August 14, 2018
Trump’s Secret War on Terror
President Donald Trump has dramatically expanded the War on Terror. But you—and perhaps he—would never know it.
Since he came into office, Trump has reportedly abandoned Obama-era rules governing the use of drones in noncombat theaters such as Somalia and Libya. Whereas Obama operationally expanded but bureaucratically constrained drones’ use, from what we can tell, Trump’s new rules instead vest military commanders with strike decisions , without requiring approval from the White House.
Superficially, this approach may have some logic to it. Use of drones, like most counterterrorism efforts, is complex and multifaceted, requiring a careful balancing of military necessity with concepts of morality, legality, and fair play in war-making. Behind closed doors, the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations spent a great deal of time learning crucial lessons about their employment as these newer platforms were tested on battlefields unlike any the United States had fought on before (as we’ve explored in greater depth elsewhere). The Obama team did, ultimately, show some of its work, disclosing in part the hard-earned legal and policy framework governing the drone program, its decision process, some strike data, and its own accounting of civilian casualties. We were both involved, from 2013 through 2015, in developing, implementing, and refining this policy during our time with the National Security Council. The parting message: The policy may need to evolve, but this is precedent worth building on.
Trump seems to have declined, instead “trusting his generals” to guide his strategy. According to leaks to The New York Times and other outlets, last fall he introduced a new policy that moved responsibility for counterterrorism operations outside traditional war zones to lower-level commanders, and lowered the threshold for such strikes. (Targets are no longer required to pose a “continuing, imminent threat” to the United States, but rather may be lower-level foot soldiers, and there is purportedly no longer a requirement for “near certainty” that the target be on-site for strikes.) But this is all just conjecture, as apart from unauthorized disclosures made to media outlets, Trump is shielding even the broad contours of his new drone guidelines, his overall strategy, and some relevant data on operations from the American people. Without such information, the voting public cannot make informed decisions as to whether they are comfortable with their government’s new approach.
Read the Full Article at The Atlantic
More from CNAS
-
Biotech Matters: Public-Private Coordination of Biotechnology
An appreciation of biotechnology’s great opportunities is, for many commentators, intimately joined with regret about a disconnect between the U.S. government and the private ...
By Richard Danzig
-
$6.6 billion TSMC deal in Arizona the latest in the CHIPS Act’s rollout
“President Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act just about 20 months ago, which in government time is yesterday. And they’ve hired 200 people,” said Vivek Chilukuri, a senio...
By Vivek Chilukuri
-
Response to NTIA Request for Comment: “Dual Use Foundation Artificial Intelligence Models with Widely Available Model Weights”
In February 2024, the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issued a Request for Comment (RFC) on the implications of “ope...
By Caleb Withers
-
Biotech Matters: Great Data Competition and Interoperability with Allies and Partners
Understanding and strengthening America’s biotechnology leadership requires exploring the limits of existing data relevant to the U.S. bioeconomy so that policymakers and the ...
By Michelle Holko