Using drones blurs the distinction between war and peace.  The use of drones further blurs the already worryingly indistinct line between a state of war and a state of peace. The drone attacks are taking place in countries where the United States does not have any legal authority. The United States is not officially at war with Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia, yet has launched hundreds of attacks on these countries and their citizens. The assumption is that a state can be at war with a non-state actor such as a terrorist group and therefore is free to target them wherever this group may be found. This means that the US is prosecuting a war in which only it thinks it is at war while sovereign countries like Pakistan are targeted despite believing they are at peace. It is the use of drones that makes it easy to circumvent sovereignty and attack targets on another country’s soil so creating the ambiguity.  Equally worryingly is the blurring of the distinction between civilian and combatant. Firstly the U.S. has decided to define any adult male in the target area as a terrorist when many are most likely nothing of the sort. [1] Secondly the Geneva conventions and their 1977 additions at their heart have the assumption that civilians cannot engage in a war – they are innocent bystanders. This however has been changed by the use of drones; it is a civilian agency, the CIA, which controls the drones and pulls the trigger. This makes the CIA combatants so breaking the obligation not to engage as soldiers. This means that U.S. civilians lose their protected status and the U.S. can’t complain if U.S. citizens are targeted in retaliation as the terrorists can no longer distinguish between those who are targeting them and those who are not. [2]  [1] Hammond, Jeremy R., ‘The Immoral Case for Drones’, Foreign Policy Journal, 16 July 2012.  [2] Hallinan, Conn, ‘CIA’s Drone Wars Blurs Distinction Between Military and Civilian Combatants’, Foreign Policy In Focus, 6 October 2011.