Remember the phrase, “It’s a bird, it’s a plane…. No, it’s Superman”? With the popularity of drones a more apt revision of this would have to include the options of drones. Drones are used for a variety of purposes but their military use has increasingly been at the center of huge controversy. The use of drones during modern warfare, has been speculated to cause more harm than good since innocent civilians allegedly get killed along with the military targets.  Though this statement may carry some weight, the truth is that the use of drones have been effective in minimizing civilian casualties while effectively subduing the intended military targets.

            Byman (2013) states that because drones are smaller, they tend to create a smaller more meticulous blast which reduces the risk of damage.  They are able to monitor targets for a period of time for proper verification and can hoover for hours, to wait for the right time to strike reducing the number to civilian casualties.   Also, as a further precaution, drones have the ability to be diverted even after being fired, for example in the event that a child wanders into the target area. 

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) provides us with further evidence in support of this by stating that “[Over the course of a year and a half from January 2012, there has been a minimum of 308 fatalities from drones with only 4 being civilians. Meaning that only 1 in 65 casualties caused by drones over that 19-month period was a civilian. This speaks to drones effective discrimination between civilian and military targets that no other weapons system can possibly match.]”

References

Byman, D. (2013). Why Drones Work. Foreign Affairs, 92(4), 32-43.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, "Get the Data: Drone Wars," thebureauinvestigates.com (accessed Dec. 18, 2013)