It's funny because I began reading takes on the ethics of drone warfare, and outside of a hyperfocus on the lingering impacts of drone warfare that I really had to go out of my way to find, a majority of the takes approached it as I expected, which is a sliding utilitarian approach that would justify the usage of drones on the basis of the simple fact that we don't have to deploy a soldier and that the designated targets have been rendered combatants. Most people on this topic will consider collateral damage, of course, but what is not being considered is the impact of the surrounding citizens of a country being subjected to constant drone surveillance and instances where the drones are on a targeted run, and from that, an uptick in an unfavorable perception of western intervention, and thus a increase in proclivity towards supporting extreme responses.
So I think consideration for the lingering impacts of drones is typically either tone deaf, or for the most part, nonexistent. That is a problem, of course. But given the typical utilitarian approach, especially when approaching military actions, most will unfortunately chalk it up to a factor they are willing to permit in order to eliminate what is deemed as a high value target, and a proponent of political terror. An irony there when considering how that could play into creating more high value targets, but still, the typical approach.
Now this doesn't justify drone usage entirely, quite the opposite, it justified drone usage within this specific context, but we can work towards improving relations with countries, help these countries reach a form of government that is less likely to fall towards oppressing its citizens by establishing a legitimate democracy, chalk on other important factors, and from there, we can work with these countries in joint operations to safely remedy these problems with most of concentration of military tactics being focused solely on the suspect/target with little to no impact on innocent bystanders. I mean, it's what we would do with any other developed nation, if Canada needed U.S. assistance with a terrorist group, we wouldn't be surveilling neighborhoods with drones and then firing off when we have confirmed that blast radius will be primarily restricted to the target. Citizens would lose their minds if this was common occurrence. And as I sit here, I can imagine being on constant edge in combination with a built up trauma in response to that approach. But as I noted earlier, you will be hard pressed to get people to place themselves in the shoes of these people, when you consider where most humans would fall on the illustration of Peter Singer's expanding circle theory.
So with that, I would conclude that the current approach, while seemingly considering for civilian casualties, overlooks the lingering impact of drone usage primarily due to a lack of care for those that are significantly removed from us, in terms of physical distance. And if there are these blind spots in academia, getting the average person to recognize them or even expecting them to consider it beforehand, is almost an exercise in futility, and my personal cynical approach would say it is futile at this point in human development.
Most are operating on moral luck. And I'm not taking issue with your post at all, just the general idea.
