On Drones and Arms Races

International law professor and blogger Kenneth Anderson -- possibly the most articulate commentator on the legality of drones and targeted killings -- offers some interesting assessments on two articles on drones and targeted killings from his perch over at The Volokh Conspiracy.

I'm rushing through my to-do list (including pre-posting a slew of historical posts) so that I can hit the road for the holidays, so will defer full commentary until a later date.

However, Anderson attempts to answer a question raised by Adam Entous and Julian Barnes' piece in the Wall Street Journal as to whether the United State is triggering an arms race in drones.  Although Anderson's analysis is interesting, he is overthinking this.  As someone whose (sadly, never-to-be-published) doctoral dissertation was on arms races, the spread of drone technology is similar to the spread of dreadnoughts prior to World War I.  After the war, some historians claimed it was a mistake for Great Britain to introduce this technology, as it inspired other competitors (especially Germany) to follow suit, and therefore mooted Britain's overwhelming lead in conventional wooden ships. 

In fact, John Abizaid made this argument in response to a question I asked regarding . . . well, okay, I forgot what I asked that prompted his response . . . at a national security seminar at Harvard in 2000 or 2001 when he was a three-star and the J-5 for the Joint Chiefs.

But in reality, Japan and the United States' navies were already experimenting with all big-guns designs by the time Great Britain christened the HMS Dreadnought in 1906.  Had the British navy not introduced this class of ship when they did, others would have.  Similarly, even had the U.S. military and intelligence agencies never developed its extensive drone capabilities, the basic technology of unmanned flight is fairly diffuse, and would have been put toward military applications by a potential competitor eventually regardless of U.S. actions.