Predator or Protector?

 The UK Ministry of Defence has revealed a new drone which will replace the current fleet of drones and have advanced capabilities, named the ‘Protector’.

It is said to “epitomise[s] the second drone age, characterised by a global expansion in both type of drones being used by States and the scale of operations, including domestic sphere.” Given that the ‘Protector’ will carry Brimstone 3 Missiles and Paveway IV (laser guided bombs), the term ‘expansion’ can also be applied the lethality of UK’s drones.

U.K's new drone: The Protector

The release of these new drones might celebrate a new style of warfare which offers a level of protection for soldiers as the ‘Protector’ will help would allow the “removal of aircrew from the aircraft, making the cost of intervention a monetary one,without the need to consider the human cost.”

The appeal of such weaponry can be great when a war weary public no longer has to see their soldiers put at risk, as the fighter and the fight become radically separated. Afterall, when a robot dies, no one needs to write home to its mother. 

In considering the debates around the costs of intervention however, the military either fail to consider, or purposely omits, the impact these drones have for those who are on the receiving end.  

A report concerning the UK’s involvement in the conflict against ISIS found that the UK is generally “poor on accountability for non-combatant harm, with the ministry of defence seemingly incapable of detecting civilian casualties from its urban actors.” Drones are often heralded as having surgical precision to detect targets, therefore reducing collateral damage, but they offer no answer to the question of who determines the target and under what category.

As a senior military official puts it; “when the CIA sees three guys doing jumping jacks the agency thinks it’s a terrorist training camp… men might be loading a truck with fertilizer – but they might also be farmers.”

Such strikes push the boundaries of what is accepted in international law, and often receive little to no public scrutiny as there is a displaced sense of complacency due to soldiers being put out of harm’s way.

Nearly twenty years after 9/11, the authority to use drones continues to be drawn from unstable bases of legal and technological instruments. What was once a sanctioned use of force as a form of self-defence has now expanded to unbound authority to use force, generating fundamental challenges to international legal standards and the very institutions established in order to protect peace and security.

Drone warfare is at the very centre of questions of the protection of right to life, asymmetrical warfare and counter terrorism operations. They have been the focus of unlawful deaths and arbitrary killing, suggesting a sense of failure on the part of national and international institutions directed to protect human rights, peace and security.

The launching of the ‘Protector’ has offered an insight into the thinking of the military as to what should take top priority – it protects their own people with little focus on the protection of upholding international humanitarian law, particularly in relation to civilian harm during conflict.

Although protection of life is a driving factor in the development of these new machines, there needs to be greater concern for the human life on the other side of the playing field.