Obama's Weapon Of Choice In War: The Drone

14:17

February 22, 2012

A U.S. Predator unmanned drone armed with a missile stands on the tarmac of Kandahar military airport in Afghanistan in June 2010. (AP)

For the Obama administration, the essential weapon of war has become the drone. More than 1,000 pilots control them with joysticks from offices here in this country, using them over Libya last year, as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan. The CIA has also used them to kill militants in Pakistan and Yemen, where a CIA drone killed American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki last year, on what some critics call an illegal mission.

The thinking is drones reduce the cost of war and the risk to troops on the ground, but there's a growing debate in military circles about the consequences. Will enemies use them against us? It's thought that China and Russia may have the latest U.S. drone technology, after a drone crashed or was brought down in Iran. And military psychologists say flying drones can provoke an "existential conflict" in pilots because they're torn over whether they're doing the right thing.

It's a conflict that just might be a new mental disorder for a new kind of warfare.

Boston Globe: And Now, Battles With Hardly Any Rules
Boston Globe: A Condition For Pilots: ‘Existential Conflict’
PBS: Using Drones Outside Combat Zones
Here & Now The Next Arms Race

Guests:

Linda Bilmes, senior lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School and co-author of "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict"
Farah Stockman, columnist and editorial writer for the Boston Globe

This segment aired on February 22, 2012.