Drones in Military Operations
Drones are often used in military operations where manned air transport is deemed too difficult or dangerous. Drones provide soldiers with 24-hour surveillance since they can hover over a territory and relay back real-time imagery of events on the ground. The forces use a variety of drones, ranging from small reconnaissance, surveillance, and intelligence vehicles to medium and large spy planes. Drones are built of lightweight, sophisticated materials that save weight and increase maneuverability. The composite materials used to create drones assist the crafts to cruise at high altitudes that cannot be recognized. Besides, drones are equipped with infra-red cameras and missiles (Keene et al., 2015).
Terrorism and the Use of Drones
Terrorism has become the major global issue regarding civilian safety. Most of the terror groups have spread in the entire world, and their hideouts are not known, or their movements monitored. The paper focuses on the use of drones in the military operations to counter terrorism together with its disadvantages and advantages.
Position Statement
Terror acts are inflicting fear and making lives of civilians difficult thus drones should be included in the military operations, but their impacts should be analyzed before the strike.
Supporting Reason
Drones can fly longer in the sky which allows better targeting and intelligence collection. Terrorists are disintegrated in nature which makes it hard for the ground troops to engage. Besides, terror groups use different tactics such as hit and run, suicide bombs and improvised land mines thus risking the lives of many soldiers. However, drones help to gather information regarding the planned act of terror, movement of radical groups, recruitment procedures, and training camps (Plaw, Fricker, & Colon, 2016). Also, drones help the military to locate hostages and sites where bombs have been planted. Further, the modern welfare aims at reducing the number of casualties as much as possible hence the use of drones ensures that no soldiers are involved in a direct fight with terrorists who do not fear to die (Kaag & Kreps, 2014). Additionally, drones provide critical information to the ground troops by giving warning on the likelihood of combat engagement as well as striking when the condition becomes worse. Most of the suicide bombers gather in a particular place before being commissioned to their designated areas. Drones assist to prevent bombers from reaching civilians since it strikes the preparation sites and kills all terrorists (Keene et al., 2015). Terrorists are heartless individuals who have the aim of using force to get what they want as well as killing innocent citizens. The best way of fighting terrorism while reducing the number of troops on the ground is the use of drones for surveillance and strikes (Kaag & Kreps, 2014).
Opposing Reason
Even if drones have various advantages to the military operations, they have been criticized for killing innocent civilians, violating foreign policies, alienating allied government as well as illegally targeting people and buildings. Most of the drone strikes are conducted without considering the impact of the bomb to the surrounding area. Furthermore, there are environmental problems associated with drones' strikes because their impacts are similar to the aerial missile attacks (Plaw et al., 2016). The majority of terrorists stay in the same neighborhoods with innocent individuals hence the use of strikes endangers the lives of children and the local populace.
References
Kaag, J. J., & Kreps, S. E. (2014). Drone warfare. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Keene, S. D., Army War College (U.S.), Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College (U.S.), & Press. (2015). Lethal and legal?: the ethics of drone strikes. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press.
Plaw, A., Fricker, M. S., & Colon, C. R. (2016). The drone debate: a primer on the U.S. use of unmanned aircraft outside conventional battlefields. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
