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33 In “Why Drones Fail,” Cronin (2013) outlines why the U.S. should change its current drone policy. While the drone program protects the American home front from future terrorist attacks, it helps al Qaeda to recruit new members and will never definitively defeat al Qaeda or any other terrorist organization. The tactic of decapitation cannot work against al Qaeda due to its fragmented organization structure and age. The death of Osama bin Laden proved that it can survive the death of a major leader. Though drones have helped to lower the number of terrorists in Pakistan as well as reduce the violence in the area, these facts could be attributed to al Qaeda leaving the area. Al Qaeda spreads out further across the region, and drone strikes, no matter who they kill, give the organization a propaganda tool to use against the U.S. As long as al Qaeda can broadcast its message to potential members, it will continue to live on, and drone strikes will always allow them to continue the message. Moreover, the drone program fails at a secondary goal called “the conservation of enemies,” which seeks to keep the number of
terrorists at its current level. The diaspora of al Qaeda works against U.S. counterterrorism strategy, and until the drone program reverts to a supplementary role only used in rare
circumstances, the U.S. will never defeat al Qaeda, and retaliatory attacks will continue. These strikes destroy the most valuable asset in fighting terrorists: intelligence. Drone strikes destroy everything, while special ops missions are able to collect data—Cronin (2013) even argues that the intelligence collected in the bin Laden raid was more important than his death. The drone program has its benefits in the “War on Terrorism,” but it undermines long term U.S. strategy.55
2.4 Military Coercion Theory
In Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War, Robert A. Pape (1996) develops a theory of how states should use air power to attain desired goals. The main mechanism that air
55 Audrey Kurth Cronin, “Why Drones Fail: When Tactics Drive Strategy,” Foreign Affairs (July/August 2013), https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/somalia/2013-06-11/why-drones-fail.
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34 power uses is called coercion, which “involves persuading an opponent to stop an ongoing action to start a new course of action by changing its calculations of costs and benefits.”56 There are two main types of coercion: punishment and denial. Punishment occurs when the
coercer/attacker targets the civilian population in the hopes of starting anti-government behaviors/movements. Punishment coercion can take many different forms, such as directly bombing civilian areas or destroying key economic locations that civilians depend upon for their livelihood. Denial coercion occurs when the coercer/attacker targets the state’s military
capabilities. Punishment almost never works, while denial has the highest potential success rate depending on whether air power is used closely with land power. Denial breaks down into strategic interdiction (destroying/isolating key military production locations) and operational interdiction (attacking military points behind the front lines in order to disrupt coordination and movement). Operational interdiction, especially when used in coordination with ground troops, is the more effective of the two. In addition to punishment and denial, decapitation has become popular despite its constant failure. Decapitation occurs when the coercer specifically targets a state’s political or military leadership, or when the coercer tries to help opposition groups to overthrow the government. In the modern age, it has never been successful.57 Although
punishment and strategic interdiction do not work, they will continue to be used to keep a state’s air power independent of its land power. Even though operational interdiction is the most successful mechanism of coercion, the required coordination between air and land power will keep it from being widely used.
Pape (2004) further updates his theory in “The True Worth of Air Power.” The assumption that air power alone can lead to victory in a conflict is incorrect, and decapitation
56 Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1996), 12.
57Ibid, 55-86.
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35 does not work. While he does not discuss the use of drones, he talks about the continual increase in precision and accuracy in air strikes. Military strategists continue to push for the independent use of air power to defeat enemies, but Pape (2004) argues for the continued integration of air and ground forces—which he calls “hammer” and “anvil.” Air power targets the enemy’s armaments and soldiers before, during, and after battles in order to supplement and complement the territory captured and casualties inflicted by the ground forces. Air power grants ground forces a safer combat atmosphere. At no point in U.S. military history has the independent and sole use of air power lead to victory in war. The combination of the hammer and anvil has worked in the Persian Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The sole use of air power has actually lead to retaliatory attacks from failed strikes on Muammar al-Qaddafi and from the failure of the initial air campaign in Kosovo. Pape (2004) emphasizes a continued use of precise intelligence in order to allow the air force to target important locations.
Precise air strikes without precise intelligence will never work. Even the combined use of air and ground forces has limitations against groups with decentralized hierarchies.58 Written almost a decade after his book, this article proves his prediction correct that states will prefer strategic interdiction over operational interdiction.
58 Robert A. Pape, “The True Worth of Air Power,” Foreign Affairs (March/April 2004), https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2004-03-01/true-worth-air-power.
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36
Chapter Three: Drones in Pakistan
The following case study will evaluate whether or not the U.S. drone program in Pakistan can eliminate al Qaeda as a serious threat to U.S. national security and interests. These drone strikes take place in the FATA of Pakistan, primarily in North and South Waziristan (See Map 3.1 below). In order to properly evaluate this particular case, this study will evaluate the four counterterrorism goals mentioned in Table 1.1 under the lens of the theory of military coercion.
Map 3.1: Tribal Areas of Pakistan1