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29 strikes against both U.S. and Pakistani interests.40 The U.S. drone program’s legality is once again considered inconclusive; it has no legitimacy at the international level; and it causes greater damage to overall grand strategy in fighting terrorism in Pakistan by destabilizing the area and radicalizing the affected population.*
2.3 Practical and Theoretical Issues with the Program
Jenna Jordan (2014) provides statistical evidence supporting Enemark (2011)’s claim regarding the lack of effectiveness in the decapitation tactic of targeting al Qaeda leaders. She uses two variables to gauge whether or not the tactic has a long term negative effect on terrorist organizations: bureaucracy and public support. When information is unavailable for these two variables, age and size substitute for bureaucracy, and organization type substitutes for public support.41 The logic behind age and size is that as an organization gets older, policies and rules become more ingrained into the organization, and it has more members to replace the deceased ones. Organization type refers to whether the group is religious, ideological, or separatist in nature, with religious and separatist-oriented ones getting more widespread support from the people than ideological ones.42 Al Qaeda and its affiliates have the elements in place to survive decapitation strikes: 25 years of activity, large size, and religious goals. Documents taken from various al Qaeda headquarters demonstrate the embedded bureaucratic nature of the organization:
rosters, accounting sheets, meeting minutes, by-laws, etc. Public opinion polls show a general decline in support for al Qaeda in some areas, but an increase in other places mainly to due to the introduction of public services to sway people’s opinions. The organization has both religious
40 Aslam, “A critical evaluation of American predator strikes in Pakistan,” 10-12.
*Other studies that address the legality of the drone programs are “United States of America: ‘Targeted Killing’
Policies Violate the Right to Life” (Amnesty International, 2012), “Targeting Operations with Drone Technology:
Humanitarian Law Implications” (Human Rights Institute, Columbia Law School, 2011), and “Counting Drone Strike Deaths” (Human Rights Clinic, Columbia Law School, 2012).
41 Jordan, “Attacking the Leader, Missing the Mark,” 38.
42 Ibid, 11-20.
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30 goals (Islamic) as well as political goals (anti-Western occupation) giving al Qaeda the support of the public.43 Jordan (2014) concludes that “the figures above do not indicate significant degradation of organizational capacity or a marked disruption in al Qaida’s activities.”44 The U.S. tactic of decapitation has more negative effects than positives ones given this conclusion:
possibility of revenge attacks, sympathy of the public, drop in public opinion of U.S., and radicalization of new leaders.45 With al Qaeda’s high levels of bureaucracy and public support, decapitation strikes result in the survival of the organization along with short and long term retaliation.46 This study proves that decapitation attempts are not an effective mechanism to fight al Qaeda.
In “U.S. Grand Strategy and Counterterrorism,” Cronin (2012) outlines the failures of U.S. tactics and strategy in the fight against al Qaeda. The U.S. has no achievable goal in sight, and current tactics have evolved into a feckless strategy. Al Qaeda has succeeded in its strategy of provocation (forcing an unreasonable reaction by the targeted state) and mobilization
(garnering support from the masses).47 However, recently, public opinion for al Qaeda has declined sharply due to its targeting of Muslim civilians. If al Qaeda were to push harder by demonstrating the unreasonable nature of U.S. drone strikes (provocation), it could get even more recruits. Also, Cronin (2012) argues that eliminating particular leaders is detrimental to U.S. interests or a waste of resources.48 The killing of bin Laden did not have much of an effect on al Qaeda’s operations, but had a large personal impact in the U.S. Al Qaeda uses U.S. attacks as a much better public relations tool than the U.S. does for al Qaeda attacks, and it continues to
43 Jordan, “Attacking the Leader, Missing the Mark,” 22-25.
44 Ibid, 32.
45 Ibid, 35-38.
46 Ibid, 21.
47 Audrey Kurth Cronin, “U.S. Grand Strategy and Counterterrorism,” Orbis (2012): 5-9.
48 Ibid, 11; 14.
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31 get support in Pakistan from using drone strikes as a propaganda tool to recruit new members.
Cronin (2012) urges a recalculation of U.S. grand strategy to defeat al Qaeda with an emphasis on the creation of a “rule-based world order” and aiding regional powers to fight the terrorist threat themselves.49
Megan Smith and James Igoe Walsh (2013) use statistical analysis to determine the effectiveness of U.S. drone strikes in preventing al Qaeda in Pakistan from creating and
disseminating propaganda videos. U.S. government officials, especially Leon Panetta, argue that drone strikes are effective: “Those operations are seriously disrupting al-Qaeda. . . . It’s pretty clear from all the intelligence we are getting that they are having a very difficult time putting together kind of command and control, that they are scrambling. And that we really do have them on the run.”50 However, using the independent variable of the number of drone strikes conducted and the dependent variable of the number of propaganda videos disseminated using many control variables regarding troops, peace accords, time lag, and the death of bin Laden, Smith and Walsh (2013) conclude that drone strikes have a very small effect on propaganda output.51 Propaganda output is used because it is one of the few indicators completely available to the public, and it is al Qaeda’s best available mechanism to reach the public and to criticize the U.S. Al Qaeda possesses a decentralized hierarchy making its leaders and propaganda output less vulnerable to drone strikes.52 However, with the advent of smaller technology and the decentralized nature of al Qaeda in Pakistan, drone strikes are not as effective as once believed.
If drone strikes were effective in killing HVTs, then al Qaeda would have a harder time creating
49 Cronin, “U.S. Grand Strategy and Counterterrorism,” 18-23.
50 Megan Smith and James Igoe Walsh, “Do Drone Strikes Degrade Al Qaeda? Evidence From Propaganda Output,”
Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 25 (2013): 312.
51 Ibid, 325.
52 Ibid, 314-317.
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32 new propaganda.53 The data proves otherwise—drones strikes are not undermining al Qaeda’s organizational capacity to create propaganda videos.
Leila Hudson, Colin S. Owens, and Matt Flannes (2011) argue that the drone program has resulted in 5 major types of blowback for the U.S.: retaliatory strikes, the creation of
accidental guerrillas, complicating grand strategy, the destabilization of Pakistan, and damaging of U.S.-Pakistani relations. The initial drone program under Pres. Bush only targeted HVTs, but then the program greatly expanded under Pres. Obama’s signature strike tactic. However, from 2002 to 2010, only 16 HVTs have been killed, compared to around 1,426 other casualties (combatant and noncombatant alike). This lack of effective targeting pushes survivors into the hands of al Qaeda causing them to perform retaliatory attacks against U.S. interests. This
phenomenon is known as the accidental guerrilla effect, in which an increase in drone strikes has caused an increase in terrorist recruitment and retaliation attacks. These attacks occur against both U.S. bases and the Pakistani military and civilians—which further strains U.S.-Pakistani relations. Also, they argue that current U.S. strategy is contradictory, counterproductive, and counterintuitive because it pushes survivors to the enemy and causes political destabilization in Pakistan where citizens demand change. Nevertheless, the government continues to resist such demands. The drone program’s expansion has caused more harm to overall U.S. strategy and foreign affairs than good because it damages its relationship with Pakistan, does not cause great harm to al Qaeda by targeting lower ranking combatants, and increases the terrorist
organization’s numbers. There is no end in sight for the program, and the chances are high that this same strategy will be used as the program expands and escalates in Yemen and Somalia.54
53 Smith and Walsh, “Do Drone Strikes Degrade Al Qaeda?” 316.
54 Hudson, Owens, and Flannes, “Drone Warfare,” 122-130.
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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