This article originally appeared at Brookings.

March 18 marks the fifth anniversary of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, which capped the most blatant land grab in Europe since World War II. While the simmering conflict in Donbas now dominates the headlines, it is possible to see a path to resolution there. It is much more difficult with Crimea, which will remain a problem between Kyiv and Moscow, and between the West and Russia, for years—if not decades—to come.

THE TAKING OF CRIMEA

In late February 2014, just days after the end of the Maidan Revolution and Victor Yanukovych’s flight from Kyiv, “little green men”—a term coined by Ukrainians—began seizing key facilities on the Crimean peninsula. The little green men were clearly professional soldiers by their bearing, carried Russian weapons, and wore Russian combat fatigues, but they had no identifying insignia. Vladimir Putin originally denied they were Russian soldiers; that April, he confirmed they were.

By early March, the Russian military had control of Crimea. Crimean authorities then proposed a referendum, which was held on March 16. It proved an illegitimate sham. To begin with, the referendum was illegal under Ukrainian law. Moreover, it offered voters two choices: to join Russia, or to restore Crimea’s 1992 constitution, which would have entailed significantly greater autonomy from Kyiv. Those on the peninsula who favored Crimea remaining a part of Ukraine under the current constitutional arrangements found no box to check.

The referendum unsurprisingly produced a Soviet-style result: 97 percent allegedly voted to join Russia with a turnout of 83 percent. A true referendum, fairly conducted, might have shown a significant number of Crimean voters in favor of joining Russia. Some 60 percent were ethnic Russians, and many might have concluded their economic situation would be better as a part Russia.

It was not, however, a fair referendum. It was conducted in polling places under armed guard, with no credible international observers, and with Russian journalists reporting that they had been allowed to vote. Two months later, a member of Putin’s Human Rights Council let slip that turnout had been more like 30 percent, with only half voting to join Russia.

Regardless, Moscow wasted no time. Crimean and Russian officials signed a “treaty of accession” just two days later, on March 18. Spurred by a fiery Putin speech, ratification by Russia’s rubberstamp Federation Assembly and Federation Council was finished by March 21.

ATTEMPTS TO JUSTIFY

Moscow’s actions violated the agreement among the post-Soviet states in 1991 to accept the then-existing republic borders. Those actions also violated commitments to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence that Russia made in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances for Ukraine and 1997 Ukrainian-Russian Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership.

In late March 2014, Russia had to use its veto to block a U.N. Security Council resolution that, among other things, expressed support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity (there were 13 yes votes and one abstention). The Russians could not, however, veto a resolution in the U.N. General Assembly. It passed 100-11, affirming Ukraine’s territorial integrity and terming the Crimean referendum invalid.

Russian officials sought to justify the referendum as an act of self-determination. It was not an easy argument for the Kremlin to make, given the history of the two bloody wars that Russia waged in the 1990s and early 2000s to prevent Chechnya from exercising a right of self-determination.

Russian officials also cited Western recognition of Kosovo as justification. But that did not provide a particularly good model. Serbia subjected hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians to ethnic-cleansing in 1999; by contrast, no ethnic-cleansing occurred in Crimea. Kosovo negotiated with Serbia to reach an amicable separation for years before declaring independence unilaterally. There were no negotiations with Kyiv over Crimea’s fate, and it took less than a month from the appearance of the little green men to Crimea’s annexation.

The military seizure of Crimea provoked a storm of criticism. The United States and European Union applied visa and financial sanctions, as well as prohibited their ships and aircraft from traveling to Crimea without Ukrainian permission. Those sanctions were minor, however, compared to those applied on Russia after it launched a proxy conflict in Donbas in April 2014, and particularly after a Russian-provided surface-to-air missile downed a Malaysian Air airliner carrying some 300 passengers.

Whereas Ukrainian forces on Crimea did not resist the Russian invasion (in part at the urging of the West), Kyiv resisted the appearance of little green men in Donbas. Before long, the Ukrainians found themselves fighting Russian troops as well as “separatist” forces. That conflict is now about to enter its sixth year.

Finding a settlement in Donbas has taken higher priority over resolving the status of Crimea—understandable given that some 13,000 have died and two million been displaced in the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Moscow seems to see the simmering conflict as a useful means to pressure and distract Kyiv, both to make instituting domestic reform more difficult and to hinder the deepening of ties between Ukraine and Europe.

Resolving the Donbas conflict will not prove easy. For example, the Kremlin may not be prepared to settle until it has some idea of where Ukraine fits in the broader European order, that is, its relationship with the European Union and NATO. But Russia has expressed no interest in annexing Donbas. While the seizure of Crimea proved very popular with the broader Russia public, the quagmire in Donbas has not. The most biting Western economic sanctions would come off of Russia if it left Donbas. At some point, the Kremlin may calculate that the costs outweigh the benefits and consent to a settlement that would allow restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty there.

Moscow will not, on the other hand, willingly give up Crimea. Russians assert a historical claim to the peninsula; Catherine the Great annexed the peninsula in 1783 following a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. (That said, Crimea was transferred from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954, and, as noted above, the republics that emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union in 1991 agreed to accept the borders as then drawn.)

Retaining Crimea is especially important to Putin, who can offer the Russian people no real prospect of anything other than a stagnant economy and thus plays the nationalism and Russia-as-a-great-power cards. He gained a significant boost in public popularity (much of which has now dissipated) from the rapid and relatively bloodless takeover of the peninsula. Moreover, it offers a vehicle for Russia to maintain a festering border dispute with Ukraine, which the Kremlin may see as discouraging NATO members from getting too close to Ukraine.

Kyiv at present lacks the political, economic, and military leverage to force a return. Perhaps the most plausible route would require that Ukraine get its economic act together, dramatically rein in corruption, draw in large amounts of foreign investment, and realize its full economic potential, and then let the people in Crimea—who have seen no dramatic economic boom after becoming part of Russia—conclude that their economic lot would be better off back as a part of Ukraine.

For the West, Russia’s seizure and annexation of Crimea pose a fundamental challenge to the European order and the norms established by the 1975 Helsinki Final Act. The United States and Europe should continue their policy of non-recognition of Crimea’s illegal incorporation. They should also maintain Crimea-related sanctions on Russia, if for no other reason than to signal that such land grabs have no place in 21st-century Europe.

This article originally appeared at Radio Free Europe/Gandhara.

Political scientist Asfandyar Mir has studied security affairs in South Asia for years. Now a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, Mir explains the latest developments, old conflicts, and potential conflagrations in the ongoing crisis between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan.

RFE/RL: Where do you see the military situation moving after India and Pakistan engaged in what appears to be retaliatory air strikes and cross-border shelling?

Asfandyar Mir: The current stand-off between India and Pakistan hasn't fully de-escalated, but it isn't as tense as it was some days ago. After Pakistan retaliated with air strikes against India on February 27, the crisis intensified -- it appeared the Indian government was considering a follow-on retaliation. In that backdrop, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's gesture of returning the Indian Air Force pilot, captured by Pakistan after his plane was shot down, lowered the political temperature, eased the situation somewhat. That said, military forces on both sides remain mobilized in large numbers, and the Indian government still hasn’t given a clear-cut signal of wanting to de-escalate.

RFE/RL: Do you see the current leadership in India and Pakistan as capable of deescalating given the domestic pressures they currently face?

Mir: The leadership of the two countries has different political incentives. On the Indian side, Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi still has incentives to re-escalate. He is going into a national election. His government’s economic performance has been weak, so he appears to be relying more on foreign policy issues like confronting Pakistan -- an issue the Indian electorate cares about. Pakistan’s shooting down of the Indian aircraft and capturing of the air force pilot also deeply embarrassed him and his political party, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).

On the Pakistan side, two leaders matter: Prime Minister Imran Khan and chief of the country's powerful army, General Qamar Bajwa. After the first Indian military raid, both were left embarrassed before their key domestic audiences: Khan in front of his voter base and Bajwa in front of his officer corps.

However, Pakistan's retaliatory strikes not only reversed that damage but enhanced their domestic political standing. Now both the leaders want a deescalation. Khan has made his first move to deescalate. He is also insisting with a dialogue offer to India on terrorism on India's terms. What he hasn’t done and could do to defuse the situation is a crackdown against the group behind the February 14 terror attack, Jaish-e-Muhammed.

Khan, however, would need Bajwa’s support for such a crackdown. It remains unclear whether Bajwa would agree. The Pakistani military hasn’t acted against Pakistan-based jihadis operating in Kashmir. Instead, it has seen them as valuable allies in confronting India in Kashmir.

RFE/RL: What happens to the Kashmir issue now?

Mir: We remain very far from any meaningful progress on the dispute over Kashmir. In recent years, India has intensified its crackdown in Kashmir against violent and non-violent separatist groups. India also employs a heavy-handed counterinsurgency strategy, which frequently targets the civilian population. As a result, resentment in the Kashmiri population toward the Indian state remains very high. The Indian government continues to see a coercive approach instead of a political approach involving concessions as the way forward in the disputed region.

Pakistan also remains firm in its territorial claim over Kashmir. Given India’s unwillingness to make concessions and the deep alienation in the region toward the Indian state, Pakistan is likely to continue political and military support for the insurgency in Kashmir.

RFE/RL: What dangers do jihadi groups present to Pakistan?

Mir: It is commonly assumed that jihadi groups operating against India in Kashmir pose a direct threat to Pakistan. This was true a decade ago, when factions of Kashmir-focused jihadi groups defected toward transnational jihadis like Al-Qaeda. It appears that the process has stopped. Major Kashmir-focused jihadi groups based in Pakistan do not challenge the Pakistani government. These groups have also consolidated control over their cadres, preventing fragmentation toward Al-Qaeda and [the ultra-radical] Islamic State (IS).

This is not to say there are no indirect bad effects of such groups on Pakistan. These groups spawn a large jihadi infrastructure, which is a source of radicalization in the country. Pakistan continually faces international opprobrium, even from its allies like China privately, for allowing such groups to operate from its territory.

RFE/RL: What has the international community's role been in the current crisis?

Mir: [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump made an important statement in Hanoi on February 28, suggesting that the U.S. government has been involved in mediating an end to the India-Pakistan crisis. Besides the U.S., Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, China, and Russia have sought to deescalate the tensions.

Overall, Pakistan is under pressure from the international community for not doing enough to curb anti-India jihadi groups. Still, it is striking that beyond condemnation, the U.S. and other major powers have not pledged any material support to the Indian government like sanctions against Pakistani leadership or military support for Indian operations.

RFE/RL: Did nuclear weapons play a role in the current crisis?

Mir: Nuclear weapons have played a role. Following the first Indian air strike on February 26, the Pakistani military spokesman stated that the government was activating the body which decides the deployment and use of nuclear weapons. This was a clear-cut signal by Pakistan that it would use nuclear weapons if the crisis exacerbated. I believe that deterred a sizable Indian response after Pakistan conducted its retaliatory strikes on February 27.

Q&A with Martha Crenshaw, a senior fellow at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. Written with Katy Gabel Chui.

On Wednesday, President Trump announced he wants to pull troops out of Syria because the United States military had achieved its goal of defeating the Islamic State militant group there. In this Q&A, terrorism expert Martha Crenshaw addresses the president’s decision.

Has the U.S. defeated the Islamic State in Syria? What does “defeat” mean in this context?

U.S. leaders have talked optimistically about “defeating” first Al Qaeda and then the Islamic State since the declaration of a global war on terror in 2001. If it were possible to vanquish such an adversary on the battlefield through the application of superior military force, we would already have accomplished the mission. The Islamic State combines insurgency with transnational terrorism, and its operations flow easily across national borders. Since its beginnings in 2003, it has demonstrated a capacity for resilience and reconstitution — and for surprising us. The loss of the Caliphate has not changed this equation.

What regional impacts might this decision have?

The Iraqi government has not shown itself capable of providing the security or legitimacy that might undermine the appeal of the Islamic State. Despite [Syrian President] Assad’s ruthless consolidation of power with the aid of Iran and Russia, opposition to his regime will continue. If the American-supported Kurdish resistance is abandoned by the U.S. and then destroyed or weakened by Turkey, there will be even more scope and rationale for jihadists such as the Islamic State. Also, we shouldn’t forget that the Al Qaeda branch in Syria is still active.

What about in terms of the U.S. relationship with Russia and Iran versus with allies in the region?

It seems that the assumption behind the withdrawal is that the U.S. is willing to leave Syrian affairs to Russia and Iran and to allow Turkey to pursue an offensive against our Kurdish allies. We should probably call them “former allies” now. Turkey is likely to draw closer to Iran and Russia.

Some American military leaders have spoken up against this decision, calling it wrongheaded. Does that matter?

Probably not to the President’s decisions, but vocal military opposition would matter to Congress and other opinion leaders.

Views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies or Stanford University, both of which are nonpartisan institutions.

This piece originally appeared at Brookings.

On November 25, Russian border patrol ships attacked and seized three Ukrainian naval vessels attempting to transit from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov via the Kerch Strait. That violated both maritime law and a 2003 Ukraine-Russia agreement that governs passage through the strait.

The attack foreshadows a Russian bid to establish unilateral control over the Kerch Strait and perhaps blockade Ukrainian ports on the Sea of Azov. Unfortunately, the United States and Europe have reacted weakly, largely limiting their responses to expressions of concern. The West should make clear that Russia will face concrete consequences if it does not release the Ukrainian naval vessels and crews and allow Ukraine free passage through the strait.

WHAT HAPPENED?

On the morning of November 25, three Ukrainian naval vessels—a tug and two small gunboats—approached the southern entrance to the Kerch Strait. After transiting the Black Sea from Odesa, they sought to pass through the strait to a Ukrainian port on the Sea of Azov, following a course taken by two other Ukrainian gunboats in September. Although they were military vessels, the Ukrainian ships had a right of innocent passage. Moreover, a 2003 agreement between Ukraine and Russia states that Ukrainian- and Russian-flagged ships, both merchant ships and state non-commercial vessels, have a right to free navigation in the Strait of Kerch and Sea of Azov, which the sides consider the internal waters of Ukraine and Russia.

While Ukrainian and Russian accounts differ as to some details of what happened, their stories coincide on key points. Russian border patrol vessels intercepted the three Ukrainian ships in the southern approach to the strait, and the Russian vessel Don rammed the Ukrainian tug Yani Kapu. Video and audio from the Don make clear the Don’s intention to ram.

The Ukrainians say the Russian vessels sought to ram the Berdyansk and Nikipol gunboats as well, but the smaller, more agile Ukrainian ships successfully maneuvered out of the way (Russian aerial photos show the sides’ ships circling and maneuvering). In the process, it appears that the Russian vessel Izumrud rammed, or was rammed by, another Russian ship, possibly the Don.

The three Ukrainian ships then maintained station for much of the day in Russian-controlled waters at the south entrance to the Kerch Strait. In the meantime, the Russians physically blocked the main passage through the strait, positioning a tanker under the central span of the Kerch bridge.

That evening, apparently having concluded that they would not be allowed passage into the Sea of Azov, the Ukrainian vessels turned south toward the Black Sea, exiting the approach to the strait. Russian border patrol vessels intercepted the Ukrainian ships, ordered them to halt and then opened fire, wounding several Ukrainian crewmen. The Russians boarded and seized the Ukrainian vessels. Crucially, as Bellingcat has showed, Ukrainian and Russian data agree that the attack took place in the Black Sea more than 12 nautical miles off the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea—that is, in international waters. The Russian action is indefensible, particularly as the Ukrainian ships clearly were heading away from the Kerch Strait when attacked.

WHAT’S AT ISSUE?

Since seizing Crimea in 2014, the Russians have moved to tighten control over the Sea of Azov. The bridge they built to link the city of Kerch in Crimea to the Taman peninsula on the Russian mainland prevents the passage of larger ships that used to call at the Ukrainian port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov. Mariupol is Ukraine’s third busiest port, exporting steel, iron and grain. Over the past nine months, the Ukrainians have complained that Russian patrol boats have stopped, boarded and/or harassed commercial vessels bound for Ukrainian ports on the Sea of Azov as well as Ukrainian fishing boats.

Russia seems to be trying to establish unilateral control over passage through the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov. The Ukrainians fear that Russia will impose an economic blockade on Ukrainian ports in a bid to up the economic pressure on Kyiv. During the week of November 26, the Ukrainians reported that ships bound for Ukrainian ports on the Sea of Azov were not being permitted passage through the Kerch Strait.

THE WEST IS CONCERNED

Late on November 25, the European Union and NATO called on Russia to ensure unhindered passage for Ukrainian ships into the Sea of Azov. Officials of various Western countries began speaking up the next day, indicating various degrees of concern. With thanks to @sovietsergey, we learned that:

• The Slovenian, Romanian, and Finnish foreign ministries and Swedish foreign minister were “deeply concerned.”
• The Austrian foreign minister was “seriously concerned.”
• The Dutch foreign minister was “severely concerned.”
• The Czech foreign ministry was “highly concerned.”
• The French foreign ministry was “profoundly concerned.”
• The G-7 foreign ministers expressed “utmost concern.”

Some went further. The Lithuanian foreign ministry, Canadian foreign minister, and EU president “condemned” the Russian action, while the British foreign secretary “utterly condemned” it.

Washington had nothing to say on the 25th. The next day, Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made strong statements, but President Donald Trump almost immediately undercut them when he seemed to take a neutral position. National Security Advisor John Bolton did not help on November 27 when spelling out topics for the planned Trump meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the margins of the G-20 summit; he had to be prompted to put Ukraine on the list.

In an interview that same day, Trump suggested he might cancel the meeting with Putin. On November 28, however, U.S. and Russian officials indicated that the meeting was on, which the president reaffirmed the morning of November 29 before heading to Andrews Air Force Base. Then, from Air Force One en route to Argentina, he tweeted that the meeting was off, citing Russia’s seizure of the Ukrainian ships and sailors (most thought the more likely reason was that morning’s news of the guilty plea by his former lawyer and reports about his company’s efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow).

Nothing suggests that these expressions of concern and condemnation, or Trump’s on again/off again handling of his meeting with Putin, caused anxiety in the Kremlin. Putin in Argentina brushed off the complaints of his Western counterparts. One week after the attack, the Yani Kapu, Berdyansk, and Nikipol remain impounded at a Russian facility in Kerch, the ships’ crews sit in Lefortovo Prison in Moscow, and Russia continues to harass ships traveling to Ukrainian

THE WEST SHOULD GET SERIOUS

Russia’s November 25 attack on the Ukrainian ships was a test of Kyiv’s reaction. It was also a test of how the West would respond. Unfortunately, the West is failing miserably. If the United States and Europe do not wish to see Russia solidify its control over the Sea of Azov and blockade Ukraine’s ports, they have to make clear to Moscow that there will be consequences.

The West could consider military steps such as increasing the tempo of visits by NATO warships to the Black Sea (that tempo has already increased since Russia’s seizure of Crimea). The presence of NATO warships, particularly U.S. Navy vessels capable of carrying sea-launched cruise missiles, clearly irks the Kremlin.

Some have suggested that NATO send warships into the Sea of Azov. That would not prove wise. First, it could well provoke a shooting conflict in a region where Russia has geographic advantages. Second, it would violate the 2003 agreement, which requires the approval of both Ukraine and Russia for third-country naval vessels to enter the Sea of Azov. The West should not take actions that would delegitimize that agreement, as it is critical to Ukraine’s claim for open access through the Kerch Strait.

The United States and other NATO countries, on a national basis, might weigh what additional military assistance would be appropriate for Ukraine in view of Russia’s latest military escalation.

The United States and European Union should consider additional economic sanctions on Russia. They could draw on the following list of examples:

• Prohibit U.S. and EU member state-flagged ships from calling on Russian ports on the Sea of Azov and Black Sea.
• Prohibit ships with cargos from Russian ports in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea from entering American and European ports. (Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a close political ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and candidate to succeed her as head of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union, has already suggested closing European ports to ships from Russian ports on the Sea of Azov.)
• Target Russian state-owned banks or parastatal companies for specific sanctions. (In April, when the U.S. government announced sanctions on United Company Rusal, a large Russian-based aluminum producer, the company’s stock plunged by 50 percent, while the Moscow stock exchange’s index lost 8 percent. The Treasury Department subsequently eased the sanctions, but the case demonstrates that the West can inflict significant economic impacts on Russian entities.)
• Suspend work on the Nord Stream II pipeline. The pipeline project is dubious as a commercial project. Refurbishing the existing pipeline network that transits gas through Ukraine would be less expensive, but Moscow wishes to end the transit fees it pays Kyiv and have the ability to totally shut off gas into that pipeline network.

The Kremlin tries to put on a brave face about sanctions, but they do cause economic pain, particularly for a stagnant Russian economy that is growing at less than 2 percent per year. Making Moscow understand that unacceptable actions will have growing costs is key to changing calculations in the Kremlin.

This situation cries out for leadership from Washington, and it would behoove the Trump administration to act. First, it could coordinate with European allies on sanctions that would have broad impact and signal trans-Atlantic unity in the face of Russia’s unacceptable actions. Second, administration action would forestall new congressional sanctions, which likely would be less finely targeted and more difficult to remove if/when Russia corrected its misbehavior.

If the West takes no action, it should get used to Moscow treating the Sea of Azov as a virtual Russian lake. And it should think what next steps an emboldened Moscow will attempt in its conflict with Ukraine and hybrid campaign against the West.

Note: This piece originally appeared at Lawfare.

Many analysts, practitioners, and scholars are skeptical of the efficacy of drone strikes for counterterrorism, suggesting that they provide short-term gains at best and are counterproductive at worst. However, despite how widespread these views are, reliable evidence on the consequences of drone strikes remains limited. My research on drone warfare and U.S. counterterrorism—some of which was recently published in International Security—addresses this issue by examining the U.S. drone war in Pakistan from 2004 to 2014. Contrary to the skeptics, I find that drone strikes in Pakistan were effective in degrading the targeted armed groups. And, troublingly, they succeeded in doing so even though they harmed civilians.

Three Key Findings

I have conducted research in Pakistan and the United States over the last few years, gathering new qualitative data on the politics of the war and its effects on the two main targets, al-Qaeda and the Pakistan Taliban. I have also evaluated detailed quantitative data on drone strikes and violence by al-Qaeda and the Pakistan Taliban. This research offers three important findings.

First, the U.S. drone war was damaging for the organizational trajectories of al-Qaeda and the Pakistan Taliban. I found that after the United States surged its surveillance and targeting capabilities in 2008, both groups suffered increasing setbacks; they lost bases, their operational capabilities were reduced, their ranks were checked by growing numbers of desertions, and the organizations fractured politically. These effects appear to have persisted until 2014. In a related paper, my University of Michigan colleague Dylan Moore and I show that during the drone program in the Waziristan region, violence by the two groups fell substantially.

Second, the U.S. drone war disrupted al-Qaeda and the Pakistan Taliban not just by killing their leaders and specialized rank-and-file members, but also by heightening the perceived risk of being targeted. Across a variety of empirical materials, including some collected through fieldwork, I found that both groups were direly constrained by the fear—a constant sense of anticipation—of drone strikes, which crippled routine movement and communication. In addition, leaders and rank-and-file jihadis regularly viewed each other with the suspicion of being spies for the drone program, which contributed to their organizational fragmentation.

Third, the notion of increased recruitment for al-Qaeda and the Pakistan Taliban due to civilian harm in drone strikes is questionable. In the local battlefield, I did not find evidence of any tangible increase in recruitment. Interviews with some surviving mid-level members of al-Qaeda and the Pakistan Taliban negated the impression that the groups benefited from a stream of angry recruits. Instead, a recurring theme was that they experienced desertions and manpower shortages because of the stress of operating under drones. To the extent that new recruits were available, both groups struggled to integrate them in their organizations because of the fear that they might be spies for the drone program.

Beyond Pakistan?

The U.S. drone war in Pakistan is a crucial case of U.S. counterterrorism policy, but it is one of many other campaigns. The U.S. government is waging such campaigns in Yemen and Somalia, and considering an expansion in the Sahara. In my work, I identify two factors which are important for the dynamics evident in Pakistan to hold generally.

First, the United States must have extensive knowledge of the civilian population where the armed group is based. The counterterrorism force needs such knowledge to generate intelligence leads on their targets, who are often hiding within the civilian population. This comes from detailed population data sharing by local partners, large-scale communication interception, and pattern-of-life analysis of target regions from sophisticated drones.

Second, the United States must be able to exploit available intelligence leads in a timely manner. As members of targeted armed groups consistently try to escape detection, most intelligence has a limited shelf life. The capability to act quickly depends on the bureaucratic capacity to process intelligence, decentralized decision-making for targeting, and rapid-strike capabilities like armed drones.

In Pakistan, the United States met these criteria with an abundance of technology and high-quality local partner cooperation. Starting in 2008, the United States mobilized a large fleet of drones and surveillance technologies to develop granular knowledge of the civilian population in the targeted regions. Despite deep political rifts on the conflict in Afghanistan, the Central Intelligence Agency obtained extensive covert support from Pakistani intelligence against al-Qaeda and the Pakistan Taliban, which enabled it to regularly locate targets. With ample targeting authority and armed drones operating from nearby bases, U.S. forces were able to exploit available leads.

In Yemen, however, the United States has struggled to develop knowledge of the civilian population and act on available intelligence. My interviews with U.S. officials and a leaked government document suggest that, until 2013, U.S. forces did not sustain aerial surveillance of targeted regions, the Yemeni state’s capacity in support of operations remained poor, and the targeting rules were stringent.

Implications for U.S. Counterterrorism Policy

The U.S. government’s preference for drone strikes is motivated by the desire to prevent attacks against the American homeland. My research suggests that the drone program has the potential to inflict enough damage on the targeted armed groups to upset their ability to plot and organize attacks in the United States.

The United States also deploys drone strikes to manage jihadi threats to allied regimes. In such cases, the political value of strikes depends, in part, on the capability of the local partner. An effective drone deployment can go a long way in providing a necessary condition for restoring order. But the local partner must ultimately step up to consolidate state control.

For example, President Obama’s drone policy degraded al-Qaeda and the Pakistan Taliban, securing the American homeland and substantially reducing the threat to the nuclear-armed Pakistani state. The Obama administration’s policy was sufficient because the Pakistani state was relatively capable and could build on the gains made by U.S. counterterrorism strikes. Indeed, Pakistan’s ground operations, although contentiously timed, consolidated those gains.

In contrast, in today’s Afghanistan, the U.S. government cannot rely on instruments of counterterrorism alone. U.S. officials realize that just degrading the Afghan Taliban and the Islamic State is unlikely to stabilize the country. The Afghan government remains so weak that it will struggle to consolidate territorial control even after substantial degradation of its armed foes.

Finally, a key limitation of counterterrorism strikes is that they cannot alleviate the ideological appeal of jihadi actors like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Strikes cannot substitute for efforts at countering online jihadi propaganda and de-radicalization. Thus, they should not be seen as a silver bullet that can defeat armed groups operating from safe havens and weak states.

Civilian Protection and Drone Strikes

Civilian harm in U.S. counterterrorism remains a vital challenge. While moral objections to civilian casualties are a powerful reason to reconsider drone operations, my research suggests that strategic concerns, like a surge in local violence or increased recruitment of targeted organizations, are not. In Pakistan, for example, drone strikes harmed civilians while also undermining al-Qaeda and Pakistan Taliban. Similarly, the U.S.-led counter-ISIL campaign in Iraq and Syria was very difficult for the civilian population, and yet also inflicted losses on the Islamic State.

If civilian casualties do not affect the strategic outcomes of counterterrorism campaigns, then the U.S. government must be convinced to protect civilians for purely moral reasons. How responsive might the U.S. government be to such appeals? It is unclear. The Obama administration was not transparent about the use of drone strikes. Under President Trump, the lack of transparency has worsened. Concerned policymakers and human rights activists must continue to push the U.S. government to be more transparent and to protect civilians caught up in counterterrorism campaigns.

Evolving drone technology will enable countries to make low-cost but highly credible threats against states and groups that do not possess drones, Stanford political scientist Amy Zegart found in new research.

Could the mere threat of using an armed drone ever coerce an enemy to change their behavior – without attacking them?

Yes, says Stanford political scientist Amy Zegart, who argues in a new research paper that countries that simply possess deadly, armed drones could change an adversary’s behavior without even striking them. Zegart is the Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and co-director of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

“Armed drones are likely to offer coercion ‘windows of opportunity’ in at least one important circumstance: states that have armed drones confronting states that do not,” she said. “As wars grow longer and less conclusive, armed drones enable states to sustain combat operations, making threats to ‘stay the course’ more believable.”

Zegart believes that drone technology is becoming a more effective instrument to change a state’s behavior than yesteryear’s more costly option of using ground troops or large-scale military movements in war or conflict.

“Drones may be turning deterrence theory on its head,” said Zegart, referring to the cost-benefit calculation a potential aggressor makes when assessing an attack.

Zegart’s focus is on next-generation drones, which are essentially unmanned fighter jets and are currently in development. She is not examining the use of existing drones like quadcopters and Reaper and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles.

Foreign military officers surveyed

Zegart’s research is based on surveys of 259 foreign military officers conducted between 2015 and 2017. Participants were highly experienced foreign military officers who were attending classes at the National Defense University and Naval War College.

A drone is an unmanned aircraft that can be piloted remotely to deliver a lethal payload to a specific target.

Today, Zegart said, many scholars are studying whether drone proliferation across the world could change the future of warfare.

“But even here the focus has been the implications for the use of force, not the threat of force,” she said.

New drones are more lethal than ever, offering greater speeds, ranges, stealth and agility, according to Zegart. The U.S. is ahead, but not alone, in using drones. Nine countries have already used armed drones in combat, and at least 20 more are developing lethal drone programs – including Russia and China.

“It is time for a rethink” about drones, Zegart said. Technological advances will soon enable drones to function in hostile environments better than ever before.

“Drones offer three unique coercion advantages that theorists did not foresee: sustainability in long duration conflicts; certainty of precision punishment, which can change the psychology of adversaries; and changes in the relative costs of war,” she said.

Threats involving a high cost may be actually less credible than assumed, said Zegart. Her findings challenge the belief of “cost signals,” a military strategy where a country threatens another with a high-cost option, such as ground troops, which is intended to show resolve.

Drones may actually signal a nation’s resolve more effectively because – as a low-cost option – they can be part of an enduring offensive campaign against an enemy.

“The advent of armed drones suggests that costly signals may no longer be the best or only path to threat credibility,” she said. As wars grow longer and less conclusive, a particular country’s test of resolve becomes “more about sustaining than initiating action.”

“In situations where a coercing state has armed drones but a target state does not, drones make it possible to implement threats in ways that impose vanishingly low costs on the coercer but disproportionately high costs on the target,” Zegart said.

Combat, coercion

Zegart said that throughout history, whenever a new military technology emerges, adversaries have basically faced two choices – either concede or innovate to overcome the other side’s advantage.

“There is no reason to expect drones will be any different. The more that drones are used for combat and coercion, the more likely it will be that others will develop drone countermeasures,” she said.

New weapons often evolve technologically before “game-changing ideas” occur about how to use them, Zegart added. This was true of submarines before World War I, tanks after World War I, airplanes (which originally replaced surveillance balloons and were not used to drop bombs until 1911), and nuclear weapons during the Cold War.

“While physicists in the Manhattan Project developed the first atom bomb in just three years, it took much longer to develop the conceptual underpinnings of deterrence that kept the Cold War cold,” she said.

Drones raise important questions about the role of machines in decision-making during conflict, Zegart said. For example, much has been debated and written about the ethical and legal issues raised by U.S. drone strikes, the usefulness of drone operations against terrorist groups and whether the Pentagon or CIA should control and operate the drones.

Such questions are likely to grow more “numerous and knotty” as drones and other technologies evolve, she said.

Media Contacts

Amy Zegart, Hoover Institution and Center for International Security and Cooperation: zegart@stanford.edu

Clifton B. Parker, Hoover Institution: (650) 498-5205, cbparker@stanford.edu