dofield's blog

“Global Opposition to U.S. Drone Strikes Grows”

“Five Reasons Why Drones Are Here to Stay”

The first article talks about the decrease in global approval of the US’s use of drones. According to certain polls, 37 of the 44 countries interview, at least have of the respondents apposed the US strikes. Jordan, a key ally to the US, responded with a 90% disapproval rate.

The second article talks about possible reason on why the US should continue to use and development of drones. In 2013 Obama announce the plans to shift the responsibility for drone strikes from the C.I.A to the pentagon. Along with this he plans on creating a court that will oversee all drone usage. Obama would also implement new policy that would change the criteria for the allowed use of drones to only targets that pose an imminent threat to the US. By doing this it would decrease the use of drone strikes. However, some reasons for the continued use of drones would include their cost, their success rate, their necessity, and the increased popularity of their use across other military forces. Drones cost around 12 million dollars which is 10 time cheaper than the cost of some fighter jets. Although they do kill civilians, the ratio of civilian deaths caused by drones, around 17%, is less than the 30-80% from other forms of military tactics. They do not put soldiers in harms way, and do not require nearly as much man power to maintain, which would allow the withdraw of more troops from the area. Due to all of these perks, there popularity is growing among other militaries, with at least 75 countries from around the world using or have used drones.

These articles show the constant rift between using drones or not to. While it seems like there are the better option, global disapproval could hurt the US more than help it. However if the US completely abandons the use of them, we become vulnerable to those who do not. It seems as if Obama want to continue to use them due to the benefits, but is trying to limit the amount in order to maintain alliances and global approval.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 5th, 2014 at 4:50 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.