294 CHAPTER EigHT ■ War and Strifethe dIffIcult trade- offs of drone Warfare
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the
World Trade Center, Al Qaeda has been the tar-
get of a concerted effort by the United States and
its allies to destroy or demobilize it, mainly by
identifying Al Qaeda’s leaders and killing them. in
2011, Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda’s most famous
leader and its chief architect, was killed in a raid
by U.S. special operations forces in Abbottabad,
Pakistan. But, like any organ ization under duress,
Al Qaeda and affiliated groups responded by
innovating new ways of planning and executing
operations and new ways of avoiding detection
and attack. Chief among these tactics are decen-
tralizing leadership and physically dispersing
either to countries that are too weak to arrest Al
Qaeda operatives, or to countries that
are hostile to the United States and
its allies. When military interventions
by U.S. ground forces in these countries
seem likely to be either too costly or
counterproductive, what means of
self- defense might a state such as the
United States consider?
One answer is highlighted in the
headline “4 Yemen Al Qaeda leaders
killed in suspected US drone strike.” a
Armed drone strikes give U.S. leaders
a relatively low cost and highly effec-
tive tool for damaging or demobiliz-
ing terrorist groups, without putting
American troops in harm’s way. The
material costs of sending an unmanned
aerial vehicle over a target area are
much less than even a small deploy-
ment of U.S. special operations forces
like Navy SEALs or Delta forces. Targets are
killed in places like Yemen, Somalia, Libya,
Syria, Af ghan i stan, and Pakistan with what is
deemed an acceptable level of collateral damage.
in none of those countries would an armed mili-
tary intervention be cheap or practical. American
decision makers remember from their experiences
in 2001–13 that allied armed forces strug gled in
Af ghan i stan to defeat a variety of adversaries
deemed “extremist” at great cost and to little ulti-
mate positive effect.
Though drone warfare can be effective and
relatively inexpensive, the use of drones to kill
extremist leaders or other “high- value targets”
suffers from several prob lems. The weaponsBehind The headlines
Wall mural in Sana’a, Yemen, depicts resentment of U.S. drone
strikes and calls attention to the social construction of “targets”
and “terrorists.” A girl or boy who opposes U.S. intervention and
plans or undertakes vio lence to oppose it will often become a
target to the United States, whereas to her or his family, she or
he will likely be seen as another victim of U.S. colonial or even
religious aggression.