US think tank urges Obama to restrict sale of armed drones

Stating that many countries, including India, are equipping themselves with armed drones, a major American think tank has urged the Obama Administration to take steps to prevent its proliferation and restrict its sale to other countries.
A report titled "Limiting Armed Drone Proliferation" by the Council on Foreign Relations said yesterday that although only five countries had developed armed drones - the US, Britain, Israel, China, and Iran - several other countries were announcing their own programs.
"India reports that it will soon equip its drones with precision-guided munitions and hopes to mass-produce combat drones to conduct targeted strikes in cross-border attacks on suspected terrorists," said the 50-page report authored by two CFR scholars Micah Zenko and Sarah Kreps.

"Rebuffed by requests to procure US armed drones, Pakistan said it will develop them indigenously or with China's help to target the Taliban in its tribal areas," it said.
Laying out several reasons why armed drones are unique in their ability to destabilise relations and intensify conflict, the report said unmanned aircraft reduced the threshold for authorising military action by eliminating pilot casualty, potentially increasing the frequency of force deployment.
In addition, the proliferation of unmanned aircraft carries an increased risk of lethality because "drones are, in many ways, the perfect vehicle for delivering biological and chemical agents," it said.

The report said the US, as the lead user of drones, has the unique opportunity to determine which countries acquire these systems and hold them accountable for how they use those drones.

It noted that the US drone exports should require commitment to the following principles: Peacefully resolving all outstanding border or maritime disputes; peacefully brokering domestic political disputes; protecting civilians from harm caused by other weapons platforms and protecting human rights.
The report recommends Obama administration to task the intelligence community to publish an unclassified survey of the current and future trends of unmanned military technologies - including ground, sea, and autonomous systems - as they do for ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.

It also urged the US Government to commission an unclassified study by a federally funded research institution to assess how unmanned aerial systems have been employed in destabilising settings and identify the most likely potential future missions of drones that run counter to US interests.
The CFR report urges the Obama Administration to appoint a high-level panel to review US policies on targeting decisions and potential effect on emerging proliferators, besides proposing reforms based on the President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communication Technologies.