Drone strikes are a crucial tool in the global fight against terrorist and militant organizations. They can quietly observe a target for hours or even days, and then take action when the opportunity presents itself — without risking the life of a human pilot. Their unparalleled capabilities have allowed the United States and its allies to decimate al-Qaeda’s leadership and disrupt their operations. But the drones’ revolutionary potential has also unleashed new risks and questions about how these weapons should be used.
The debate over the moral legitimacy of drone warfare has thus far largely focused on whether or not these attacks are a legitimate use of force. However, this focus overlooks the fact that drone strikes are a highly variable form of war. Not only can a country change its tactics and strategy, but it can vary the type of constraint that applies to these strikes. Constraint refers to the rules that govern a strike’s conduct, and it can be either unilaterally or multilaterally imposed.
This variation in drone warfare creates a unique opportunity to understand how the public forms its judgments of moral legitimacy. To that end, I will conduct a survey experiment that provides respondents with five different scenarios of how a country uses drones to kill terrorists abroad. In each scenario, the country conducts a strike that causes one civilian casualty. I will then ask participants about their perceptions of this scenario and their assessments of the underlying rationale for the strike.
About the Author
