Drone strikes are a new form of war that is changing global governance and raising new concerns about their use. Although scholars have scrutinized these attacks from value-neutral perspectives and assessed their efficacy, the growing use of drones by other states raises questions about whether these tools are helping or hurting counterinsurgency efforts. For example, studies suggest that living under drone strikes fuels anti-American sentiment and aids recruitment for armed groups engaged in terrorism. Furthermore, the increased vulnerability of high-value assets to kinetic strikes from cheap drones may be contributing to a proliferation of conflict and a permanent state of armed crisis.
For example, the recent drone strikes against Russian military targets in Ukraine and Israel have demonstrated how inexpensive drones can cripple infrastructure deep inside enemy territory, a feat that would previously require long-range precision missiles or sophisticated cyber capabilities. These types of bespoke drone attacks, however, are not widely available and remain the purview of elite militaries with extensive organizational capacity.
Alternatively, countries can deploy drones with different constraints to avoid civilian casualties—both unilateral constraints imposed by officials within a country (e.g., the “near certainty” standard adopted by the United States) and multilateral constraints that obligate states to meet other countries’ oversight requirements. Our research shows that Americans and French citizens see these types of strikes as most legitimate when they are used in the context of a strategy to prevent civilian casualties, with a focus on military necessity and international law. When a strike kills a civilian, however, the perceived legitimacy of a drone attack drops significantly.
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