Drone strikes hit Moscow and Kyiv -- in the growing world of drone warfare, anything goes when it comes to international law
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Thursday, June 1, 2023
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At least eight drone strikes hit Moscow in the early morning of May 30, 2023, damaging several buildings and injuring civilians.
Key Points:
- At least eight drone strikes hit Moscow in the early morning of May 30, 2023, damaging several buildings and injuring civilians.
- This follows Russia’s targeting residential buildings in Ukraine with a wave of drone attacks in late May, killing civilians.
- Today, drones are used in various other conflicts but are also used to deliver packages, track weather and entertain drone hobbyists.
A buying spree
- Terrorists have also been known to deploy drones because they are relatively low-cost weapons with high degrees of civilian damage.
- Consumer drone shipments, globally, topped 5 million units in 2020 and are expected to surpass 7 million by 2025.
- Each country is free to decide when and where drones fly, without answering to any other country or international authority governing drones.
Different purposes
- China is increasingly using sophisticated drones for covert surveillance, especially in international waters to patrol the disputed islands in the South China Sea.
- Its expanding drone program has influenced other countries like the U.S. to also invest more in the technology.
- And South Korea is considering starting a special drone unit after it failed to respond to a recent North Korean drone incursion.
No rules in the air
- The countries with armed drones are individually navigating their own rules instead of an international agreed-upon set of regulations.
- International law prohibits the use of armed force unless the United Nations Security Council authorizes an attack, or in the case of self-defense.
- Figuring out the national and international rules of the sky for drone usage is hard.
US and drones
- The U.S. killed a top al-Qaida leader with a drone strike in Afghanistan in 2022.
- But there have been other instances of drone strikes that resulted in unintended casualties and damage.
- There is scant public opinion research on how American feel about the use of drones overseas, which makes building public support for their military use difficult.
Drone dangers
- Drone dangers are real.
- Traditional radar detection has grown more sophisticated with new drone detection platforms to more accurately decipher the exact location of the drone operator.
- In my view, the world needs new and consistent rules on drone usage for the decade ahead – better international monitoring of drone incursions and more transparency in the outcome of drone attacks.