Professor Emeritus William C. Banks, founding director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism (INSCT), now the Syracuse University Institute for Security Policy and Law (ISPL), has contributed the opinion article “Cheap and easy-to-use drones are making wars deadlier” to The Globe and Mail.
In the article, Banks reviews the history of drone use in military operations, and how the evolution of drones to become cheaper and easier to operate has impacted the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas wars among others, particularly in terms of the laws of war.
Banks summarizes, “In any case, when these new technologies are in the hands of loosely organized terrorist groups or other non-state actors, there are no attempts to follow the laws of war. That’s the tragedy of the proliferation of drones: It leads to more civilian suffering and levels the playing field between terrorists and better-resourced national armies.”