Threat of drones is not in technology but in human factor – expert

Drone operators are no longer required to “ensure” that civilians are not targeted during attacks. The Pentagon has rewritten its drone strike instructions that now say that military personnel should just “avoid targeting” civilians. That’s according to Public Intelligence, a nonprofit research group that analyzed the US military’s guidelines on drone strikes. Sarah Holewinski, Executive Director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict, who is leading the organization’s efforts to make warring parties more responsible for their actions to civilians before, during, and after the armed conflict, told in interview to the Voice of Russia does it mean that we should expect an increase in the number of civilian casualties.

Does the loosening of Pentagon regulations for drone attacks mean that we should expect an increase in the number of civilian casualties?

It is always difficult to tell exactly what policy changes will mean on the ground for civilians. The problem with drones is not necessarily the drone itself. The drone is a weapon, like any other. The problem with drones is how they are being used. And so, in a place like Pakistan, which is so remote and you don’t have boots on the ground, basically, you don’t have forces that are doing a ground invasion – we really don’t know how many civilian casualties have been caused and even if the Pentagon looses its regulations, we are not going to know if there’s been a big increase.

Drones are basically flying robots. And these flying robots have been reported to be using behavior recognition technology. If we are loosening those regulations, doesn’t that really mean that the number of civilian casualties will skyrocket?

I don’t think so. I actually wouldn’t call drones flying robots. There is always a human in a loop. In fact, there are about 85 humans that have to operate one drone as it goes out over a particular place. So, they are not actually making decisions on their own, rather what they are doing is analyzing the video feed that they are getting. Humans then analyze it further and say either “yes, we can strike” or “no, we can’t strike”.

What do you think prompted the US military to make the guidelines for drone operators less strict? It seems that taking into account all the reports of civilian casualties from the strikes it should’ve been the other way around.

It is not clear to me that they are less strict on avoiding civilian harm. First and foremost, I’m not a fan of the current drone policy under the US. But the US and particularly President Obama have always said that they are aiming for zero civilian casualties when it comes to their operations, and that they are hopefully causing very low civilian casualties. We don’t know that that’s the case, but I’m not entirely sure that new guidelines, whatever they may be, as they are classified, will actually ease up those restrictions on causing civilian harm.