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v

Strategic Studies Institute

and 

U.S. Army War College Press

A TYPOLOGY OF ARGUMENTS

ABOUT DRONE ETHICS

Mary Manjikian

October 2017

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ISBN 1-58487-768-5
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FOREWORD

In recent years, international nongovernmental 

organizations (NGOs) like Human Rights Watch and 

Amnesty International have described U.S.-led drone 

strikes in Pakistan, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere 

as atrocities and even war crimes. Both the International Committee of the Red Cross and Human Rights 

Watch have asked whether the United States is violating the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), with Human 

Rights Watch suggesting that the United States should 

be prosecuted for its actions. At the same time, the 

International Committee for Robot Arms Control 

(ICRAC) has called for greater regulation of what they 

term “killer robots.”

How might military leaders best respond to these 

allegations? In this insightful analysis, Dr. Mary 

Manjikian offers a framework for understanding the 

different types of anti-drone arguments made by policymakers, NGOs, academics, and other states. As she 

points out, the arguments vary―some opponents are 

concerned that too much power is given to algorithms 

and technologies in making decisions about human 

life. Others are concerned about factors such as executive overreach or the ways in which policymakers 

might become overly dependent on a military option, 

which is relatively cheap and easily deployable. In 

order to respond, we need to know what the critic is 

really asking. What are their concerns, and how might 

these concerns best be addressed? Dr. Manjikian provides a framework to distinguish between ethics arguments concerned with technology, those concerned 

with policy, and those concerned with strategy. She 

then provides specific guidance as to how policymakers and leaders might respond to each specific concern. 
As we confront rapidly changing technologies and 

learn to operate and maneuver in a new technological environment, this analysis helps to provide a road 

map and a set of responses to the ethical and normative challenges that we may encounter.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute and

U.S. Army War College Press

viii
ix

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MARY MANJIKIAN is Associate Dean of the Robertson 

School of Government at Regent University. She previously served as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer in the 

Netherlands, Russia, and Bulgaria, and as a Fulbright 

Scholar at Durham University’s Institute of Advanced 

Study. Dr. Manjikian’s publications include Apocalypse and Post-Politics: The Romance of the End (Lanham, 

MD: Lexington Books, Rowman and Littlefield, 2012); 

Threat Talk: Comparative Politics of Internet Addiction 

in China and the US (New York: Ashgate, Taylor & 

Francis, 2012); and Securitization of Property Squatting 

in Western Europe (New York: Routledge, Taylor & 

Francis, 2013). She is also the author of the textbook

Cybersecurity Ethics: An Introduction (New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis, 2017). Her articles have also 

appeared in such journals as the International Studies 

Quarterly, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Intelligence and National Security, and the 

International Feminist Journal of Politics. Dr. Manjikian 

holds an M.Phil. from Oxford University and a Ph.D. 

from the University of Michigan.

xi

SUMMARY

While there is widespread opposition to the acquisition and deployment of drones for both surveillance 

and combat units at the mass and elite levels, individuals and groups differ in the specifics of their arguments. Among domestic and international opponents 

of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies, we 

can identify arguments that take issue with: specific 

aspects of the weapons themselves (such as their ability to target precisely); the character of an individual 

or society that uses these weapons; the ways in which 

these weapons can change the relationship between 

a combatant and his adversary; or the way that this 

technology creates new international norms or doctrines for the conduct of warfare. Thus, anti-drone 

arguments come in different variants, rely on differing assumptions, and lead to differing policy recommendations―from an absolute ban on their existence 

to a more nuanced set of guidelines for their creation 

and deployment. For a commander or planner who 

wishes to respond to ethical arguments being raised 

about drones, this Letort Paper can serve as a type of 

field guide, helping the decision-maker to identify the 

type of argument being made and the specific concerns 

which undergird this type of ethical thinking. Knowing 

this information, decision-makers are better equipped 

with specific responses to address these concerns.

1

A TYPOLOGY OF ARGUMENTS

ABOUT DRONE ETHICS

Today, drone use is commonplace; and yet, it is not 

without controversy. Data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington, DC, notes 

that at least 11 countries are using 56 different types of 

unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).1 Despite the widespread use of drones worldwide both for combat and 

surveillance purposes, the ethics of their use is still 

highly contested, and opposition to their acquisition 

and deployment is widespread. A Pew Research Center 

Study in 2012 indicated that 52 percent of Germans, 76 

percent of Spaniards, 63 percent of the French, and 90 

percent of Greeks are opposed to the use of drones.2

Arguments made at national and international levels 

and anti-drone initiatives have been presented to the 

European Commission and the United Nations (UN).

However, not all anti-drone arguments are alike. 

In formulating a response to these arguments, U.S. 

policymakers need to understand the varied sources 

of opposition to drones and the variety of ethical and 

policy arguments on which this opposition rests. Individuals and groups may oppose drones and their use 

for a variety of different reasons based on different 

underlying principles, values, and worldviews. Thus, 

as American policymakers seek to convince our allies 

of the importance of these weapons and as we speak to 

the international community about the utility of these 

weapons, we need to understand what these ethical 

concerns are, and why opponents have them.

As this Letort Paper discusses, the term “anti-drone” 

can be seen as a sort of umbrella under which a variety 

of different types of arguments and concerns can be 

located. Some anti-drone activists are concerned with 
2

the harms done to the international system through 

reliance on these new weapons (such as the erosion 

of traditional norms governing combat); others, however, focus in on a much more intimate level, speaking 

of the emotions of attack victims or the emotional lives 

and well-being of the warfighters themselves. Some 

analyses focus on individual morality and the ethics 

of the drone operator himself, while others consider 

the national values of an actor deploying drones. Still 

others consider how drone use changes relationships 

between the warfighter and his adversary. Some analysts and activists treat the advent of drone warfare as 

a wholly new phenomenon that cannot be compared 

to previous technological developments, while others 

disagree. Analysts also distinguish between problems caused by the existence of the technology―those 

caused by the acts carried out by drones and those created by the activities of their human operators or the 

machines themselves.

In addition, some opponents describe UAV technologies as dangerous because they lead to the adoption of certain doctrines or strategies, while others 

worry that they lead to certain policy outcomes. Thus, 

some opponents state that drones make it easier for a 

leader to declare war without congressional approval 

(a policy problem), while others are concerned about 

the fact that they make covert activity in general a more 

feasible option (a doctrine problem). Those who worry 

about the policy problem are concerned that drones 

could potentially change the character and shape of 

our political system (including the relations between 

the President, the Congress, and citizens). Those concerned about the ways in which UAV availability will 

cause us to adopt different doctrines worry about a 

different outcome, namely the ways in which such 
3

weapons might end up changing many of the norms 

and understandings that contribute to the stability of 

the international system.

All arguments about the ethics of drones are normative because they suggest what should be done 

regarding drones. However, the solutions put forth 

exist along a spectrum—with some arguing for limited drone use, provided that certain conditions are 

met; and others arguing for a total ban on drone use, 

since they see the weapon’s very existence as an ethical 

problem. Finally, arguments differ in the timeframes 

used. Some analysts worry how drone warfare might 

change the conduct of a particular battle (i.e., whether 

one side had an unfair advantage). Others argue that 

increased drone use could affect a nation’s long-term 

strategy, including how it thinks about its own vulnerabilities and what is possible (i.e., it might make the 

nation more belligerent or increase the likelihood of 

events escalating to a military level).

As discussed earlier, the term “ethics of drones” 

actually refers to many different phenomena. This 

Letort Paper presents a typology of anti-drone arguments. It will help military leaders respond to questions about the ethics of drones by helping them 

understand the underlying assumptions and concerns 

that motivate such questions. The leader can identify 

and label the arguments encountered; understand 

the philosophical, cultural, and ethical assumptions 

underlying that argument; and then frame a response 

that responds to those concerns.3

There are five specific types of questions and 

approaches that we can identify in today’s anti-drone 

discourse, both those occurring on elite levels among 

policymakers and those occurring on a popular level 

that might be demonstrated through protests, petitions, 
4

or critical articles in newspapers and magazines. These 

five variants are: (1) arguments about technological 

specifications; (2) arguments about identity; (3) arguments about relationships between the warfighter 

and his or her adversary; (4) arguments about effects 

on the international community; and, (5) arguments 

about specific doctrines and tactics related to the use of 

drones (see Table 1).

Argument Academic 

Framework Proponents Key Questions

Technological 

Specifications

Utilitarianism, 

Consequentialism

Pacifists:

Society of Friends

Mennonite Church 

USA

United Brethren

Human Rights 

Watch

Harvard Law 

School’s International Human 

Rights Clinic 

(IHRC)

Do the new and unique 

aspects of these weapons (i.e., increased 

precision; ability to 

discriminate; speed) 

make them more or 

less moral/ethical than 

previous generations of 

weapons?

Do these weapons save 

lives, and if so, whose?

Identity 

Arguments

Virtue Ethics Campaign to Stop 

Killer Robots

Would an honorable 

warrior (or nation) use 

these weapons?

What kind of a person 

or nation does so?

Relationship 

with Adversary

Levinasian 

Ethics

Ontology

UN Convention on 

Certain Conventional Weapons

Amnesty International

Is using this weapon an 

appropriate way to treat 

my enemies?

Table 1. Five Types of Ethical Arguments 

Against Drones.
5

Argument Academic 

Framework Proponents Key Questions

Effects on 

International 

Community

Norms

Legitimacy

European Parliament

Independent and 

Peaceful Australia 

Network

What sort of an example are we (the United 

States) setting in the international community?

Are we changing the 

norms/laws of war?

Relationship to 

Specific Doctrines, Strategies, Tactics

Just War

Situational 

Ethics

Stephen Hawking, 

Elon Musk, and 

Steve Wozniak 

(Apple co-founder)

Electronic Frontier 

Foundation

Project on Government Secrecy 

at Federation of 

American Scientists

How does the use of 

these weapons affect 

our ability to fight a just 

war?

Will having these weapons make us more likely 

to adopt certain policies 

and doctrines?

What are the effects of 

surveillance drones in 

particular on rights of 

citizens?

Table 1. Five Types of Ethical Arguments 

Against Drones. (cont.)

First, some activists worry about the weapons’ 

technical capabilities. These activists draw on writings 

from the fields of robotics, legal studies, and moral 

philosophy including machine ethics to advance concerns about the new and novel facets of autonomous 

weapons—as well as their inherent limitations. They 

ask not “How should we use drones or under what 

circumstances?” but rather “What specific facets of the 

evolving technology of unmanned or robotic combat 

weapons are likely to create new or ongoing ethical 

dilemmas?” Autonomous weapons are thus viewed
6

not simply as a new stage of technological advancement—like other types of technological advances that 

have occurred before—but rather as something revolutionary that will lead to a reconceptualization of 

the conduct of warfare and the notion of the warrior.4

These arguments focus on two aspects: how some 

aspects of new technologies will change the playing 

field and the conduct of war; and whether new technologies can ever substitute for or behave in a similar

moral, ethical, and legal way as that of a human.

In considering technological capabilities, opponents have focused on four specific facets of this technology. First, they consider ethical quandaries arising 

from its ability to target precisely (that is, viewing it 

as a new type of precision-guided munition). They 

have asked whether resultant actions truly are those 

of national self-defense, or whether they are, in fact, 

extrajudicial killings or assassinations. Second, they 

have considered its ability to establish a combat environment in which the adversary is unable to respond 

or reciprocate with violence (thus raising questions 

of cruelty and disproportionality). Third, they have 

looked at the fact that these weapons are faster and less 

obtrusive to use than conventional military deployments, thus increasing the likelihood that they would 

be used in covert activity-type scenarios. Finally, analysts have considered whether such weapons actually 

are more moral because they can easily discriminate 

between civilians and armed military personnel. These 

facets of the technology have led legal analysts to ask 

whether technical specifications of the weapons themselves make them incompatible with existing ethical 

and legal frameworks, including: the Law of War and 

the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), UN treaties and 
7

conventions, and the beliefs of those in the field of 

human rights (see Table 2).

Technological aspects 

of drones

Related ethical questions

PRECISE

Ability to easily target an adversary raises 

issues of:

•	 targeted killing, assassination

•	 extra-judicial killing vs. self-defense

•	 preemptive killing

However, may also prevent a conflict from 

escalating to conventional war.

SAFE

Enemy cannot immediately retaliate:

•	 Raises Issue of Cruelty

•	 Issue of Disproportionality

CHEAP, FAST

Do not require large-scale conventional 

mobilization:

•	 Facilitates use of covert options

•	 May create increasing “conditions short 

of war” (jus ad vim)

ABLE TO 

DISCRIMINATE

IF you believe this exists, drones are an 

ethical advance.

IF you dispute this claim, they are more 

dangerous.

Table 2. Technological Aspects of Drones and

Related Ethical Issues.

These technological arguments about drones actually rest on two different philosophical stances. The 

utilitarian stance assumes that an ethical problem 

can be solved in the same way as a math problem. 

One can add up the costs and benefits of various policies in order to arrive at the solution that creates the 

least harm while providing the greatest benefit. Analysts ask, “What are the specific costs associated with 
8

deployment/existence of these technologies? Do these 

technologies make the overall human costs of war 

higher or lower?”

However, other analysts (and activists) advance a 

“difference argument.”5 This stance assumes that there 

is something fundamentally different about UAVs that 

distinguishes them from previous categories of weapons. The assumption is that these new weapons alter the 

nature of conflict itself in such a way that it no longer 

can be carried out within norms and constraints that 

serve to limit it or render it humane. Thus, it is impossible to argue for its ethicality. Difference arguments 

were previously made by those who advocated outlawing nuclear weapons and biological and/or chemical weapons.6

 In each case, proponents argued that 

facets of these weapons—the sheer amount of damage 

and world-ending potential of a nuclear weapon7 or 

the sheer amount of human suffering produced by a 

biological weapon—rendered it fundamentally different from all other weapons. In both the biological and 

the nuclear examples, the phrase “uncivilized” was 

used to describe why no reasonable or ethical individual would choose to utilize such a weapon.

Difference argument proponents find drones unethical, even if they are never used, since it is their existence rather than a specific activity carried out which is 

problematic. This argument is absolute and one cannot 

identify any good situations or good scenarios in which 

such a weapon ethically could still be used. The only 

possible resolution in such a situation is the banning of 

this class of weapons such that they should no longer 

be developed, held, or deployed. This is the argument 

that Jonathan Granoff makes currently,8 and the argument in Reinhold Niebuhr’s writing about the atom 

bomb.9 Pacifist arguments about drones, including the 
9

arguments of Mennonite groups in England and the 

United States, also fit into this category of argument.

The second group of arguments focuses not on specific technical facets of the weapons themselves, but 

rather on the identity questions posed by the existence 

and deployment of such weapons. Activists using this 

framework pose questions such as: “What sort of a 

person, warrior, or society uses these weapons?” and 

“Does using autonomous or unmanned weapons conflict with the warrior ethos?” Key concepts include: the 

warrior code, honor, agency, bravery, heroism, risk, 

guilt, remorse, and emotions. This stance is derived 

from the writings of Patrick Lin, Peter Olsthoorn, and 

Jessica Wolfendale―academicians concerned with 

medicine, psychology, and the ethics of technology.10

Identity arguments lead to policy prescriptions that 

are absolutist; one either is or is not the kind of person 

or society that uses drones, regardless of the circumstances or the type of conflict. In this framework, the 

decision to use drones is said to reflect one’s character 

and values, and the decision thus is based not on the 

specifics of a set of circumstances. At base, these arguments derive from the philosophical school known 

as Virtue Ethics, and from Aristotle’s writing on the 

ethics of virtue.11

Identity arguments focus on three questions: first, 

analysts and activists ask, “What are the qualities of 

an honorable warrior, and are those reconcilable with 

the the use of drones?” Next, they ask, “What are the 

qualities of a dishonorable warrior, and does the use 

of drones somehow convey or create dishonor?” Proponents believe that the decision to use these weapons 

could taint the character of the warrior, the organization, or the nation that does so. Thus, these weapons 

have been described as “the symbol of an arrogant 
10

reprobate superpower dating back to the days of the 

Ugly American.” Kenneth Anderson notes they may 

be regarded as illegitimate weapons used by those 

who know that their cause is illegitimate.12 For activists adopting this framework, the drone primarily is a 

symbol that conveys a certain meaning. Thus, they ask, 

“What does it say about me and my nation that I would 

choose to use an autonomous weapon in an asymmetric fashion, and what is the moral/ethical meaning 

attached to that action? Is using a weapon that puts 

my opponent at great risk while lessening my own a 

cowardly action or could it be perceived as such? How 

does the use of these weapons impact my personal reputation, the reputation of America’s armed services, or 

the reputation of the United States?”

Finally, those concerned with identity raise a third 

issue referred to as the humane/humanity issue: The 

question is, “Who is doing the killing?” Proponents 

thus suggest that, if UAVs are not manned by humans, 

then their use can never be described as honorable 

or humane since those are qualities attached only to 

human beings. Analysts concerned with this question 

have disagreed about whether one could, in theory, 

create a “virtuous drone” that could behave according 

to a warrior code through making programming decisions which would allow artificial intelligence (AI) to 

make moral decisions—or whether a “virtuous drone” 

is an oxymoron.

Table 3 describes the various ethical queries related 

to the problem of identity.
11

Identity Aspects Related Ethical Questions

The Virtuous Warrior Can the use of drones be reconciled with the 

notion of an honorable warrior?

The Dishonorable 

Warrior

Is there something specific about using an 

UAV that creates dishonor or an impression 

of dishonor?

Human/Humane 

Argument

In what ways is the ability to inflict damage 

without creating a relationship between the 

warrior and his adversary ethically problematic?

Table 3. Identity Aspects of Drones and Related 

Ethical Queries.

The next set of activists is concerned primarily with 

the relationship that one creates with one’s adversary 

(either an individual or a nation or group) through 

choosing to fight using this type of weaponry. This set 

of arguments draws upon the philosophical subfield of 

ontology defined as the “study or concern about what 

kinds of things exist.”13 Many of the concerns regarding the autonomy aspect of unmanned weapons and 

the ways in which autonomy relies on AI are ontological concerns, since analysts are asking: “Can we make 

a computer which is fully human?” or “Can we make 

a computer which is close enough to a human that it 

could be substituted for a human and in what ways?” 

These questions range from quite mundane to quite 

profound. The simplest question is whether a robot 

could learn to calculate things like proportionality or 

assess independently the legality of an action or order. 

More profound questions include what it means to 

be autonomous, and what the inherent limits are of a 

robot in terms of its ability to think and act morally 

and ethically in combat. Can a computer really ever 
12

substitute for a human on the battlefield in terms of its 

ability to behave as a moral agent?

Activists using this line of argumentation draw 

upon the work of ethicists who have asked, “How does 

my use of a nonhuman drone change my relationship 

with my adversaries?” and “Is it ‘disrespectful’ to kill 

someone with a drone?” Analysts whose work deals 

primarily with these questions include Peter Asaro, 

Robert Sparrow, and Albert Bandura, as well as Deborah G. Johnson and Merel Noorman.14 The key concepts are human rights, the philosophical concept of 

respect, mutual vulnerability, practices of responsibility, and the principle of attribution. Analysts also consider issues such as mourning, humiliation, humanity, 

and distance, as well as the potential to dehumanize 

one’s enemy (see Table 4). These arguments often draw 

upon David Grossman’s seminal work, On Killing, 

which examines the relationship created between soldiers when they battle one another in conflict, as well 

as the emotional consequences of that relationship.15

Arguments about the relationships created through 

UAVs rest on older arguments. Anthony C. Grayling 

(author of Among the Dead Cities) meditates on the ways 

in which new technologies enabled the Allies to carry 

out large-scale aerial bombardment campaigns during 

World War II and the ethical questions that these campaigns raised.16
13

Relationship 

Aspects

Related Ethical Questions

Witness, Mourning Can a drone witness a death in the same 

way that a soldier can?

Remorse, Guilt, 

Anguish

Can a drone feel remorse in the same way 

that a soldier might?

Responsibility Can a drone take responsibility; or be held 

responsible for a death?

Limits of Machine 

Learning

Can a drone be taught to think ethically?

Table 4. Relationship Aspects of Drones and 

Related Ethical Queries.

A fourth set of arguments asks how UAV technologies will affect the international system as a whole 

in the long-term. Analysts ask, “Will states go to war 

more often if the risks are lowered?” In addition, they 

consider how technologies develop and the ways in 

which using drones for surveillance affects society in 

the long term. Key ideas that analysts rely upon in this 

ethical framework include conventions and norms, as 

well as facets of international law.

Finally, analysts have considered how developments in the field of unmanned warfare make organizations and nations more likely to adopt certain types 

of tactics that can be seen as unethical. The major concepts invoked are the LOAC and principles such as 

national sovereignty. Analysts argue that the availability of weapons like unmanned aerial drones serve to 

facilitate the conduct of covert warfare or increase the 

likelihood that a state could prosecute a conflict without ever declaring war. Military strategists and legal 

analysts describe these types of arguments.
14

We will now consider each of these types of arguments in turn.

TECHNOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS 

ABOUT DRONES

Drones are really only good at targeted killings and that is 

something that German soldiers will not engage with.17

A preemptive prohibition on the development and use of 

these weapons is needed.18

The first set of ethical arguments about drones 

focuses on technology. Activists who highlight the 

technological aspects of drone warfare do so based on 

the assumption that technological specifications—such 

as the ability to fire very precisely—go on to affect what 

the planners see as possible or desirable in warfare. 

That is, they argue that specifications can force planners and decision-makers to adopt some strategies or 

tactics over others. In this way, these anti-drone activists resemble gun control activists in the United States 

because they believe that there is something particular 

about this weapon that is dangerous. Therefore, they 

argue, such weapons should be banned because they 

do not accept the claim that it is possible to modify or 

regulate these weapons (or the behavior of their users) 

in such a way as to make the weapons less dangerous. 

These advocates reject the argument that states or international organizations can create rules for the ethical 

use of these weapons through, for example, adopting 

international conventions and national laws. They do 

not believe that regulatory policies ultimately will be 

successful in modifying what they see as the ideology 

or the technological mission of this equipment.

So what technological specifications can be seen as 

driving military decision-making? First, analysts are 
15

concerned about the fact that drones allow for greater 

specificity and precision in targeting—and they argue 

that the ability to engage in targeting with greater precision will lead to an erosion of the distinction between 

the civilian sphere and the battlefield, a situation which 

may place civilians at greater risk in the future.19 Both 

Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) argue that such 

weapons would increase the risk of death or injury to 

civilians during armed conflict.20

Next, analysts raise concerns about proportionality. Traditional Just War thinking declares that a state’s 

response to an attack on itself must be proportionate, 

rather than punitive. That is, the state must use only 

enough force to stop the aggressor’s actions and must 

not seek to inflict damage beyond that point. However, 

when one state has a new technological advantage, at 

least initially, its response seems disproportionate in 

relation to its adversaries who may not have access to 

similar technology. Therefore, Granoff suggests that 

the real ethical issue is not proportionality, but reciprocity, since it is inequitable for one power to have 

expensive technologies that others do not. In talking 

both about nuclear weapons and drones, he argues 

that such weapons are immoral, even if never used, 

since it is their existence, even in a deterrent capacity, 

which is problematic. He argues that since states with 

nuclear weapons can threaten others by creating a 

power imbalance, these nuclear-armed states can then 

use the power of that threat to compel other states to 

act in the interest of the nuclear-armed state. Everyone 

who is subject to a possible use of these weapons in 

the future, in a sense, lives under a kind of suspended 

sentence. Granoff also argues that it is immoral to ask 

others to live under a nuclear or a drone umbrella when 
16

the citizens of the well-armed country do not have to 

live under the same threat.21 Thus, the UAV becomes a 

type of terrorist.

A related problem is that of cruelty. In Britain, this 

argument has found resonance. Consider the statement made by British Lord Bingham in 2009, in which 

he noted:

From time to time in the history of international law 

various weapons have been thought to be so cruel as to be 

beyond the pale of human tolerance. I think cluster bombs 

and landmines are the most recent examples. It may be

. . . . That unmanned drones that fall on a house full of 

civilians [are] a weapon the international community 

should decide should not be used.22

Bingham identifies drones as belonging to a category of weapons that has been prohibited in the conduct of warfare—first through customary international 

law and later through the 1977 Additional Protocol to 

the Geneva Convention of 1949. The protocol specifically limits the use of weapons and methods of warfare 

“of a nature to cause superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering.”23 Weapons in this category include 

poison, explosive bullets, chemical weapons, and landmines. A member of the Quaker faith expresses similar 

sentiments in a letter to the editor of The Friend, noting, 

“The pressing of a button to send a drone to destroy 

a target, killing innocent people, too, including children, is as barbaric, to me, as the cruel beheading of 

hostages.”24

The next technological facet of drone technology 

that is seen as ethically problematic is its cheapness 

and ease of use. Pacifist groups, including religious 

ones, argue that technologies that make war faster, 

cheaper, and safer will lessen the moral imperative to 
17

avoid war. Instead, such groups point to the danger 

of an arms race where each side will attempt to amass 

a larger number of weapons than its opponents. They 

argue that, since defense spending always “robs” social 

spending and, thus, has opportunity costs associated 

with it, and since amassing a large stockpile of weapons eventually may make the temptation to go to war 

greater, the most logical solution is to ban all weapons. 

We can identify similar thinking in the current Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. This group points to the 

problem of proliferation and the possibility of a future 

robotic arms race that particularly would be difficult 

for developing nations to engage in without increasing defense spending at the expense of other societal 

sectors.25

Like older pacifist groups that campaigned against 

conventional weapons in World War I, the present-day 

Campaign to Stop Killer Robots notes that “replacing 

human troops with machines could make the decisions 

to go to war easier, which would shift the burden of 

armed conflict further onto civilians.”26 The precision 

strikes and relative safety in which drone operators 

carry out their missions are seen as problematic, since 

it is easy for both warfighters and the public to forget 

about the actual costs of war. In addition, Anderson 

notes that the ability to carry out a discrete drone strike 

facilitates decision-making in which the warfighter 

sees a particular decision only in its own specific context without being aware of a larger context, such as 

the surrounding area, the larger political conflict, or the 

values that the conflict is meant to be upholding. He 

notes, in particular, that the individual who launches 

a drone strike asks only a very specific battery of questions, such as “Is it a civilian? Is it holding a gun?”27

Again, these questions may be understood as virtue 
18

ethics questions since they are really questions about 

the characters of the states and warfighters themselves, 

who may choose to think differently about conflicts in 

which they do not physically participate, including a 

decision to dehumanize one’s opponents or to treat the 

conflict as a sort of joystick-video game interaction.

Finally, analysts have raised questions about the 

fact that drone strikes can be carried out without a 

high level of public involvement or transparency. 

For example, Richard Adams and Chris Barrie argue 

that the ease in which a drone may be deployed, not 

as part of a larger effort but rather on an individual 

basis, fundamentally changes the nature of warfare. 

It increasingly is likely that drone strikes will take 

place as part of a planned covert activity that does not 

require transparency or the involvement of the public. 

They also worry about the establishment of a system 

in which killings become routine.28 Daniel Bell notes 

as well that the ability to act quickly may lead inevitably to a system where nations are more likely to act 

swiftly and preemptively, and the ability to carry out 

discrete activities, such as a single killing, inevitably 

may lead to a great amount of covert activity and less 

transparency.29 Finally, Noel Sharkey has pointed to a 

2010 report to the UN General Assembly, which states 

that drone strikes violate international law and human 

rights conventions, noting, “a lack of disclosure gives 

states a virtual and impermissible license to kill.”30

Table 5 presents the various types of technological 

arguments that have been made against drones and 

their implications.
19

Technological

Facet Argument Implications

Discretion/

Precision

Technology is/is not 

sufficiently able to distinguish civilians from 

combatants

Violates Just War Tenets, International Law, 

Human Rights Norms on 

not targeting civilians

Precision

Technology allows us to 

erase the distinction between what is and is not 

the battlefield—thus increasing risk to civilians

Violates Laws of War 

which define the battlefield as the place where 

war occurs

Proportionality

Technology is disproportionate/punitive in relation to the act itselfViolates Just War Tenets, International Law

Proportionality/

Cruelty

Some weapons/technologies are uncivilized, 

“beyond the pale”

Violates International 

Humanitarian Law

Cheapness

Drones reduce both absolute monetary and human costs of war, thus 

paradoxically making it 

more likely

Violates “last resort”

condition of Just War

Cheap/Fast

Drones allow for strikes 

to be conducted secretly 

and covertly—as opposed to a mass military 

action which would be 

public in nature/banality, 

bureaucratization of 

warfare

Violates Hague Convention International Protocol for Declaring War

Table 5. Technological Arguments against Drones.

Responding to These Arguments

How should U.S. military planners respond to specific ethical arguments that seem to point to recommendations for a ban on UAVs? It is clear that these 

arguments are well thought-out, coherent, and based 
20

on sound logic. However, this does not mean that one 

cannot advance a counterargument.

The starting point for a counterargument should be 

to challenge the assumption that technology has an 

ideology or that it necessarily means a specific thing. 

Here one might refer to the arguments of Maine et al., 

who note that, when new technologies are introduced 

into the conduct of warfare, it is common for policymakers and others to disagree about the ethical issues 

that arise. However, they argue that over time, international communities and military communities often 

are able to come to a new understanding regarding 

the specific ethical challenges posed by a new technology and are able to come up with legal and normative 

understandings that serve to mitigate or solve these 

ethical dilemmas. (They point to the development of 

aerial combat as well as the development of nuclear 

technologies.)

Policymakers might also cite James Jay Carafano, 

who argues that:

Technology does not win wars. It does not lose wars. It 

does not even fight wars. People do. . . . New technologies 

pose far fewer new ethical challenges to warfare than is 

often supposed.31

In this work, Carafano suggests that what look like 

ethical discussions actually are military-strategical 

technical discussions about the capabilities of various 

weapons. Thus, based on his arguments, military decision-makers could and should challenge the assumption that technology makes people do things or choose 

things, such as compelling decision-makers to reach a 

certain conclusion about how to deploy these weapons. Instead, decision-makers need to point out that 

individuals and states have the ability to choose how 

to use technologies.
21

Similarly, David Fischler wrote the following about 

nuclear weapons:

Possession of nuclear weapons, then, is not inherently 

immoral. Possession may facilitate the demonstration of 

the user’s immorality, but in and of themselves nuclear 

weapons are nothing more than mechanisms for the 

expression of human ideas and emotions. To say that 

there is nothing inherently immoral about nuclear 

weapons does not, however, establish that we are justified 

in having them. One does not keep dynamite in the house 

in order to ward off burglars when a pistol would do as 

well. One is, after all, as likely to blow up the house as 

protect it when the weapon is out of proportion to any 

conceivable threat.32

Thus, we can draw a parallel between his argument 

and that of Maine et al., who suggest that the question 

of whether a technologically advanced state should 

inflict a disproportionate response (such as deploying a “swarm” of drones) is really a question of virtue 

ethics. The individual needs to ask himself or herself, 

“What would the right thing be to do in this situation?”33 Thus, the proportionality question becomes 

not a matter of technological specifications, but rather 

of identity ethics, since the ethics question revolves not 

around the specifications of the weapons, but rather 

about “What sort of a person or state would choose 

to develop, hold, or utilize these weapons, given what 

we know about proportionality and reciprocity?” This 

identity question is discussed later in this Letort Paper.

In responding to criticisms about the immorality 

of a particular technology, policymakers might also 

consider Peter Singer’s work, since he famously has 

argued that humans ultimately decide what a technology means and how it will be used. He argues that 

no weapon inherently is immoral, and that, indeed, a 
22

designer has the unique ability to shape what a technology becomes, in some instances even assuring 

that it will be more, rather than less, moral. He notes 

designers can make decisions that guide the ways in 

which these technologies are deployed, including the 

ability to make some kinds of deployment more likely 

and other types impossible. He argues that designers 

can ask ethical questions, such as “What attributes 

should one design into a new technology, such as its 

weaponization, autonomy, or intelligence? What attributes should be limited or avoided?”34

Figure 1 presents some specific guidance for creating a response to these types of anti-drone arguments.

Figure 1. Suggestions for Military Decision-Makers 

in Responding to Arguments about Technological 

Facets of Drone Technology.

Response Guidance

1. Challenge the assumption that technology has an ideology. 

(i.e., The internet represents democracy; drones represent 

offensive aggression.)

2. Challenge the assumption that technology makes people do 

things or choose things. Instead, point out that individuals 

and states have agency to choose how to use technologies.

3. Interrogate the assumption that the only way to prevent 

certain outcomes is to ban certain technologies.

4. Engage with the difference between weapons, which are 

indiscriminate and which are cruel (i.e., engendering 

needless sufferering), pointing out that drones are neither 

indiscriminate nor cruel.

5. However, acknowledge that some technologies make some 

types of activities (strategies, tactics) more or less likely.

6. Be willing to discuss the sorts of national or international 

standards or safeguards that will affect how these weapons 

are used and articulate the U.S. commitment to pursuing 

regulations.
23

IDENTITY ARGUMENTS ABOUT DRONES

At one stroke, the drone has destroyed any positive 

image of the United States in the countries over which it 

operates. It has contributed to the destruction of the tribal 

codes of honor, such as Pukhtunwali among the Pukhtun 

tribes of Afghanistan and Pakistan. And this immorality 

and destructive nature reflects back on those who use it, 

harming the warrior ethic of the American military so 

critical to battlefield bonding among soldiers in combat.35

The second set of ethical arguments comes from the 

philosophical tradition of virtue ethics. Ethicists and 

activists taking this stance do not seek a mere solution set to the problem of drones that would reduce 

casualties and costs; instead, they ask “What choices 

regarding the creation or deployment of UAVs would 

be in keeping with my values and the values of my 

organization?”

Olsthoorn describes a virtue as “a trait of character worth having, not to be understood as an inherited or God-given quality, but as something that can 

be acquired, mainly through training and practice.”36

Within the U.S. military, as Shannon French points out 

in Lin et al., warfighters acquire certain values such as 

duty and honor through socialization, education, and 

practice. Warfighters grow to understand and accept 

the moral significance of their actions and integrate 

that knowledge into their own self-concepts. As stated 

in Lin et al.:

Warriors exercise the power to take or save lives, order 

others to take or save lives and lead or send others to 

their deaths. If they take this awesome responsibility too 

lightly―if they lose sight of the moral significance of their 

actions―they risk losing their humanity and the ability to 

flourish in human society.37
24

Similarly, Thomas McDonnell introduces the 

notion of chivalry,38 defined as a principle based on 

“mutual respect and reciprocity between adversaries 

sharing the same or similar traditions and subjected 

to the same dangers on the battlefield.”39 McDonnell 

suggests that both individual warriors and states can 

inflict damage without themselves being subject to 

damage through conducting drone strikes, which represents a violation of the warrior code’s emphasis on 

chivalry. Thus, someone or some nation using drones 

can be described as cowardly or as constructing a situation in which the strong are taking advantage of the 

weak.

In this framework, then, actions are associated with 

values, and the assumption is that, ideally, individuals and states would create situations in which their 

actions and their values are aligned. For this reason, 

soldiers are trained in processes such as the LOAC and 

legally may be held liable if they violate these laws 

during a conflict. Jessica Wolfendale suggests, “The 

ideal of the good war fighter involves not only technical skills but also moral virtues.”40

Thus, questions about virtue ethics give rise to 

three separate but interrelated queries:

1. How does the use of drones affect the individual warfighter and his identity?

2. How does the use of drones affect the nation 

and its identity?

3. Is it possible to separate individual moral thinking from “thinking” by a weapon? That is, if we 

envision a situation someday in which drones 

can act as fully autonomous agents in making 

decisions about the conduct of warfare without 

human influence, can one ever speak of a drone 

acting autonomously as a “warrior” or as “one 
25

who possesses warrior ethics”? Can a machine 

be taught to think morally or virtuously, according to a warrior code?41

Thus, the first query asks whether drones help create 

situations where individual soldiers and states act in 

ways which are not aligned with their professional or 

historic values, or where the disconnect between their 

values and their activities is great enough that it threatens their legitimacy and integrity. In its most stark 

form, the argument (as put forth by the Australian academic Natalie Dalziel) is that drone strikes are a form 

of terrorism defined as sudden and disproportionate 

symbolic violence deployed to intimidate those who 

would witness it, and that those who engage in it are 

terrorists.42 A statement like this calls into question the 

whole U.S. military enterprise, since the military virtues of honor and integrity are what create the difference between socially and ethically sanctioned killing 

in war, versus murder.

Arguments at the interstate level ask how the U.S. 

decision to engage in drone strike activity could undermine its claims regarding its role as a democratic leader 

in the international system. Many of those who have 

opposed U.S. drone strikes have accused the United 

States of knowingly engaging in behavior regarded as 

illegitimate, unlawful, or immoral. As a result, some 

analysts suggest that the nation’s image can become 

tainted within the international community through 

being associated with unsavory practices.43 Consider 

how America’s national image may have been marred 

due to accusations related to its drone practices—specifically, accusations that the United States has engaged 

in lying, has acted like a bully, and has engaged in 

assassinations. In the recent past, the United States has 

been accused of lying or exaggerating its claim that it is 

lawful to engage in targeted drone strikes in Pakistan, 
26

for example, because of a need for self-defense against 

terrorists and insurgents.44 That is, legally a nation 

is allowed to engage in preemptive strikes against a 

target for means of self-defense, but the claim is disputed that the United States actually felt it to be in 

imminent danger from the individuals whom it targeted. The United States also has been accused of lying 

when it claimed that those killed in drone attacks have 

been specific insurgents and rebels, and not merely 

innocent bystanders.45 Others have implied that the 

United States has acted as a bully, killing defenseless civilians46 and invading the sovereignty of other 

nations though carrying out airstrikes in their airspace.

Finally, some analysts have constructed virtue 

ethics arguments specifically related to the quality of 

autonomy. Here scientists ask whether one could create 

in an artificially intelligent weapon that could stand 

in for a human as a moral agent, making a moral 

decision regarding whether to engage in a specific 

behavior. In her work, Jamie Allinson speaks of the 

“sovereign’s right both to command death and to 

assign grievable meaning to the dead,” and suggests 

that there may come a time in the future when a state 

might arrogate those rights to a piece of technology 

instead.47 Others have asked whether, at some point in 

the future, one could create a “virtuous drone” which 

could be trained in laws and ethics, taught to make 

moral decisions, and held responsible for its actions 

during wartime.48 Can one actually create a moral algorithm and reasonably speak of war as a moral enterprise when the individuals who possess the moral 

conscience are removed from the enterprise?

Analysts are divided about whether the ability to 

create a moral or virtuous robot is something that is 

either possible or desirable. At one end of the spectrum, Ronald Arkin speaks of an “ethical governor” 
27

or an algorithm that could be written to allow robots 

to learn to think morally. He argues that code could 

build in constraints such as the Law of War and Rules 

of Engagement, such that weapons would be able to 

evaluate a situation and see if certain actions were 

allowable. In addition, he argues that a weapon could 

learn to evaluate the proportionality of an action.49

Arkin also famously suggested that a robot could learn 

to experience sympathy and guilt.50 In his view, it is 

incorrect to say that a warrior was not virtuous just 

because that warrior was a robot.

However, at the other end of the spectrum are 

those who believe that a moral or virtuous robot is an 

oxymoron. Wolfendale argues that a moral warrior 

must experience guilt and remorse in combat, since a 

moral agent needs to have the ability to reflect on his 

or her actions critically. Although Wolfendale was not 

writing about drone combat, but rather about whether 

individual soldiers might be given pharmaceuticals to 

dull or deaden their emotions in combat, her argument 

may be extended to thinking about drone warfare as 

well. She argues that moral reasoning rests on one’s 

emotional reactions to a situation, and that lessening 

one’s emotions necessarily will lessen one’s ability to 

reason morally.51 Thus, a drone that cannot experience 

emotions also cannot engage in critical reflection that 

Wolfendale sees as necessary for one to be truly virtuous. Similarly, Dennett argues that for a robot to be 

a moral agent, it would have to have a past, would 

have to be able to exhibit consciousness, and have a 

conscious moral understanding of its choices. Dennett 

raises similar issues and asks whether a robot could 

ever really understand what it means to kill a person 

or the opportunity costs involved in such an action.52

Similarly, Purves et al. argue that “moral judgement 

is not codifiable, i.e., it cannot be captured by a list of 
28

rules.” Purves et al. note that a machine cannot reflect 

upon its actions in the same way as a human since it 

does not possess a “moral imagination, or the ability to 

have moral experiences with a particular phenomenological character.”53 Finally, as Sharkey has argued, “a 

machine cannot exercise mercy or act humanely.” He 

notes:

To be humane is, by definition, to be characterized by 

kindness, mercy, and sympathy. . . . These are all human 

attributes that are not appropriate in a discussion of 

software for controlling mechanical devices.54

He disagrees with Arkin, who feels that robots could 

be taught/programmed to demonstrate sympathy and 

guilt.55

Finally, Purves et al. raise the question of right 

intention, the moral principle of Just War theorizing, 

which suggests that, in a just war, one goes to war only 

for the “right reasons,” such as self-defense or to right 

a moral wrong, rather than for the wrong reasons such 

as racism, a desire for revenge, or greed. Purves et al. 

suggest that it is meaningless to argue that a computerized drone would be able to calculate whether it possessed the “right intention,” asking instead whether a 

computer can even be said to have an intention or wish 

to protect someone.56 However, like Singer, others have 

argued that since a robot does not possess emotions, it 

will never go to war for the wrong intention, since it 

would be incapable of wishing, for example, to inflict 

revenge on an enemy.57

As Table 6 indicates, each of the “identity arguments” starts from the assumption that a warrior is 

more than the sum of his or her specific actions, and 

that the goodness of one’s actions therefore cannot be 

derived by simply adding up the costs and benefits of 

a particular tactic or strategy. Rather, the implication is 
29

that each of these actions together speaks to the character of the actor, whether we are talking about an individual or a state. Individual character or the character 

of the state rests on the individual’s activities as well 

as how those who witness them perceived these activities. Because activities represent one’s character, it thus 

is impossible for a machine to substitute for a human 

being, since ultimately it is nonsensical to talk about 

the moral character of a machine, according to this particular set of arguments.

Argument Implications

Drone strikes are a 

form of terrorism

Undermines the U.S. national reputation internationally.

Harms an individual soldier’s self-image.

Drone strikes are 

not an honorable 

form of warfare

Violates the principles of reciprocity, mutual 

injuring, risk, norm of “chivalry.”

May harm morale in unit, may harm soldier 

psychologically.

Covert activities are 

incompatible with 

the nature of deliberate democracy

Harms U.S. legitimacy in international system.

Covert activities are 

unlawful

The United States is viewed as not respecting 

rule of law.

Drone strikes are a 

form of assassination 

Violates international military norm of chivalry.

Violates international Law.

A machine can never 

replicate the Warrior 

Code

Technology is fundamentally incompatible with 

many norms of warfare.

A machine can never 

understand the moral repercussions of 

its actions because 

it lacks self-reflective capacity

Technology is fundamentally incompatible with 

virtue ethics.

Table 6. Identity/Virtue Ethics Arguments 

about Drones.
30

Responding to These Arguments

In conflating drone attacks with such moral failings 

as lying, cowardice, and bullying on both the individual and state levels, analysts and activists argue that 

military values and the use of drone technology fundamentally are incompatible. In this view, the use of 

such technologies often cannot be reconciled with the 

notion of the virtuous warrior.

However, at least one analyst has refuted this 

claim. In a 2014 article in the Air & Space Power Journal, Joseph Chapa suggests in situations where one 

encounters a media report on the use of drones that 

emphasizes some sort of moral or ethical failure, this 

is because the media has made a decision to cover a 

story about the use of UAVs in a particular way. That 

is, foreign and domestic media have made a decision 

to draw a line between the use of this technology and 

certain behaviors in which it chooses to portray them 

as incompatible with honorable behavior. He refutes, 

for example, the notion of a “video game warrior” who 

blithely kills the enemy from halfway across the world 

without investing morally, intellectually, or ethically 

in the activities that he is carrying out.58 Chapa argues 

that it is not inevitable that U.S. actions and activities 

in drone warfare would be viewed or interpreted in a 

dishonorable way.

In addition, Caroline Kennedy and James Rogers 

have questioned whether it is logical to talk about the 

moral character of a drone. Using a situational ethics 

perspective (rather than a virtue ethics perspective), 

they note that it makes more sense to speak about 

the ethics of a drone’s actions in a particular situation. They note that, just as we distinguish between 

the soldier and the soldier’s actions―granting that a 
31

soldier behaved virtuously in this instance but not in 

that instance―so, too, can we distinguish between the 

character and actions of the drone. Thus, they argue a 

drone or robot participating in an unlawful campaign 

of extrajudicial killing might be labeled as an ethically 

problematic warrior, while a drone deployed on a 

peacekeeping mission might be described as virtuous.59

These types of arguments may make it particularly 

hard for military leaders to understand or respond to 

claims that drones are somehow cowardly or against 

military values. Figure 2 presents some guidance for 

military leaders wishing to write a response to these 

specific types of arguments.

Figure 2. Suggestions for Military Decision-Makers 

in Responding to Arguments about Virtue, Honor, 

and the Use of Drone Technology.

ARGUMENTS ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS

Machines or systems tasked with making fully 

autonomous decisions on life and death without any 

human intervention, were they to be developed, would 

Response Guidance

1. Draw upon history to note that many new technologies were 

regarded as dishonorable and illegitimate when they were first 

introduced.

2. Engage with the question of what makes a technology humane or 

inhumane: Distinguish between technologies that are cruel and 

dishonorable, which should be banned and which should not.

3. Strive to portray the thoughtful engagement of military personnel 

who work with UAVs, emphasizing their training, maturity, and 

ability to engage in critical self-reflection.

4. Make the distinction between virtuous character and virtuous 

actions – not conflating all drone uses as being the same.
32

be in breach of international humanitarian law, unethical 

and would possibly even pose a risk to humanity itself.60

The next set of arguments considers relationships 

created between warriors and their adversaries, and 

the ways in which this relationship might be altered 

and shaped because of its mitigation through technology. In recent years, these arguments have grown in 

importance. Many view them as the most compelling 

set of ethical arguments against the technology.

These relational arguments are not new or unique, 

and analysts have asked the same questions about the 

ethics of conventional war. The starting point for a 

relational argument is the writing of Lieutenant Colonel David Grossman, a psychologist, whose work On 

Killing asks how combat participants themselves make 

sense of their actions in ethical and moral terms. Grossman draws attention to “distancing technologies,” 

which he states may affect how soldiers think about 

killing as well as affecting how they adjust in the long 

term to the activities that they have carried out.

The ethical principle at the heart of all the arguments discussed here is respect. As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes:

Respect is a particular mode of apprehending the object: 

the person who respects something pays attention to it 

and perceives it differently from someone who does not 

and responds to it in light of that perception.61

In this definition, one can respect an individual or 

entity even if one does not approve of or agree with 

the opponent since respect has to do with regarding 

the other and acknowledging his or her humanity. 

(Respect comes from the Latin term respicere: to look 

back at, or to look again.)62 The principle that a person 
33

automatically is entitled to be treated with respect by 

virtue of their humanity is traced to Kant’s categorical 

imperative that states that one should not treat one’s 

fellow man merely as a means to a particular end, but 

that one should acknowledge his or her intrinsic worth 

and humanity.63 That is, even if one does not agree 

with their enemy’s beliefs, values, culture, or way of 

life, the principles of respect and dignity mean that 

we do not attempt to humiliate or shame our enemies 

through practices like defiling the corpses of enemy 

soldiers, humiliating prisoners of war, or urinating on 

the Koran. The principle of respect says, “Although 

you are my enemy, I still accept that you have intrinsic human worth and dignity and I, as a human, am 

required to acknowledge your own humanity and 

dignity.” Olsthoorn in particular sets up a dichotomy 

between humanization and humiliation in which one 

humanizes another by finding common ground with 

him and attempting to reduce the distance between 

oneself and the other.64

The principle of respect forms the basis for much 

of our thinking about war crimes, as well as what 

constitutes a war crime. The question for ethicists is, 

“Do technologies that distance the warfighter from his 

opponent automatically create the conditions for him 

or her to regard the adversary as somehow less human 

or less than human?” (Grossman suggests that the 

opposite of respect is dehumanization).65 Ethicist Mark 

Coeckelbergh notes that the tendency to treat things 

with less respect when they are distant is not new, and 

the fear that new technologies will make killing easier 

through increasing the distance between oneself and 

the opponent also is not new. He draws a line back 

to aerial bombardment campaigns conducted during 

World War II and goes on to quote another British 
34

ethicist, Noel Sharkey, who draws the line much further back, noting that ever since the creation of the bow 

and arrow, man has succeeded in distancing himself 

both physically and psychologically from his prey.66

As a result, he argues, distancing technologies rob the 

warrior of empathy since he no longer has specific 

knowledge regarding the casualties that he has created. Today’s “drone warrior” may not know his enemy’s name or even how many specific humans he has 

killed―any more than the individual who dropped a 

bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, or who participated in the 

aerial bombardment campaign against Hamburg, Germany, in World War II did.67 As a result of this distance 

and lack of knowledge, one can argue that the warrior, 

therefore, is unable to behave in an autonomous and 

agentic way in which he is aware of the moral consequences of his actions. Nonetheless, he is able to 

choose killing as a morally desirable action, which he 

has thought through carefully and considered in light 

of all the information. Thus, even if the warrior wishes 

to behave in a moral way, he or she is unable to do so 

because of the situation created by a reliance on autonomous technology.

In addition, as Coeckelbergh and others have 

argued,68 such technologies violate the ethical principles put forth by philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, who 

has argued that our duty to our fellow man primarily 

is understood as being an encounter with the face of 

the other, whereby we acknowledge our duty to him. 

Levinas states that we are called to see the face of the 

other, who asks, in simplest terms, “don’t kill me.” 

Olsthoorn refers to the ability of the ethical warrior to 

make an autonomous decision to exercise mercy and 

restraint when he encounters the enemy intimately in 

a combat situation.
35

The question then becomes how one truly can “see 

the face of the other” or exercise mercy and restraint 

in the less intimate and more distant situation created 

by reliance upon the drone.69 The respect approach to 

ethics sees the distance provided through the drone 

not as simply a force multiplier that makes it easier to 

kill others while lowering your own transaction costs, 

a situation that a utilitarian ethicist would approve. 

Rather, distance is a barrier that prevents one from 

encountering his fellow man―we cannot see his face. 

In his work, Achilles in Vietnam, psychologist Jonathan 

Shay draws upon his experiences counseling Vietnam 

veterans to argue that individuals are harmed psychologically through participating in experiences where 

they engage disrespectfully with the bodies of their 

enemies.70 Thus, technology that allows soldiers to 

disengage from a respectful and intimate relationship 

with their adversaries is harmful, not just to the adversary but to the soldier himself.

Ethics arguments acknowledge the damage to 

the warrior in a situation where he cannot behave 

humanely, but their real power comes from the ways 

in which they force readers to consider what it means 

for the individual who is killed by the drone rather 

than by a fellow human. Drawing upon a 2007 article 

by philosopher Robert Sparrow, groups like the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots argue that the most basic 

human right of all is the right to be killed by another 

human being, for otherwise, those who are killed are 

viewed merely as vermin, or as something subhuman 

whose basic humanity is unacknowledged, even in 

their deaths. They invoke the principles of respect and 

dignity, drawing upon the claims of Immanuel Kant, 

who argued that, regardless of what one has achieved 

or what level one is at in society, one nonetheless is 
36

owed moral recognition or dignity. That is, a human 

being should always be regarded as a person. It is from 

this viewpoint that arguments about human rights, 

including the value of human rights in international 

law, are made. The principle of respect undergirds 

arguments about why drone killing constitutes a war 

crime, while the principle of dignity undergirds arguments about why drone killing constitutes a human 

rights violation and thus violates international law.

These activists argue that slaughter by an autonomous machine differs from an honorable killing 

in combat because the drone cannot kill in an atmosphere of respect―through regarding the enemy and 

acknowledging their humanity, even as one inflicts 

damage upon them. They argue that a human deserves 

to be killed by someone who understands and marks 

the moral significance of that act, by someone who 

mourns or feels guilt and who recognizes the humanity of the enemy. Thus, the activists conclude, the least 

a human being owes other fellow human beings is the 

ability to bear witness to a death. (Indeed, this is why 

we bury the enemy killed in battle, and why we do not 

desecrate a corpse. In this way, we engage in what Lin 

refers to as “honoring their enemies.”71) Table 7 presents ethical and moral dilemmas presented by automated drone killing.
37

Relationship Aspects Related Ethical Questions

Witness, Mourning Can a drone witness a death in the same way 

that a soldier can?

Remorse, Guilt, 

Anguish

Can a drone feel remorse in the same way 

that a soldier might?

Responsibility Can a drone take responsibility, or be held 

responsible for a death?

Limits of Machine 

Learning

Can a drone be taught to think ethically? 

Table 7. Drones as Moral Agents and Related 

Ethical Queries.

Medical ethicist Jessica Wolfendale argues that 

killing is honorable when it occurs in an atmosphere 

of respect. In her own work, she questions whether 

it would ever be appropriate to engage in cognitive 

enhancement that would allow a human soldier to 

become numbed to the act of killing through taking a 

pharmaceutical. She acknowledges that some medical 

personnel advocate for the development of drugs that 

would help soldiers not to form memories of killing 

in order to spare them the burdens of post-traumatic 

stress. However, she argues that doing so would not 

allow them to be fully human. Instead, they would be 

rendered as a sort of killing machine that would inflict 

damage on others without fully participating in the act 

of killing. One can build upon her argument in suggesting that fully autonomous drones might act in the 

same way―extinguishing an opponent without completely acknowledging his or her humanity, without 

forging a relationship with one’s opponent, and without conveying a relationship of respect.72

Although neither Sparrow nor Sharkey make specific religious references in their ethical arguments, 
38

there is a strong precedent in both Christian and Jewish 

cultural thought for many of the arguments that they 

make. Recent Jewish holocaust theology speaks of the 

importance of witness, of remembering those who 

were killed by the Nazis and of not allowing them to be 

simply nameless individuals who were dehumanized 

and died, but rather of insisting upon their humanity.73

Christian theology speaks of the fact that every individual is made in the image of God (imago dei), and 

therefore, every human life is sacred. Thus, one can 

argue that allowing someone to be killed in a nameless, 

faceless fashion by a drone, with their death never recognized, remembered, or mourned by another human 

being, is a violation of both these Jewish and Christian 

principles.

However, both Sparrow and Sharkey’s work also 

depend on a second ethical principle beyond that of 

respect. This is the idea of responsibility. Sparrow 

ties together the twin concepts of responsibility and 

respect, noting that in creating a situation where no 

one is morally responsible for an individual’s death, 

we are “treating our enemy like vermin, as though they 

may be exterminated without moral regard at all.”74

Sparrow argues that the existence of a responsibility 

gap in which no one might be held responsible for an 

automated killing, whether it happens intentionally or 

by mistake, is reason enough to outlaw these types of 

technologies.75

The “responsibility gap” becomes of particular 

concern in future scenarios in which unmanned autonomous vehicles might become fully autonomous or 

automatic in the sense that they could engage in decision-making that would fully remove humans from 

the decision-making process. Sharkey worries about a 

future in which humans might be removed from the 
39

loop altogether. He notes that the one-to-one correspondence between the warfighter and an adversary 

would be eliminated with the advent of new technologies that might allow one warfighter to control a 

“swarm” of UAVs. In such a scenario, the individual 

might not know which small UAV was specifically 

responsible for a death, nor would he feel a sense of 

personal responsibility for that death. Indeed, events 

might happen at machine speed rather than human 

speed, such that the individual would be unable to 

track which specific actions had occurred, even if there 

was a desire to do so.76

A final set of concerns relates to the ways in which 

a nation might use drones to carry out constant or 

near-constant surveillance of another nation’s population, including its civilians, as part of a preemptive 

security strategy―even if, in fact, drone strikes never 

occur. Analysts suggest that there is something humiliating or dehumanizing in the relationship between 

the watcher and the watched. Analysts note that those 

who are the subjects of this surveillance have not consented to it and may not be aware of its occurrence. In 

addition, they argue, the implication is that everyone 

being watched is viewed as being potentially guilty of 

having committed a crime, or as a possible criminal subject. In this way, UAV surveillance technology creates 

a hierarchical relationship between the watcher and 

the watched that is humiliating to the weaker party.77

It has also been described as being ethically similar to 

asking someone to live in a situation where there is a 

loaded gun pointed at his or her head.78 Again, this is 

not a new argument. Instead, it is the same argument 

that was made in regards to asking individuals to live 

under a so-called nuclear umbrella at the height of the 

Cold War.79 The argument here is that individuals who 
40

believe that they might be the subject of a drone strike 

at any time thus are put through stress and anxiety on 

a daily basis, even though they may be innocent.

Table 8 provides a summary of the arguments 

raised in this section.

Argument Implications

Drones distance the warfighter from his opponent•	 Lack of respect

•	 Adversary is dehumanized

Killing is no longer attributable to a specific person•	 Adversary is humiliated

•	 Adversary is robbed of dignity

•	 International right to be killed by a 

human; anything less is subhuman

Killing is no longer an intimate act•	 Violates principle of chivalry

•	 Lack of witness, remembrance

Drones allow for constant 

surveillance of one’s adversaries

•	 Threatens adversaries, even when 

innocent

•	 Creates fear, anxiety

Table 8. Ethical Arguments about the 

Relationship between the State/Warfighter and 

One’s Adversaries.

Responding to These Concerns

How should a military leader thus respond to 

arguments that drone technologies show disrespect 

and dishonor one’s relations with one’s opponents? 

As noted, these particular arguments are likely to resonate with audiences, including civilian populations in 

many nations that are considering the acquisition and 

deployment of drones. The claim that drone strikes are 

merciless and dehumanizing can be illustrated easily 

through the airing of visual footage of drone strikes, 

and thus this argument may be particularly compelling 
41

when aired on a television network. This argument 

has also formed the basis of much of the eyewitness 

testimony provided in U.S. Congressional Hearings 

regarding proposed limitations and bans on drones.80

 One possible line of argumentation involves querying the notion that the “responsibility gap” is something unique to UAV technology. As Purves et al. have 

pointed out, the problem of responsibility actually 

exists in all scenarios involving automated and automatic technologies. As they note, a similar problem 

would exist with the advent of driverless cars. They 

asked if people would have the same level of moral 

repugnance toward a scenario where someone was 

automatically run over by a driverless car, as they 

would have if someone were automatically killed by 

an unmanned autonomous vehicle.81 They note that as 

automated killing―both intentional and accidental―

becomes common, the normative prohibition against 

these actions may evolve and change. On the other 

hand, given that people were morally repulsed many 

years ago by the automated killings landmines carried 

out, moral prohibition may be permanent.

The American response, however, also should 

involve active engagement and response to some of 

the concerns raised by these activists. Concerns simply 

should not be dismissed. Instead, U.S. policymakers 

and planners should acknowledge the validity of these 

concerns and articulate their desire to cooperate with, 

and even play a leading role in, the development of both 

national and international constraints and laws, which 

would prevent the development of fully automated 

killing scenarios. The U.S. Department of Defense has 

been part of this effort, as evinced by the 2013 statement that, in the foreseeable future, decision-making 
42

regarding targeting and use of force will be kept 

under human control.82

Within the international community, U.S. policymakers actually may find more common ground with 

drone opponents than they might expect. It is possible 

that in the future the United States could take a leading role at international fora like the UN Convention 

on Conventional Weapons as they work to develop 

meaningful definitions of contested concepts like 

“meaningful human control.” Active engagement by 

U.S. policymakers in these initiatives may help to convince opponents that an outright ban on these weapons is not necessary, since it is possible and desirable 

to shape strong and meaningful regulatory regimes.

Figure 3 provides some specific guidance that decision-makers can utilize in drafting a response.

Figure 3. Suggestions for Military DecisionMakers in Responding to Arguments about Drones 

and their Relationship with One’s Opponents.

Response Guidance

1. Embrace Transparency. Release data on the actual identities and 

number of casualties of drone strikes as appropriate – as a sign of 

responsibility and respect to adversary states and the international 

community.

Within the international community, the U.S. Government may 

wish to take the lead formally in efforts and memorialize the dead 

– rather than relying on efforts put forth by partisan organizations.

2. Refer to U.S. policies on Command Responsibility, in response to 

queries about the accountability dilemma in drone practices.

3. Become familiar with the U.S. military policies in place for keeping 

humans “in the loop” in regard to drone strikes.

4. Emphasize the differences between autonomous, semi-autonomous, 

and automatic weapons.
43

EFFECTS ON THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM IN 

THE LONG TERM

Drone Strikes outside a declared war by a State on the 

territory of another state without the consent of the latter 

or of the United Nations Security Council constitute 

a violation of international law and of the territorial 

integrity and sovereignty of that country.83

The use of drones by states for targeted killings is 

being led by the USA [United States of America], and 

practiced also by Israel and the UK [United Kingdom]. 

Notoriously, US drone strikes have killed and injured 

people of nations it is not at war with: Yemen, Somalia, 

the Philippines, and, principally, Pakistan. The practice 

is also seriously devaluing international law because the 

USA refuses to abide by the rules of war and provide 

information necessary for legal scrutiny. Effective 

international control measures of drone use, proliferation 

and development are urgently needed. After 10 years of 

drone-enabled targeted killings, it is more than time that 

UN member states responded appropriately.84

Pakistan regards such strikes as a violation of its 

sovereignty and territorial integrity. These strikes also 

have a negative impact on the government’s efforts to 

bring peace and stability in Pakistan and the region.85

The next set of arguments uses a utilitarian or consequentialist framework to consider the long-term consequences for the international system of a shift in U.S. 

policy to a heavy reliance on drones to solve conflicts. 

These activists (and, frequently, official government 

spokespeople) argue that UAV technologies are creating new understandings that threaten to undermine 

existing norms and practices. As a result, they note 

that drones can help to create an international system 

that becomes more dangerous and unstable in the long 
44

run―even as they are being used to prevent or lessen 

conflict in the short term.

In this framework, international stability and lawfulness is the value that most needs to be preserved. 

Here, analysts stress that war traditionally has been 

understood as a set of practices that occur between 

states, utilizing professional combatants on a clearly 

defined battlefield,86 in conditions when war formally 

has been declared.87 These understandings have been 

instrumental in shielding civilians from the effects of 

war through making a clear distinction between combatants and noncombatants, between the battlefield 

and the places where civilians live, and between wartime and peacetime conditions. However, anti-drone 

activists argue that new technologies threaten to erode 

all of these distinctions―blurring the line between war 

and peace,88 between the battlefield and the places 

where civilians live, and between the activities of professional soldiers and the activities of other practitioners, including intelligence officers and government 

functionaries.

As a result, according to some analysts, the United 

States unwittingly also may force its adversaries to 

undertake different actions on different battlefields. 

That is, if we deny our adversaries the opportunity 

to engage in traditional battle on a traditional battlefield against traditional soldiers, then they may transfer the battle to a new front inside the United States. 

Boyle provides the example of the Times Square bomb 

attempt by Pakistani American Faisal Shahzad in June 

2010 as a situation in which war was brought home 

to the United States.89 Thus, the consequences of U.S. 

reliance on drone strikes will be to increase the threat 

to civilians both abroad and in the United States.
45

In addition, it has been argued that U.S. actions 

taken in utilizing drone strikes, including failure to 

declare war or to respect the sovereignty of nations 

where strikes have been carried out, are creating a situation in which the United States appears to be violating international norms with impunity.90 As a result, 

argues Christian Enemark, the long-run effect will be a 

weakening of international norms, such as respect for 

territorial sovereignty overall. International organizations like the UN will be perceived as weaker if they 

are seen as unable to regulate or reign in U.S. actions. 

The implication is that the United States has traded the 

ability to carry out relatively risk-free, cheap strikes 

against targets in the short run for the ability to serve 

as an exemplar and upholder of international norms 

regarding warfare in the long run.91 Troy has suggested 

that U.S. use of precision strikes against terrorists has 

done much to erode the normative prohibition against 

assassination, making it more likely that other nations 

will find it acceptable to engage in this behavior.92

In addition, activists and analysts note that using 

U.S. drones in foreign nations may undermine the host 

nation’s legitimacy through demonstrating that they 

are weak and unable to handle a problem themselves 

or to stand up to U.S. pressure. Greg Kennedy points 

to the likelihood that U.S. drone strikes over Pakistan 

might undermine its reputation, with the unforeseen 

effect of leading to increased instability in the international community in the long run.93 Similarly, Boyle 

argues that the use of drones in Pakistan suggests to 

internal Pakistani observers, as well as those outside, 

that Pakistan’s government is weak and unable to 

handle its own unrest.94

Finally, activists note that the covert nature of drone 

warfare can serve to undermine trust between allies 
46

and within the international system. The nation that 

acts covertly can be seen as sneaky and untrustworthy, 

and that reputation can spread into other aspects of 

relations between allies and adversaries.95

Figure 4 presents the arguments raised in this 

section.

 Figure 4. Ethical Arguments about Drone

 Effects on the International System.

Responding to Criticisms

So how should a military decision-maker or leader 

respond to arguments about the ways in which the 

use of drones can change or shape the international 

system? U.S. military leaders need to be prepared for 

this situation since this type of ethical argument is 

common in many places―such as among opposition 

politicians and citizens in Australia, in Pakistan, and 

in the UN.

While each of the objections raised above―that 

drone strikes undermine trust between allies, weaken 

the reputation of states which serve as the base or site 

of a drone attack, and weaken the enforcement mechanisms of the international system―are ethical issues, 

they (like the respect issues referenced earlier) appear 

Arguments

1. Drone strikes erode distinction between civilian/combatant; battlefield/not battlefield; peacetime/war time.

2. Drone strikes undermine the legitimacy of the nation where strikes 

occur.

3. Drone strikes undermine international norms when the United 

States is seen to act with impunity.

4. Drones strikes undermine trust between allies.

5. Short-term gains are not worth long-term costs.
47

to be solvable through increased regulation and oversight. They are not zero-sum issues (like the virtue 

issues or technological issues) for which the only possible solution is an outright ban on these weapons.

Thus, the best strategy for U.S. policymakers in 

responding to these concerns is first to acknowledge 

them as valid. The United States needs to acknowledge that, at present, what appear to be violations of 

national sovereignty have occurred. At this point, a 

number of possible responses could be made.

The most cautious or conciliatory strategy would 

involve acknowledging that violations had occurred 

and articulating a desire to work with allies and other 

parties to find better ways of verifying and responding to violations. In particular, Kennedy has suggested 

creating a domestic oversight body that would collect 

the facts and then decide about the legality of drone 

strikes before authorizing them―in the same way that 

the foreign intelligence Surveillance Courts judge matters involving the collection of intelligence on American soil.96 In the future, norms might evolve regarding 

notification protocols for letting the international community know the conditions under which drone strikes 

might occur. Finally, as Megan Braun and Daniel Brunstetter point out, there are already specific Just War 

principles for situations of jus ad vim or use of force 

short of war, which can be drawn upon for making 

ethical decisions about the proper and improper use of 

drones in specific conflicts.97

A more risky strategy is one in which U.S. policymakers query the notion that existing norms regarding sovereignty and legality are still valid, given the 

changing environment in today’s world. Here, policymakers may wish to note that currently there are many 

“small wars” and hybrid conflicts that do not fit neatly 
48

into existing international law frameworks. Thus, one 

could argue that norms are in a period of flux, or even 

that norms are outdated. Most conflicts today are not 

between states, most are not declared formally, and 

most are not ended with an official treaty. Thus, rather 

than responding to particular legal concerns about 

particular drone strikes, policymakers may wish to 

take the offensive through suggesting that norms need 

to be changing, and the United States should be in the 

forefront of rewriting and enforcing new norms. Figure 

5 presents some guidance on this topic.

Figure 5. Suggestions for Military Decision-Makers 

in Responding to Arguments about Drones’ Effects 

on the International System.

Response Guidance

1. Leaders can begin by questioning whether the norms being referenced (such as the combatant/noncombatant distinction and the 

war/peace distinction) are still relevant given the actions of actors 

like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), al Qaeda, and Russia 

in its invasion of Ukraine. It is suggested that in a changing world 

where hybrid wars and undeclared wars appear to be the norm, the 

United States is not violating international norms by merely reacting to other’s violations of those norms.

2. Make the argument that norms can evolve and change over time 

and that they have done so before.

3. Note that norms rest on an agreement between all members to 

respect such norms – that might not exist at present.

4. Reiterate a desire to work with the international community to 

come up with Rules of Engagement for conflicts involving drones 

and to follow those norms once established.
49

DRONES MAKE CERTAIN TACTICS AND 

STRATEGIES MORE LIKELY

If any major military power pushes ahead with AI 

weapon development, a global arms race is virtually 

inevitable, and the endpoint of this technological 

trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become 

the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow. Unlike nuclear weapons, 

they require no costly or hard-to-obtain raw materials, so 

they will become ubiquitous and cheap for all significant 

military powers to mass-produce. It will only be a matter 

of time until they appear on the black market and in the 

hands of terrorists, dictators wishing to better control 

their populace, warlords wishing to perpetrate ethnic 

cleansing, etc. Autonomous weapons are ideal for tasks 

such as assassinations, destabilizing nations, subduing 

populations and selectively killing a particular ethnic 

group.98

The last set of ethical arguments is military-strategic in nature. Here, analysts argue that specific facets 

of UAV technology may facilitate the adoption of 

particular warfighting tactics and strategies that pose 

ethical problems of their own. Analysts raise concerns 

about three possibilities: First, some have argued that 

the ability of drones to conduct surgical strikes with 

a high degree of precision may therefore lead states 

to choose UAV strikes over other types of responses 

to conflict, including diplomacy. The cheapness and 

ease of calling for and conducting drone strikes thus 

might lead to a climate in which the standard response 

to a conflict is one of preemptively ending it through 

precision strikes rather than engaging in dialogue 

and negotiation. Shank refers to “President Obama’s 

‘military first’ strategy,” suggesting that the availability of the drone weapon is at least partially responsible for America’s leadership developing a preference 
50

for combat over other forms of international engagement.99 (It should be noted that Shank is writing for a 

Quaker organization and his argument echoes other, 

older pacifist arguments, which raise a warning about 

the possibility of cheap or easy war and its ability to 

skew how we think about conflict.)

Second, the reliance on drones as a platform in U.S. 

counterinsurgency and counterterrorism strategies 

may have led planners and analysts to ignore other 

facets of the counterterrorism problem. Specifically, 

some analysts have argued that planners today may be 

less concerned with identifying and engaging with the 

root causes of terrorism, including economic insecurity 

and state failure, in favor of a more short-term solution 

of eliminating specific terrorists. In this way, planners 

are not considering the needs of societies that may be 

producing terrorists, nor are they responding to those 

needs of the population in these states, including civilian needs. A counterterrorism strategy that relies heavily on drones thus may cause military personnel to see 

specific individuals as the causes of terrorism, rather 

than considering the role of ideas or other factors in 

creating the problem.100

Third, as noted previously, some analysts have suggested that the cheapness and ease with which drone 

strikes can be carried out has created an orientation 

toward the use of covert activities carried out by individuals who may not be professional military soldiers. 

This possibility has implications for the long-run health 

of the international system, including the preservation 

of norms regarding the rules of engagement and laws 

of war, as well as for the long-run health of domestic 

politics in countries that are considered democracies.

In each of these three scenarios, one can identify 

individuals who support the assertion as well as those 
51

who do not. However, as Figure 6 shows, all of these 

arguments might also be labelled as arguments over 

policy rather than arguments specifically about UAV 

weapons.

Figure 6. Suggestions for Military Decision-Makers 

in Responding to Arguments about Drones’ Effects 

on Choice of Military Strategy.

Responding to These Concerns

How should a military decision-maker respond to 

anti-drone arguments dealing specifically with strategies and tactics that might be facilitated by drones? 

Here a military spokesperson is likely to have the 

upper hand, since these anti-drone arguments are specifically concerned with strategy and tactics, thus creating a situation where the military spokesman is sure 

to have a great deal of expertise.

The military spokesperson could begin by making 

the point that the decision to adopt a particular strategy or tactic is driven by a complex number of factors, 

and that it seldom is guided merely by the selection 

of weapons available or a preference by planners for 

the use of a particular weapon. Here, the spokesperson 

Arguments about Strategies and Tactics

1. Cheapness and ease of use may cause decision-makers to choose 

precision strikes over other strategies, including diplomacy.

2. Over-reliance on drones in couterterrorism strategy may lead 

policymakers to ignore other long-run problems, like poverty and 

the rise of ideologies.

3. Over-reliance on drones may lead to situations where military 

actions are not cleary delineated and where they are carried out by a 

variety of actors, not all of whom are military.
52

should emphasize as well the fact that military decisions seldom are made in isolation. Instead, military 

decision-making is a complex process taking into 

account a number of variables, to include the political, 

social, and economic situation in the country where 

action is anticipated or contemplated. In addition, 

planners should emphasize that any specific military 

decision is part of a much larger, long-range strategy 

that is set forth in documents such as the U.S. National 

Security Strategy and the Quadrennial Defense Review. 

The argument that the availability of a particular 

weapon drives U.S. or any other military policy is a 

shortsighted argument which evinces a lack of knowledge about how strategic priorities are set. Figure 7 

provides some specific guidance.

Figure 7. Suggestions for Military Decision-Makers 

in Responding to Arguments about Drones’ Effects 

on Choice of Military Strategy.

CONCLUSION

As this document has shown, there is not just one 

anti-drone argument or even one type of anti-drone 

argument. Instead, the arguments can take different 

Strategic Priority Guidance

1. Demonstrate that the choice of strategy is part of a complex decison-making process, in which the choice of weapon is only a small 

part of the whole picture.

2. Question the assertion that a particular weapon can force a defense 

planner or policymaker to adopt a particular strategy or tactic.

3. When possible, emphasize the ways in which military strategy is 

part of a larger strategy, which includes military, economic, and 

other aspects.
53

forms, drawing upon different ethical and philosophical standpoints and different historical examples and 

analogues. In responding to anti-drone arguments, 

then, it is important for leaders to consider the type 

of argument that is being made, the assumptions 

upon which it rests, and the concerns that are being 

expressed. Arguments about the rights of those targeted are very different from arguments about how 

this technology is likely to change the international 

system or the realm of strategic and tactical options 

available in the future. Hopefully, this field guide has 

provided a foundation for more fruitful dialogues 

on this important issue through identifying common 

ground, as well as differences in approaches between 

both the pro- and the anti-drone camps.

ENDNOTES

1. Simon Rogers, “Drones by Country: Who Has All the 

UAVs?” The Guardian, August 3, 2012.

2. Quoted in Judy Dempsey, “Europe Stays Quiet despite 

Unease about Drones,” The New York Times, June 11, 2012.

3. This Letort Paper does not consider legal arguments against 

drones since the claims are that they violate national sovereignty 

and thus international law. Arguments about the causes for which 

drones are deployed are also not considered. Rather, the various 

types of ethical arguments made against drones and their underlying philosophies are discussed.

4. For more on the reconceptualization of the warrior, see 

Mary Manjikian, “Not all soldiers: hegemonic masculinity and 

the problem of soldiers’ agency in an age of technological intervention,” in Simona Sharoni, Julia Welland, Linda Steiner, and 

Jennifer Pedersen, eds., Handbook on Gender and War, Cheltenham, 

UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2016.
54

5. See, for example, Wendell Wallach and Colin Allen, “Framing Robot Arms Control,” Ethics and Information Technology, Vol. 

15, 2013, p. 125.

6. See, for example, Jeanne Guillemin, Biological Weapons: 

From the Invention of State-Sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism, New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.

7. See, for example, Nobuo Hayashi, “The Fundamental Ethical and Moral Principles for Nuclear Weapons,” Panel Presentation at the Third Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, 

Vienna, Germany, December 8-9, 2014.

8. Jonathan Granoff, “Preserving and Strengthening the 

Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Regime,” Overcoming Nuclear Dangers Conference, Rome, Italy, April 16-17, 

2009, available from gsinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/s3/assets/gsi/

pubs/04_15_09_Rome.pdf.

9. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History, Chicago, 

IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008.

10. Patrick Lin, Maxwell J. Mehlman, and Keith Abney, 

Enhanced Warfighters: Risk, Ethics, and Policy, San Luis Obispo, 

CA: California Polytechnic Institute, 2013. Peter Olsthoorn, Military Ethics and Virtues: An Interdisciplinary Approach for the 21st 

Century, New York: Routledge, 2010. Also see Jessica Wolfendale, 

“Emerging Military Technologies: A Case Study in Neurowarfare,” in Jessica Wolfendale, Paolo Tripodi, eds., New Wars and 

New Soldiers: Military Ethics in the Contemporary World, Farnham, 

UK: Ashgate, 2011.

11. Joe Sachs, trans., “Aristotle: Ethics,” Internet Encyclopedia of 

Philosophy, n.d., available from www.iep.utm.edu/aris-eth/, accessed 

September 1, 2015.

12. Kenneth Anderson, “The Case for Drones,” Commentary, 

June 1, 2013, available from https://www.commentarymagazine.com/

article/the-case-for-drones/, accessed on August 15, 2015.

13. Margaret Rouse, “Definition: ontology,” available from 

whatis.techtarget.com/definition/ontology, accessed on August 15, 

2015.
55

14. Peter Asaro, “On Banning Autonomous Weapon Systems: 

Human Rights, Automation and the Dehumanizing of Lethal 

Decision-making,” Special Issue on New Technologies and Warfare, International Review of the Red Cross, Iss. 94, No. 886, Summer 

2012, pp. 687-709; Robert Sparrow, “Killer Robots,” Journal of 

Applied Philosophy, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2007, pp. 62-77; Albert Bandura, “Selective Moral Disengagement in the Exercise of Moral 

Agency,” Journal of Moral Education, Vol. 31, No. 2, 2002, pp. 101-

119. Also see Deborah G. Johnson and Merel Noorman, “Negotiating Autonomy and Responsibility in Military Robots,” Ethics of 

Information Technology, Vol. 16, 2014, pp. 51-62.

15. Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, Boston, MA: Back Bay Books, 2007.

16. Anthony C. Grayling, Among the Dead Cities, New York: 

Walker Publishing Company, 2006.

17. Hans-Peter Bartels, Chairman of the German Bundestag 

Defense Committee, “Drones Simply Aren’t the Height of Technology,” Interview, IP Journal der DGAP, August 1, 2014, accessed 

October 13, 2015.

18. Human Rights Watch, “Q and A on Fully Autonomous 

Weapons,” October 21, 2013, available from https://www.hrw.org/

news/2013/10/21/qa-fully-autonomous-weapons, accessed October 5, 

2015.

19. Daniel M. Bell, Jr., “Just War and Counterinsurgency: Discriminating Force,” Christian Century, August 7, 2013, pp. 22-26.

20. Human Rights Watch, “Losing Humanity: The Case 

against Killer Robots,” November 19, 2012, available from https://

www.hrw.org/report/2012/11/19/losing-humanity/case-against-killerrobots, accessed August 15, 2015.

21. See Jonathan Granoff, “Nuclear Weapons, Ethics, Morals 

and Law: Ethical and Moral Framework for Addressing the 

Issue,” available from www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/ethics/

basics/granoff_nuclear-weapons-ethics-morals-law.htm, accessed May 

15, 2015.
56

22. Murray Wardrop, “Unmanned Drones Could Be Banned, 

Says Senior Judge,” The Telegraph, July 6, 2009.

23. Yves Sandoz, “Turning Principles into Practice: The Challenge for International Conventions and Institutions,” in Louis 

Maresca and Stuart Maslen, eds., The Banning of Anti-Personnel 

Landmines: The Legal Contribution of the International Committee of 

the Red Cross, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 

See also Sebastian Wuschka, “The Use of Combat Drones in Current Conflicts: A Legal Issue or a Political Problem?” Goettingen 

Journal of International Law, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2011, p. 894.

24. James Whiting, “A Quaker comment on drone warfare and the arms trade,” Civilisation 3000, September 25, 2014, 

available from https://civilisation3000.wordpress.com/, accessed on 

October 13, 2015.

25. See also Micah Zenko and Sarah Kreps, “The Next Drone 

Wars,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 93, No. 2, March-April 2014, pp. 68-79.

26. Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, “The Problem,” n.d., 

available from https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/the-problem/, 

accessed October 1, 2015.

27. Kenneth Anderson, “The Case for Drones,” Commentary, 

Vol. 135, No. 6, 2013, pp. 14-23, available from https://papers.ssrn.

com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2047537, accessed October 2, 2015.

28. Richard Adams and Chris Barrie, “The Bureaucratization of War: Moral Challenges Exemplified by the Covert Lethal 

Drone,” Ethics and Global Politics, Vol. 6, No. 4, 2013, pp. 245-260.

29. Bell, pp. 22-26.

30. Quoted in Patrick Lin, Keith Abney, and George A. Bekey, 

Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics, Boston, 

MA: MIT Press, 2011, p. 115.

31. James Jay Carafano, “Future Technology and Ethics in 

War,” Utah Law Review, Vol. 2013, No. 5, 2013, pp. 1263-1269.

32. David S. Fischler, “Nuclear Weapons in the Ethics of Reinhold Niebuhr,” Perspectives in Religious Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2, 

Summer 1985, p. 72.
57

33. Tim Maine, Jon Brachle, and Art Arago, “Ethics and the 

Advancement of Military Technology,” in Kai Larsen, ed., The 

Ethical Imperative in the Context of Evolving Technologies, Boulder, 

CO: Ethica Publishing, 2004. See also Stephanie Carvin, “Getting 

Drones Wrong,” The International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 19, 

No. 2, 2015, pp. 211-217. Carvin argues that the proportionality 

criteria in Just War ethics were never intended to say anything 

about the proportionality of the weapon, but rather were to be 

used in discussing the proportionality of the specific attack being 

carried out with the weapons.

34. P. W. Singer, “The Ethics of Killer Applications: Why is 

it so hard to talk about Morality When it comes to New Military Technology?” Journal of Military Ethics, Vol. 9, No. 4, 2010, 

pp. 299-312.

35. Akbar Ahmed and Lawrence Wilkerson, “Dealing Remote 

Control Drone Death, the US Has Lost Its Moral Compass,” The 

Guardian, May 4, 2013, available from https://www.theguardian.

com/commentisfree/2013/may/04/drone-death-us-moral-compass.

36. Olsthoorn, p. 4.

37. Lin, Mehlman, and Abney, p. 83.

38. Thomas Michael McDonnell, “Sow What You Reap? 

Using Predator and Reaper Drones to Carry out Assassinations 

or Targeted Killings of Suspected Islamic Terrorists,” The George 

Washington International Law Review, Vol. 44, No. 2, 2012, p. 247.

39. Terry Gill, “Chivalry: A Principle of the Law of Armed 

Conflict?” in Mariëlle Matthee and Brigit Toebes, eds., Armed Conflict and International Law: In search of the Human Face, Meppel, The 

Netherlands: T.M.C. Asser Press, 2013.

40. Jessica Wolfendale, “Performance-Enhancing Technologies and Moral Responsibility in the Military,” The American 

Journal of Bioethics, Vol. 8, No. 2, February 2008, pp. 28-38.

41. This is a separate issue from the question of whether a 

drone can be held morally responsible for its actions, which is 

explored in the third section of this Letort Paper.
58

42. Natalie Dalziel, “Drone Strikes: Ethics and Strategy,” 

New Zealand International Review, Vol. 39, No. 3, May-June 2014, 

pp. 2-6.

43. Mira Sucharov, “Security Ethics and the Modern Military: 

The Case of the Israel Defense Forces,” Armed Forces and Society, 

Vol. 31, No. 2, 2005, pp. 169-199.

44. See Mahmood Ahmad, “The Use of Drones in Pakistan: An Inquiry into the Ethical and Legal Issues,” The Political 

Quarterly, Vol. 85, No. 1, January–March 2014.

45. John Sifton, “Drones: A Troubling History (Cover Story),” 

Nation, Vol. 294, No. 9, February 2012, pp. 11-15.

46. Audrey Kurth Cronin, “Why Drones Fail,” Foreign Affairs, 

Vol. 92, No. 4, July-August 2013. Cronin suggests that al-Qaeda 

has profited from the ability to portray U.S. policies as bullying, 

allowing it to draw additional recruits to its cause.

47. Jamie Allinson, “The Necropolitics of Drones,” International Political Sociology, Vol. 9, No. 2, June 2015, pp. 113-127.

48. See Caroline Kennedy and James I. Rogers, “Virtuous 

Drones?” The International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 19, No. 2, 

February 2015, pp. 211-227.

49. Ronald Arkin, Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous 

Robots, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2009, p. 69.

50. Noel Sharkey, “Killing made Easy: From Joysticks to Politics,” in Patrick Lin, Keith Abney, and George Bekey, eds., Robot 

Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics, Cambridge, 

MA: MIT Press, 2012, p. 122. See also Duncan Purves, Ryan Jenkins, and Bradley J. Strawser, “Autonomous Machines, Moral 

Judgment and Acting for the Right Reasons,” Ethical Theory and 

Moral Practice, Vol. 18, No. 4, August 2015, pp. 851-872.

51. Jessica Wolfendale, “Performance-enhancing Technologies and Moral Responsibility in the Military,” The American 

Journal of Bioethics, Vol. 8, No. 2, February 2008, pp. 28-38.

52. Daniel C. Dennett, “Consciousness in human and robot 

minds,” Masao Ito, Yasushi Miyashita, and Edmund T. Rolls, 
59

eds., Cognition, Computation, and Consciousness, 1997, ch. 2, 

available from www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:

oso/9780198524144.001.0001/acprof-9780198524144.

53. Purves et al., p. 2.

54. Daniel Davis, “Who Decides: Man or Machine?” Armed 

Forces Journal, November 1, 2007, quoted in Sharkey, p. 116.

55. Sharkey, p. 122. See also Purves et al., p. 2015.

56. Quoted in Purves et al., pp. 11, 1992-2205.

57. Singer, pp. 299-312.

58. Joseph O. Chapa, “Remotely Piloted Aircraft and War in 

the Public Relations Domain,” Air & Space Power Journal, Vol. 28, 

No. 5, September–October 2014, pp. 29-46.

59. Kennedy and Roberts, pp. 211-227.

60. Lene Grimstad, “The UN’s Meetings on Autonomous 

Weapons: Biting the Bullet or Lost in Abstraction?” International 

Relations and Security Network, June 23, 2015. “Remarks at UN 

Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons at United Nations 

Meeting of Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems,” 

interview with Ambassador Michael Biontino, Germany, April 

2015, available from https://sustainablesecurity.org/2015/06/23/theuns-meetings-on-autonomous-weapons-biting-the-bullet-or-lost-inabstraction/, accessed October 3, 2015.

61. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Respect,” n.d., available from https://plato.stanford.edu/search/searcher.py?query=respect,

accessed August 15, 2015.

62. Ibid.

63. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 

p. 11, available from pitt.edu/~mthompso/readings/GroundworkI.pdf, 

accessed September 1, 2015.

64. Olsthoorn, p. 123. 

65. Grossman.
60

66. Sharkey.

67. Mark Coeckelbergh, “Drones, Information Technology 

and Distance: Mapping the Moral Epistemology of Remote Fighting,” Ethics In Technology, Vol. 15, No. 2, June 2013, pp. 87-98.

68. “Drones and the Face,” September 25, 2014, available from 

openbrunei.org/2014/the-=proliferation-of-drones-and-philosophy, 

accessed May 21, 2015.

69. Olsthoorn, p. 112.

70. Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the 

Undoing of Character, New York: Scribner, 1994.

71. Lin, Mehlman, and Abney, p. 84.

72. Sparrow made this argument in opposing so-called killer 

robots. See Sparrow, pp. 62-77. His thinking and arguments 

provide the intellectual basis for the current movement, The 

Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, more information about the 

organization is available from www.stopkillerrobots.org/.

73. Emil Fackenheim, quoted in Marc H. Ellis, “Toward 

a Jewish Theology of Liberation: The Challenge of the 21st 

Century,” Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2004, pp. 24-25.

74. Sparrow, p. 67, quoted in Purves et al., p. 5.

75. Ibid., p. 2.

76. Sharkey, p. 111.

77. For more on this part, see David Hastings Dunn, “Drones: 

Disembodied Aerial Warfare and the Unarticulated Threat,” 

International Affairs, Vol. 89, Iss. 5, September 2013, pp. 1237-

1246; Tyler Wall and Torin Monahan, “Surveillance and Violence 

from Afar: The Politics of Drones and Liminal Security-Scapes,” 

Theoretical Criminology, Vol. 15, No. 3, August 2011, pp. 239-254.

78. See Human Rights Watch, “The use of armed drones must 

comply with laws―International Committee of the Red Cross,” 

May 10, 2013, available from https://reliefweb.int/report/world/

use-armed-drones-must-comply-laws, accessed September 27, 2017.
61

79. Thomas E. Doyle, II, “Reviving Nuclear Ethics: A Renewed 

Research Agenda for the Twenty-First Century,” Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 24, No. 3, Fall 2010.

80. For an example, see Karen McVeigh, “Drone Strikes: Tears 

in Congress as Pakistani Family Tells of Mother’s Death,” The 

Guardian, October 29, 2013.

81. Purves et al., p. 2.

82. Robotics VO 2013, “A Roadmap for U.S. Robotics: From 

Internet to Robotics,” available from www.cra.org/, p. 114, quoted 

in Kenneth Kernaghan, “The Rights and Wrongs of Robotics: 

Ethics and Robots in Public Organizations,” Canadian Public 

Administration, Vol. 57, No. 4, December 2014, p. 497.

83. Quoted in Sarah Kreps and Micah Zenko, “The Drone 

Invasion Has Been Greatly Exaggerated,” Foreign Policy, March 

10, 2014, European Parliament Resolution, February 2014, available from foreignpolicy.com/2014/03/10/the-drone-invasion-has-beengreatly-exaggerated/, accessed October 4, 2015.

84. Australian Anti-bases Campaign Coalition, Backgrounder, 

Independent and Peaceful Australia Network, November 2012, 

available from www.IPAN-NSW.org/?cat=9, accessed October 12, 

2015.

85. CNN Staff, “Pakistan Condemns Drone Strike in North 

Waziristan,” Press Release by Pakistani Government, June 19, 

2014.

86. See Frederic Megret, “War and the Vanishing Battlefield,” 

Loyola University Chicago International Law Review, Vol. 9, No. 1, 

Fall-Winter 2011, available from lawecommons.luc.edu/lucilr/vol9/

iss1/7/, accessed July 9, 2015.

87. On the obligation to declare war, see Mary Manjikian, 

“Special Problems I: The Question of Preemption,” in James 

Turner Johnson and Eric Patterson, eds., The Ashgate Research 

Companion to Military Ethics, Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 

2010, pp. 59-73.
62

88. See Mary Manjikian and Wendi See, “The Princess Diana 

Effect: Responses to Social Critiques of Unmanned Weapons,” 

unpublished paper presented at the 2012 Patuxent Defense 

Forum, “The Future of Conflict: The Ethics of Robotic Defense 

and Unmanned Warfare,” April 24, 2012, St. Mary’s City, MD: St. 

Mary’s College.

89. Michael Boyle, “Costs and Consequences of Drone 

Warfare,” International Affairs, Vol. 89, No. 1, 2013, pp. 1-29.

90. See Dalziel, pp. 2-6.

91. Christian Enemark, Armed Drones and the Ethics of War: 

Military Virtue in a Post-Heroic Age, New York: Routledge, 2013.

92. See Jodok Troy, “A Ruthless Form of Warfare except All 

Others? The Challenge of Drone Warfare to International Society,” available from web.isanet.org/Web/Conferences/GSCIS%20

Singapore%202015/Archive/ffff7ae5-625b-4cf7-bdb7-9d7a0545cff5.pdf, 

accessed August 15, 2015.

93. Greg Kennedy, “Legitimacy and Unmanned Vehicles in 

Conflict: Questions of the 21st Century?” Defense Studies, Vol. 13, 

No. 3, 2013, p. 274.

94. Boyle, p. 14.

95. Greg Kennedy, p. 274.

96. Ibid., p. 273.

97. See Megan Braun and Daniel R. Brunstetter, “Rethinking 

the Criterion for Assessing CIA-Targeted Killings: Drones, Proportionality and Jus Ad Vim,” Journal of Military Ethics, Vol. 12, 

No. 4, January 2013.

98. Quoted in Michael Schmitt, “Regulating Autonomous 

Weapons Might be Smarter than Banning Them,” Justsecurity.

org, August 10, 2015, available from https://www.justsecurity.

org/25333/regulating-autonomous-weapons-smarter-banning/, An 

Open Letter Urging a Ban on Autonomous Weapons, Signed by 

Stephen Hawking (former Lucasian Professor at Cambridge), 

Elon Musk (Chief Executive Officer of Tesla and SpaceX), Steve 

Wozniak (Apple co-founder), and more than 1,000 artificial 
63

intelligence [AI] and robotics researchers, July 2015, accessed on 

October 9, 2015.

99. Michael Shank, “Obama’s Air Strikes, Drone Strikes and 

Diplomacy in Iraq,” available from https://www.youtube.com/watch

?v=1sFCfVVt7v8&noredirect=1, accessed on August 15, 2015.

100. James Walsh, The Effectiveness of Drone Strikes in Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies 

Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2013.

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