Brian Williams - Predators

Similar sentiments have been expressed in Yemen, where CIA drones have made several strikes on al Qaeda operatives, including the previously mentioned attack that accidentally killed a popular Yemeni governor. According to one Yemeni source, “The drones fly over Marib every 24 hours and there is not a day that passes that we don’t see them. The atmosphere has become weary because of the presence of U.S. drones and the fear that they could strike at any time.” 68

Thus it would seem that for every voice in favor of the drones found in the previous chapter, there is a voice against them. Some supporters in the targeted regions support the drone campaign whereas others live in fear of the unseen killers in the sky. Some root for the drones to kill the militants who terrorize them whereas others point out that the drones are self-defeating in that they act as accidental recruiters for these very same terrorists when they kill civilian bystanders. That this is the case should not be surprising considering the controversial nature of any assassination campaign carried out during a time of war—especially one being run by a distrusted foreign government’s covert intelligence agencies.

There can be no doubt that drones represent the future of counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency in remote, unpoliced lands, such as Pakistan’s FATA region, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya. Where U.S. troops cannot be placed on the ground, drones will increasingly fly to strike at those whom America deems to be its enemies. In 2011, during a speech given at Harvard University, John Brennan, the president’s top counterterrorism adviser, announced, “The United States does not view our authority to use military force against al-Qaeda as being restricted solely to ‘hot’ battlefields like Afghanistan.” 1This means that the U.S. government believes it can use drones wherever al Qaeda may be, from the Maghreb in North Africa (where al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb operates) to Mindanao in the southern Philippines (home to several pro–al Qaeda Islamic groups, such as Abu Sayyaf). All signs are that the U.S. military and the CIA are planning a future in which drones play an increasingly important role in warfare and antiterrorist operations.

This of course means more strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the primary focus of current drone operations. As the United States draws down its troops in Afghanistan in 2014 and prepares to hand the fight against the Taliban over to allied Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police troops, its ground presence in this strategic country will be much diminished, and the Pentagon will turn over much of the reduced American combat against the Taliban insurgents to small, elite groups of rapid-reaction special operations troops, manned support aircraft, and of course, drones. These troops and drones, which will most likely be based in residual bases, or so-called Joint Facilities, in Jalalabad (eastern Afghanistan), Kandahar (southern Afghanistan), and Bagram (north of Kabul), will be used to assist the Afghan army in repelling Taliban swarm assaults on town centers and will bolster the Afghan army’s efforts to carry out offensives against Taliban-held sanctuaries. They will also engage in “hunt and kill” missions designed to take out local Taliban commanders and disrupt their networks.

Most importantly, the Pakistani Taliban and Afghan Taliban have reportedly made an agreement to unite their forces to fight not against the Pakistani government but to overthrow the pro-U.S. government in Afghanistan. 2The Taliban alliance will be emboldened by the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan after 2014 and will doubtless widen their operations inside Afghanistan. As the Taliban and its al Qaeda allies try to carve out sanctuaries in Afghanistan, drone strikes will increasingly be necessary to keep them from openly gathering and exerting authority à la the FATA model.

The withdrawal of the majority of U.S. troops in Afghanistan will also bolster support for al Qaeda in the FATA. The need for counterterrorism-counterinsurgency personality strikes in this de facto Taliban statelet will be greater than ever. Pakistani major general Shafiq Ahmed has presciently stated, “If America wants to stay in Afghanistan, or safeguard its interests in case of a proposed pull-out [from Afghanistan], it has to tame North Waziristan.” 3This will certainly mean a continuation of signature-strike attacks on Taliban foot soldiers as well.

The drones will also play a key role in keeping up the pressure on AQAP in Yemen and al Shabab in Somalia. The new Yemeni president, Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, has condoned the strikes against the terrorists and insurgents who took advantage of the turmoil following the 2011 downfall of the Saleh government to carve out sanctuaries in the remote Abyan Province. In 2012 there were forty-two strikes in Yemen, almost as many as in Pakistan that year (forty-six). 4And in Somalia, U.S. special operations troops and drones are increasingly being used both to raid Shabab militants and to monitor pirates who have seized Western captives.

Libya provides an example of future uses for drones. As mentioned previously, in 2011 there were more drone strikes in Libya during the overthrow of Gaddafi than there were in Pakistan. The Global Post described this Libyan campaign as the model for future drone campaigns: “The death [of Gaddafi] is the latest victory for a new American approach to war: few if any troops on the ground and the heavy use of air power, including drones.” 5Regarding the drawbacks of conventional warfare, as opposed to drone campaigns, Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes, “The lessons of the big wars are obvious. The cost in blood and treasure is immense, and the outcome is unforeseeable. Public support at home is declining toward rock bottom. And the people you’ve come to liberate come to resent your presence.” 6

The drone-centric alternative to “big wars” dovetails with the Pentagon’s and CIA’s long-term plans for counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations in the Islamic world and beyond. Former CIA official Bruce Riedel has said of Obama’s plans, “This administration has made a very conscious decision that it wants to get out of large conventional warfare solutions and wants to emphasize counterterrorism and a lighter footprint on the ground.” 7Obama has said that the U.S. military of the future will focus on “intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, counterterrorism, countering weapons of mass destruction, and the ability to operate in environments where adversaries try to deny us access.” 8All these tasks can be done by drones. As Vice President Joe Biden put it in the October 2012 vice presidential debate, “We don’t need more M1 tanks, what we need is more UAVs.” 9

Although the recent economic crunch has led to huge cuts in the U.S. military’s budget (the Pentagon is making $487 billion in cuts over ten years, eliminating at least eight brigades, and reducing the size of the active army from 570,000 to 490,000 troops), the Pentagon is set to increase its drone combat air patrols from sixty-one to eighty-five. It has called for a 30 percent increase in the drone fleet in coming years. 10This represents a shift from big bloody wars, like the invasion of Iraq, which cost more than $1 trillion and forty-five hundred American lives, to the aerial campaign in Libya, which cost just more than $1 billion and no U.S. lives.