Biden Administration Requires Presidential Approval for Drone Attacks on Terrorists Off Battlefields

In March 2021, the New York Times reported that the US Department of Defense and the CIA would now need approval from the White House to carry out attacks on targets such as terrorists with drones outside the battlefield. was reporting. Under the Trump administration, the US military and the CIA were allowed to attack targets without the president's judgment, but the Biden administration changed the rules for drone attacks. "At this time, the president's approval of drone strikes is provisional, and the president's approval of drone strikes does not mean that drone strikes will cease," Pentagon spokesman John Kiribai said. It is certain that we will continue to work together with the international community to fight against the threat of violent organizations (terrorists, etc.)." In other words, if the president allows it, it will continue to attack as before.

Reconnaissance/surveillance and attacks by drones have been widely used since President Bush, and especially during the Obama administration, drone attacks were intensifying in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia. At this time, too, there were many accidental bombings against local citizens. Drone attacks on Somalia were also carried out during the Trump administration.

With the development of AI technology, the development of autonomous lethal weapons, which are said to be killer robots in which drones equipped with AI recognize and judge targets and attack without human judgment, is being developed. I am trying to do. International NGOs and 30 countries around the world oppose the development and use of lethal autonomous weapons, claiming that such lethal autonomous weapons are unethical because they kill or injure targets without human judgment.

A Pakistani girl Nabila is famous for being the victim of an accidental drone attack. Ritsu Miyata's "Nabila and Malala: Two Girls Engaged in the War on Terror" (Kodansha, 2017) has the following: It describes the state of the attack, as well as the attitude and response of the U.S. government afterward (bold text is written by the author).

Even if the attack was carried out based on human judgment, there were many civilian casualties due to the accidental bombing of the drone attack. Perhaps AI will recognize and make a decision to attack, which may reduce the number of civilian casualties from accidental bombings.

This time, the Biden administration requires presidential approval for drone attacks. Even if an attack was carried out based on the judgment of a human soldier, there were times when civilians were killed due to an accidental bombing. Also, human judgment is not always ethical and moral. Even in the 20th century, the murder of Jews by Nazi Germany (the Holocaust), the genocide in Cambodia by Pol Pot, the genocide in Rwanda, and the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Prove it.