America's drone strike program may create a more unstable and violent world, a group of former military and government officials have said in a report.
According to thw report published in the Verve, these experts have said that the use of relatively low-risk, but increasingly common missile strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) could result in an escalation of conflicts and increasing instability as other countries might want to emulate the United States strategy of targeting suspected terrorists even outside official war zones.
The report appeals to the Obama administration to consider the effect this use of UAVs would have on warfare in the immediate future.
The report has been prepared by a ten-member panel affiliated to the global security think-tank Stimson.
Its members included Bush-era National Security Council and State Department advisor John Bellinger III, former CIA Counter-terrorism Center deputy director Philip Mudd and former CIA general counsel Jeffrey Smith.
It was co-chaired by retired general and former U.S. Central Command head John Abizaid and Rosa Brooks, a former counselor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and a professor at Georgetown University's law school.
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Members met periodically over the course of a year and focused on near-term counter-terrorism strikes, rather than future autonomous warfare or drone issues as a whole.
The panel has also questioned the need for the drone programme to be operated under extreme secrecy.
The panel has rubbished the the idea that conducting strikes from remote locations reduces the feeling of guilt for those involved. It is of the opinion that the men and women who remotely operate lethal UAVs have a far more 'up close and personal' view of the damage they inflict than the pilots of manned aircraft."
The panel, however, agrees with President Obama's claim that drones, compared to traditional aircraft, actually minimize civilian casualties.
In conclusion, the panel urges the U.S. executive branch to engage in a serious cost-benefit analysis of targeted UAV strikes, and to avoid the culture of secrecy and a lack of oversight.
It says that carrying out broad, multi-year program of targeted strikes is not consistent with American values.