Reading 7.4 Drones: Technology Serves Strategy
Daniel Byman · 2017
The President Barack Obama administration relies on drones for one simple reason: they work. According to data compiled by the New America Foundation, since Obama has been in the White House, US drones have killed an estimated 3,300 al Qaeda, Taliban, and other jihadist operatives in Pakistan and Yemen. In 2010, Osama bin Laden warned his chief aide, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, who was later killed by a drone strike in the Waziristan region of Pakistan in 2011, that when experienced leaders are eliminated, the result is "the rise of lower leaders who are not as experienced as the former leaders" and who are prone to errors and miscalculations. Critics of drone strikes often fail to take into account the fact that the alternatives are either too risky or unrealistic. Finally, using drones is also far less bloody than asking allies to hunt down terrorists on the United States&s; behalf.