Drone attacks against specific targets are a necessary part of modern warfare

Thanks to pro for starting this debate. I intend to attack the resolution from two different angles:1. That targeted killings are actually effective. If they're ineffective, then there would be no reason to employ them in modern warfare, thus making them not necessary.2. That drone attacks are necessary to conduct modern warfare. If there are other avenues of waging warfare other than using UAVs/Drones, then they aren't necessary for modern warfare.With that let's dive right into things.Argument One: Targeted Killings don't actually work/make things worse. Killing a terrorist leader causes more to grow and retaliate. Hezbollah empirics prove. Blum et. al(1) "eliminating leaders of terrorist organizations ... may ... effect, the rise of more—and more resolute—leaders to replace them. The decapitating of the organization may also invite retaliation by the other members and followers of the organization. ... when Israel assassinated ... Mussawi ... a more charismatic and successful leader, ... Nassrallah, succeeded ... The armed group then avenged the assassination of its former leader in two separate attacks, blowing up Israeli and Jewish targets in Buenos Aires, ..." Targeted killing which relies on intelligence hurts the ability of the government to gain intelligence on terrorists. Blum et. al(1) "Targeted killing may also interfere with important gathering of critical intel ... The threat of being targeted will drive current leaders into hiding, making the monitoring of their ... activities ... difficult. ... if these leaders are found and killed, instead of captured, ... counterterrorism forces lose the ability to interrogate them to obtain potentially valuable information ..." Really big and strong terrorist groups are not affected by targeted killing empirically. Hunter(3) "attempting to reduce a group’s operational capabilities through targeted killing is of limited utility when posed against groups practicing advanced security measures. ... to ensure al Qaeda’s operational effectiveness, the group stresses the need to maintain internal security, dividing its operatives into overt and covert members functioning under a single leader…al Qaeda’s global network has survived by its members strictly adhering to the principles of operational security. the continued “success” of al Qaeda (measured in its ability to conduct major terrorist attacks worldwide despite international efforts to eradicate it) is a testament to its members’ adherence to operational security. ... this ongoing viability is evidence of the ineffectiveness of targeted killing (as practiced by the U.S. in this case) ..." In trying to kill one man, drones killed approximately 321 people, from Spiegel Online(5) "What is the cost of rendering a terrorist harmless once and for all by killing him? During the course of 14 months, the CIA used unmanned and heavily armed small aircraft known as drones to stage 15 strikes against the presumed locations of the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. On Aug. 5, 2009, on the 16th try, the drones finally managed to kill Baitullah Mehsud. ... and 11 others were killed. ... But the hunt for Mehsud cost the lives of far more than 11 people. According to estimates, ... 321 people died in the course of the 16 attempts to eliminate Mehsud -- and it is certain that not all of them were Taliban fighters." Argument Two: Drone Attacks aren't necessary/Other avenues of warfarePost 9/11 Terrorist attacks are overrated – more people die from drowning in bathtubs. Mueller(2) "Two publications ... have independently provided lists of violence committed by Muslim extremists outside of such war zones ... whether that violence be perpetrated by domestic terrorists or by ones with substantial international connections. ... The lists include not only attacks by al-Qaeda, but also those by its imitators, ... as ones by groups with no apparent connection to it whatever. ... the total number of people killed in the five years after 9/11 in such incidents comes to some 200-300 per year. ... it hardly suggests that al-Qaeda's destructive capacities are monumental. ... over the same period far more people have perished in the United States alone in bathtubs drownings ..."Alternative to Drone strikes: Support and Cooperate with Pakistani security forces, Innocent(4)"A better strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan is for the United States to focus on limiting cross-border movement by supporting local Pakistani security forces with a small number of US Special Forces personnel. To improve fighting capabilitiesand enhance cooperation, Washington and Islamabad must increase the number of military-to-military training programs to help hone Pakistan's counterterrorism capabilities and serve as a confidence-building measure to lessen the Pakistan Army's tilt toward radicalism." As such, I've shown that not only do drone strikes not work, not only that they make things worse, but also that we have no need for drone strikes right now and that there are other options for combating terror outside of drone strikes. Resolution = negated.Sources:(1) - Blum, Gabriella and Heymann, Phillip B., Law and Policy of Targeted Killing (June 27, 2010). Harvard National Security Journal, Vol. 1, No. 145, 2010 (2) - Muller, John John Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies, Mershon Center Professor of Political Science Department of Political Science, Ohio State University. THE ATOMIC TERRORIST: ASSESSING THE LIKELIHOOD [Prepared for presentation at the Program on International Security Policy, University of Chicago], January 15, 2008 (3) - Hunter, Thomas Byron. 2009. Targeted Killing: Self-Defense, Preemption, and the War on Terrorism. Journal of Strategic Security, 2 (2): 1-52. (4) - Malou Innocent foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington DC and fact-finding trip to Pakistan, CATO Institute, 8/25/09, http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10479 (5) - Drones Are Lynchpin of Obama's War on Terror By SPIEGEL ONLINE Staff 03/12/2010 SPIEGEL ONLINE correspondents have investigated this new method of warfare and conducted research in the US, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Germany. Read about Obama's drone campaign against terrorism in the following articles. http://www.spiegel.de...