I am pleased to present to you A New Agenda for U.S. Drone Policy and the Use of Lethal Force, by Stimson Vice President Rachel Stohl and her colleague Shannon Dick, who serves as a Research Analyst at Stimson. For more than seven years, these colleagues have analyzed the domestic and international implications of the U.S. drone program, with regard to both the use and transfer of lethal drone technology. Their research has closely examined the legal and strategic questions posed by U.S. drone use outside recognized war zones, the ways in which U.S. drone use has led to civilian harm, the unique challenges posed by global drone proliferation, the difficulties in regulating emergent technologies, and the damaging effects of secrecy on democracy, accountability, and the rule of law. Today, the use of armed drones remains controversial due in large part to continued secrecy and lack of accountability surrounding lethal airstrikes outside of traditional battlefields and expansive claims about the legal frameworks – as well as uncertainty about the policy – and strategy guiding such strike decisions.

Given these ongoing controversies, Stimson has come to see and understand the U.S. drone program as emblematic of the larger assumptions and actions that have guided the U.S. use of lethal force around the world over the last two decades. The U.S. drone program demonstrated and enabled a willingness to use lethal force, and that willingness has come to define U.S. engagements in the world for a generation. Yet the bureaucratic machinery that guides the U.S. drone program is not unique to lethal drone use – rather, it shapes and influences where and when the United States uses lethal force (through a variety of means) against perceived adversaries all around the world. The continued availability of this machinery offers more opportunities to use lethal force in new contexts and with new risks – options that were once viewed as exceptional. In this way, the United States’ current approach to the use of lethal force against terrorism suspects – including but not limited to the use of armed drones – poses an ongoing risk to U.S. national security and foreign policy.

We are deeply grateful to the Open Society Foundations for their financial support of this project. Stimson is equally indebted to both Rachel and Shannon for the remarkable contributions that they have made to the debate over the use of lethal drones in this country and around the world.

Reflecting on the ways in which the U.S. drone program has defined and has been defined by the United States’ nearly 20-year-old approach to the use of lethal force, the Stimson Center aims to offer an updated inventory of the challenges and consequences wrought by such an approach. This report serves as the fourth installment of our analyses on the U.S. drone program and seeks to emphasize the need for a thorough review and reconfiguration of the United States’ approach to the use of lethal force in order to ensure U.S. policies and activities are responsible and accountable in the short, medium, and long term.