“What
the drones are trying to achieve … we do not disagree. If they’re going for
terrorists, we do not disagree. But we have to find ways which are lawful,
which are legal.” Thus
spake Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan’s foreign minister, at a US think tank.
She also said: “The use of unilateral strikes on Pakistani territory is
illegal; it is illegal and it is unlawful.”
This
is an interesting statement because it implies that Pakistan will have no
problem with the drones if they are employed legally. What could that be?
One
way of making the use ‘legal’ is for the US to get Pakistan’s permission before
striking. This was the case until a point and Pakistan was not much concerned
about who got killed and why. For several reasons, not least the now very high
frequency of drones use, the high number of ‘signature’ strikes, and
legal-normative questions over drone strikes, Islamabad cannot remain
nonchalant about such attacks on its soil.
Politically,
the issue has reached a point at home where no government can say to the people
that strikes from X date onwards have become legal because the US now seeks our
permission. They
strike if we permit; they don’t if we don’t. Not only is this not possible
to verify, it raises another question: who is determining the targets? Does the
intel come from Pakistan or the US? Should Pakistan allow the killing on its
soil of someone, anyone, who has been labelled a ‘terrorist’ by another state
using procedures and information that cannot be verified by Pakistan
independently? These questions increasingly inform the broader international
debate on drones use.
The
only ‘legal’ framework is for Pakistan to possess the platform and use it
on its territory according to its own legal and targeting procedures. Short of
this, it is difficult to see what possible, though improbable, mechanism the FM
was/is pointing at.
The
FM’s statement also puts the issue in the narrow operational framework: if they
are killing terrorists that’s ok. But that’s a big ‘if’ and by the looks of it
getting ‘iffy-er’. Neither is the use of drones and the questions it has thrown
up just a bilateral issue. The questions go beyond the operational significance
of the drones use. That is an important and commendable development, not just
for normative, but for important strategic reasons.
Let’s
put it this way: the increased tactical use (even success) of the US drones war
is precisely the failure of the strategic objectives for which Washington had
started this self-declared ‘war on terror’. That’s the central problem with
drones use.
Operationally,
the remotely-piloted vehicles armed with missiles are a force-multiplier
platform. They can reconnoitre and kill effectively. The US is already
experimenting with arming the RPVs with low-collateral damage missiles, lighter
with less radius of destruction than the heavier Hellfire
system currently in use. Soon enough, it will have more precision. But
that’s about it — a very effective platform at the theatre and tactical levels,
great operational significance that is unlikely to lead to any
politico-strategic plus.
Clausewitz
posited that the grammar of war is grounded in war’s “triple nature”. The first
level is the “primitive violence of people”: “the ability to take risks and the
willingness to kill”; the second level relates to managing violence and
harnessing it to an aim. This is done by the military commanders; the third
level is political where the government determines the ultimate objective of
war.
Clausewitz
determined that there would be tension between the first level and second and
also between the second and third levels. But all the three levels have to be
taken together since that is what constitutes the triple nature of war as well
as its grammar.
He
used the terms Zweck und
Ziel, the first referring to “purpose”, the second to “aim”. The
‘Zweck’ denotes the political objective for which a war is being fought; the
‘Ziel’ relates to the actual conduct and aim of battles, of which many may be
fought to achieve the political end. The Ziel must then add up to the Zweck or
as Philip Windsor put it: “Clausewitz argues that the Ziel must always be
defined in the context of the Zweck and be subordinate to it.”
If
Clausewitz’s argument is to be used as performance metric, let’s see where the
US began and how it has fared: from conjuring up grand scenarios of stabilising
the greater Middle East to refashioning it to fighting insurgencies and
learning to eat soup with a knife (instead of finding a spoon) to a
narrowed-down focus on counterterrorism using covert ops teams and, now,
drones. Refashioning is démodé, as is COIN
with its McPetraeo-conceptualised Zen and the Art of Counterinsurgency
Sustenance. Winning hearts and minds is passé.
So
how does one win this war; more aptly, how does one extricate? That’s a tough
proposition. It is important to create a narrative of victory, or relative
victory. The night raids have been successful, as are the drones. The narrative
should, therefore, focus on how good the intelligence is and how many of the
Taliban and al Qaeda leaders have been taken out.
In
come the armed RPVs, a cheaper option that can be used anywhere. Improved
technology means they will be more effective. If a state allows them, good. If
not, the US can use them unilaterally. Customary international law is
subservient to domestic US legislation anyway. Add to this the ‘political
question doctrine’ and the unilateral use of drones or its consequences —
people killed, property destroyed, etc. — becomes non-justiciable: i.e., the US
administration cannot be sued in any US court because national security and the
conduct of foreign policy is the executive’s political domain and outside the
purview of the courts.
So,
we have tactics guiding strategy, success determined by how many ‘terrorists’
have been taken out. The idea seems like a variation on the
stability-instability paradox. Keep the Homeland secure and use drones and
other such platforms to strike at groups remotely. To keep the centre secure,
keep the periphery unstable.
|
