Caitlin Fitzgerald worries about the ease of drone warfare:
I fear that maybe we use these tactics just because we can, that because we have drones and incredibly skilled and versatile SOF teams and such, we just look for people to use them on. That scares me because it implies a casual attitude toward the many forms of potential collateral damage, scant consideration of long term effects (and therefore the absence of a robust long term guiding strategy), meaning finally, an approach to national security that is not actually optimized to keep our nation secure.
Kelsey D. Atherton compares this phenomenon to another war without end – the one on drugs:
[It] bears a striking similarity to the Global War on Terror in that it’s waged as a series of interdiction missions with no clear end state. …
But if we’re building on a War on Drugs model, the situation is unlikely to remain static. Centralized Colombian Cartels were replaced by smaller and more agile players, speedboats were routinely stopped and so drug runners built submarines, maritime routes abandoned in favor of land transport, and gangs once confined to distinct neighborhoods became transnational nonstate actors. While the US has adapted to the specific new form of the threat, the War on Drugs has remained one in which the best our current strategy can do is hope to maintain a status quo of interdiction. If the Global War on Terror follows this pattern, we might pursue the same means with better tactics, we will not be making progress towards a political end. At best, will instead be really good at treading water.
The Dish 