilot to sit far away from the battlefield and identify targets with a click of a button. But these attacks raise serious ethical concerns. They are often inflicted by mistake, with civilian casualties. And the secrecy that surrounds these operations makes it difficult to hold those responsible accountable.
In our original survey experiment, we found that variation in how a country uses and constrains drone warfare shapes perceptions of whether strikes are morally legitimate. For example, respondents registered a greater sense of legitimacy for strikes that a government itself conducts. This in-group effect was most pronounced among Americans. Respondents also registered higher levels of legitimacy for strikes that adhere to multilateral constraints—a practice favored by the United States, France, and other countries that use drones for counterterrorism purposes.
But this pattern of strikes may be changing, with more and more countries using drones to address political violence within their borders, without raising the kinds of concerns that have long dogged the U.S. and its allies. This shift could have profound implications for how drone warfare is governed, with consequences beyond the war zones of Afghanistan and Pakistan where most strikes occur. Increasingly, strikes may be conducted in the context of interstate conflict and territorial disputes like the ones in Libya, Yemen, and Mali. Such strikes are likely to raise different legal and ethical concerns than cross-border counterterrorism operations.
