OPINION: Drones are the difference between surgery and butchery in war

Anthony H. Cordesman analyzes political and military strategy for the Center for Strategic & International Studies. He is a former director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Earlier this month, a UN investigator added to the all too common criticism of the CIA and U.S. military's use of unmanned combat aerial vehicles. He called for a halt to such maneuvers: "Because operators are based thousands of miles away from the battlefield and undertake operations entirely through computer screens and remote audio-feed, there is a risk of developing a 'PlayStation' mentality to killing."

Such criticism is wrong in every respect, and if anyone acted upon it, such ignorance could end up killing American soldiers, allied forces and many innocent civilians.

Far too many public perceptions of these unmanned combat planes - commonly referred to as drones - are all too similar: They are of men and women sitting at desks far away from the fighting, using drones to strike without warning or risk.

The belief is that these detached operators are using "robots" at immense distances, that they are in personal control of such strikes, and they are carrying them out under conditions so abstract that they don't see the targets as human. The theory is that the pilot's lack of a direct presence on the battlefield is somehow improper or violates the laws of war, and the result produces unnecessary civilian casualties.

Such misperceptions can be misleading and dangerous - not only to U.S. interests, but to those of our allies and of the civilians where we fight. The use of drones to attack terrorist and insurgent leaders and cadres has proven critical to destroying much of al-Qaida's capability in Iraq. These attacks have already hit the Taliban hard inside Pakistan, and the buildup of U.S. capabilities in Afghanistan is steadily increasing the ability to attack insurgents there. Key leaders have been killed in Somalia and Yemen, and there may well have been carefully targeted, covert successes in other countries.

There are good reasons why the Taliban and al-Qaida make every effort to halt the use of such tactics against them, and why they exaggerate civilian casualties, deny their own losses and try to provoke popular anger against such strikes. Drone attacks deny terrorists and insurgents a critical ability to find sanctuary by operating in remote areas and within population centers. For their enemies, it eliminates the costs and risks in having to deploy large military forces to try to find a few terrorists or insurgents.

This means that leaders of terrorist and extremist movements - and not just the young men and women they use up as suicide bombers and martyrs - are vulnerable. It means the United States has a remote-strike capability that more than overmatches the insurgent use of remotely triggered or timed IEDs.

The successes in hitting targets like the Taliban and al-Qaida have not been the result of relying on drones alone, or of having pilots sit at a console and play the equivalent of a computer game. The pilot is still crucial, but he or she is only part of a far broader military operation - one that has critical elements in the field. Such operations draw on a wide range of sources.

The data from the cameras and sensors on the unmanned aircraft are almost always interpreted in light of a wide range of other information, drawn from satellite and manned intelligence platforms. It is further supported by a massive intelligence effort that uses virtually every other source available, including data taken from military operations by special forces, other U.S. combat units, allied forces and by covert sources when these are available on the scene.

Instead of one pilot sitting at a console, key decisions are made by military commanders supported by large intelligence and operations staffs, as well as by new software to help them integrate the results. Every effort is made throughout this process to avoid striking at the wrong target and to reduce civilian casualties and unnecessary damage to civilian facilities. Much of the targeting is separately interpreted by analysts in other facilities, and requests for authority to strike are often independently reviewed by others before an actual strike is authorized. In some cases, there are specialized analysts to provide an independent voice that can halt a given strike.

This scarcely means that every strike is perfect, or that there are no mistakes or civilian casualties. War is horrible, and even with the most advanced technology and most careful rules of engagement, it is still fought in a fog of uncertainty. The indicators are still often unclear, and action often has been taken to protect forces under fire. War does inevitably still kill the innocent and terrible errors are made. And terrorists and insurgents make civilian casualties almost inevitable by constantly sheltering among them.

Yet it is also true that these complex strike systems do not put U.S. or allied soldiers and civilians at anything like the direct risk of being in combat. They also don't conform to the standards for tribal warfare set by medieval honor codes some Afghans live by - codes that produce a constant stream of local revenge killings.

There is nothing new about killing from a distance in wartime. Warfare has relied on indirect-killing mechanisms like long-range artillery to strike at targets well beyond the line of sight for more than a century. It has relied on bombers that could neither see their target nor had the ability to hit precisely since World War I. It has relied on manned aircraft using precision-guided weapons and remote sensors since Vietnam.

The difference is that drones provide the ability to draw on the detailed, real-time imagery of the target provided by the aircraft. The operator can keep the unmanned vehicle quietly over the target for extended periods of time, to assess the situation in detail, and then to make more precise strikes using smaller and less lethal warheads.

No one who has ever seen the use of massed artillery or unguided bombing can sanely object to the use of drones. No one who has seen the brutality of poorly disciplined troops in direct combat can describe the result as honorable. If there is any difference in "honor" in using drones, it lies in the difference between surgery and butchery.

What's more, the experience gained in conducting such operations is making the use of such weapons steadily more precise and more careful - teaching both the operators and the targeters how to minimize civilian losses.

It is absurd to argue against these operations on humanitarian grounds relative to other weapons and ways of fighting, or to say that they somehow violate the rules of war. They provide a far more limited and humane way to use force than virtually any other kind of attack that could do anything like the same job. Nearly every other form of combat - from using projectiles like arrows to engaging in direct contact with swords and spears to employing artillery and aircraft - has done more damage to civilian life, with less military effect, for something like the last 4,000 years.