The Drone Paradox

The U.S. government’s covert drone program is a defining aspect of its military strategy in the transnational War on Terror. We highlight a fundamental paradox with the use of drones to combat terrorism. The U.S. government justifies drones as an efficient method for weakening, and ultimately ending, the threat of international terrorism. Drones, however, create terror among foreign populations, which include innocent civilians. Drone strikes may annihilate specific terrorists, but they do not eliminate terror, which is instead propagated by the U.S. government’s drone program.