Armed Conflict
Use of Force
822 Articles
The Imperative of a “Drone Court”
With the recent release of The Intercept’s Drone Papers, it is an apt time to revisit the imperative of creating a check on an executive branch exercising lethal force without…
Drone Disclosures, Official and Not
As readers of this blog already know, last week The Intercept published a series of fascinating stories about the US drone campaign. The stories, and the official documents that…
Precision Weapons, Mistakes, and the Need for Transparency
This post is the latest installment of our “Monday Reflections” feature, in which a different Just Security editor examines the big stories from the previous week or looks…
Was the Kunduz Strike a War Crime?
As reports poured in over the weekend that the United States bombed a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing at least 12 MSF staff members and…
UK’s Legal Rationale for Drone Strikes Differs Fundamentally From US Rationale
Much of the public commentary concerning the UK’s targeted strike in Syria against a British national who had joined ISIS (along with other individuals with him at the time)…
European Countries Are Edging Toward Their Own War on Terror
A version of this article first appeared on the European Council on Foreign Relations website. The United States looks less lonely in its use of drone strikes against terrorist…
The UK’s Letter to the UN Security Council Leaves Plenty of Unanswered Questions About Last Month’s RAF Drone Strike
Yesterday, I wrote a post helping to untangle some of the international law questions involved in last month’s UK drone strike in Syria that killed three individuals, two of…
The Legal Questions About the UK’s Drone Strike in Syria
The recent revelations of a UK drone strike in Syria targeting British individuals alleged to be linked to the Islamic State has generated much discussion, and the British government…
Two More British Citizens are Dead From a Targeted Killing in Syria
UK Prime Minister David Cameron speaking before Parliament on Sept. 7 revealed that in addition to alleged ISIL hacker, recruiter, and propagandist Junaid Hussain, two other Britons…
Questions the Media Should Be Asking About DOD’s Latest Targeted Killing
Last week, the Pentagon confirmed that an American drone strike in Raqqa, Syria, killed a hacker named Junaid Hussain, a British man also believed to be a recruiter for ISIL.…
It’s Complicated: The Nuance of Any US Effort to Defend Division 30 from Assad
It has been reported that President Obama has authorized the US armed forces to come to the defense of the new non-State group the United States is training to fight ISIS (Islamic…
Drone Contractors: An Oversight and Accountability Gap
A slew of news reports have highlighted the crisis of drone pilot burnout in the United States military. Indeed, pilot shortages have prompted the US Air Force to cut the number…