What Is Your Opinion? Should Drones Become An Accepted Part ✓ Solved

What is your opinion? Should drones become an accepted part of American war-fighting? Should drones (armed or otherwise) be used domestically? Should they, in the interest of rapid response to developing situations, be given the ability to act autonomously (without any humans in the decision-making or targeting loop)?

What is your opinion? Should drones become an accepted part of American war-fighting? Should drones (armed or otherwise) be used domestically? Should they, in the interest of rapid response to developing situations, be given the ability to act autonomously (without any humans in the decision-making or targeting loop)?

Paper For Above Instructions

Summary Opinion

Drones should be accepted as part of American war-fighting and selectively integrated into domestic operations for lawful public-safety purposes, but with strict legal, ethical, and technical controls. Armed drones can offer tactical advantages and reduce risk to personnel, but lethal employment requires meaningful human control and transparent accountability (Scharre, 2018; Human Rights Watch & IHRC, 2012). Fully autonomous lethal systems that remove humans from targeting decisions should be prohibited until robust legal frameworks, reliable technical safeguards, and societal consent exist (Singer, 2009; Roff, 2014). Domestic use of unarmed drones for public safety, infrastructure inspection, and disaster response is appropriate under clear privacy protections and oversight; armed domestic drones for law enforcement raise significant civil‑liberties concerns and should be tightly restricted (ACLU, 2013; FAA, 2021).

Rationale: Military Utility and Risks

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) provide persistent surveillance, precise strike options, and lower risk to operators compared with manned systems (Department of Defense, 2013). In asymmetric conflicts and counterterrorism operations, drones can improve situational awareness and reduce collateral damage by enabling more precise targeting (Singer, 2009; RAND, 2016). However, operational advantages do not eliminate risks: sensor errors, intelligence failures, and adversary deception can cause misidentification and wrongful strikes. These risks are magnified if human judgment is removed from the targeting loop (Scharre, 2018; UN OHCHR, 2019).

Ethical and Legal Constraints

International humanitarian law (IHL) and U.S. legal standards require distinction, proportionality, and accountability in the use of force. Human judgment is central to applying these principles in dynamic, ambiguous environments (ICRC, 2017). Human-in-the-loop (direct human targeting), human-on-the-loop (human oversight with machine suggestions), or at minimum meaningful human control should be the baseline for lethal decisions to ensure compliance with IHL and to preserve moral accountability (Human Rights Watch & IHRC, 2012; Scharre, 2018). Fully autonomous weapon systems that select and engage targets without human intervention risk legal violations and erosion of public trust (UN Special Rapporteur reports, 2019).

Domestic Use: Benefits and Civil-Liberties Tradeoffs

Domestically, drones offer legitimate public benefits: search and rescue, disaster assessment, infrastructure inspection, and traffic monitoring can be safer and faster with UAS (FAA, 2021; Brookings, 2015). Yet domestic deployment raises privacy, Fourth Amendment, and due‑process concerns when used for surveillance or law enforcement (ACLU, 2013). Policies should require warrants or clear statutory authority for law-enforcement surveillance, robust data-protection standards, retention limits, and independent oversight boards to audit domestic UAS use (Villasenor, 2014; CRS, 2020).

Autonomy and Decision-Making

Delegating decisions to autonomous systems has potential benefits where milliseconds matter (e.g., collision avoidance, missile defense). However, autonomy in lethal targeting or law-enforcement uses presents unacceptable risks because machines cannot fully interpret context, motives, or comply with legal judgments that require value-based decisions (Roff, 2014; Scharre, 2018). A cautious, staged approach is prudent: allow autonomy for non-lethal, safety-critical functions with rigorous testing, certification, and transparent logs, while forbidding autonomous lethal targeting absent unequivocal legal and ethical safeguards (RAND, 2016; ICRC, 2017).

Policy Recommendations

  • Accept drones as force multipliers in military operations but codify "meaningful human control" for any use of lethal force (Scharre, 2018; UN OHCHR, 2019).
  • Prohibit fully autonomous lethal systems until international standards, verifiable technical safeguards, and accountability mechanisms exist; pursue multilateral norms to prevent an arms race in autonomous weapons (Human Rights Watch & IHRC, 2012; UN reports, 2019).
  • Permit domestic unarmed drone use for public safety and infrastructure under strict privacy laws, warrant requirements for law-enforcement surveillance, data minimization, and independent auditing (FAA, 2021; ACLU, 2013; Villasenor, 2014).
  • Invest in robust verification, explainability, and fail-safe design for autonomy features; require certification similar to aviation safety processes before deployment (DoD roadmap, 2013; RAND, 2016).
  • Ensure transparency and public dialogue: publish policies, strike assessments, and civilian casualty data where possible to build trust and democratic oversight (Singer, 2009; Brookings, 2015).

Conclusion

Drones should be an accepted part of American military capabilities and a carefully regulated tool for domestic public safety. Their adoption must be accompanied by clear legal standards, preserved human judgment for lethal decisions, robust privacy protections for domestic use, and international cooperation to limit harmful autonomous weapons proliferation. Pragmatic integration combined with principled restraint will maximize benefits while minimizing moral and legal hazards (Scharre, 2018; Human Rights Watch & IHRC, 2012).

References

  • Scharre, P. (2018). Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War. W. W. Norton & Company.
  • Human Rights Watch & International Human Rights Clinic, Harvard Law School. (2012). Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots. Human Rights Watch.
  • Singer, P. W. (2009). Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century. Penguin.
  • U.S. Department of Defense. (2013). Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap. U.S. Department of Defense.
  • Federal Aviation Administration. (2021). Remote Identification of Unmanned Aircraft (Final Rule). U.S. Department of Transportation.
  • Congressional Research Service (CRS). (2020). Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Background and Issues for Congress. CRS Report.
  • RAND Corporation. (2016). Autonomy, Artificial Intelligence, and the Military: The Future of U.S. Military Operations. RAND Corporation.
  • American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). (2013). The Dawn of Drone Surveillance: Public Safety and Privacy Implications. ACLU Publications.
  • International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). (2017). The Challenges of Autonomous Weapons from an International Humanitarian Law Perspective. ICRC Advisory Note.
  • Villasenor, J. (2014). Civilian Drones and the Future of Aviation. Brookings Institution.

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