Nicholas Grossman - Drones and Terrorism: Asymmetric Warfare and the Threat to Global Security

Nicholas Grossman is Assistant Teaching Professor of International Relations at the University of Illinois and Editor-at-Large of Arc Digital. He is an expert on robotics, drones, terrorism, insurgency, and US foreign policy, and his writing has appeared in Arc, National Review, CNBC Opinion, and elsewhere.

Drones and Terrorism provides an important and needed analysis of the role of drones in the conflict between governments and terrorists. It is one of the only books that addresses the use of drones by these non-state actors and how their use will impact the next stage in the evolution of counter-terrorism. Grossmans research and analysis provides important evidence and arguments to the debate about the role of drones in conflict, going beyond the standard tropes of should or should not to what is actually happening and what to expect in the future. This book also advances our understanding of drones by discussing the next stage in the type and nature of drone warfare, and the implications this will have for conflict. His discussion incorporates how the future development of drones, including a swarm approach, will create challenges and opportunities for policy makers. This book provides academics, students, the public, and policy makers with a very well informed understanding of the future of drones and their role in the continuing fight between governments and terrorists, including how governments should respond to the technological developments in the field of drones. Drones and Terrorism moves the discussion about the use of drones forward by providing a much needed discussion of how terrorists use drones, the future of drone technology, and what both of these mean for counter-terrorism policies.

Brian Lai, Associate Professor of International Relations, the University of Iowa

Published in 2018 by

I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd

London New York

www.ibtauris.com

Copyright 2018 Nicholas Grossman

The right of Nicholas Grossman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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ISBN: 978 1 78453 830 9

eISBN: 978 1 83860 842 2

ePDF: 978 1 83860 843 9

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available

For William Barr, who taught me to love learning,
and for Elliot Grossman, to whom I hope to teach the same.

Contents

FIGURES

GRAPHS

TABLES

Ive been working on this idea for a while in some form or another, and Im very grateful to everyone who helped it get here. Thank you Jason Grossman, Daniel Grossman, Shara Dube, Marc Grossman, Tracy Grossman, a lot of Barrs, a lot of Proroks, Jonathan Selter, Ben Wellington, Jacob Aronson, Lucas McLendon, Michael Carim, Travis Vogan, Brian Lai, Rene Rocha, and many others for talking with me about drones and/or terrorism. George Quester, Shibley Telhami, Paul Huth, Piotr Swistak, Bill Nolte, Keith Olson, and Doug Dion for commenting on earlier drafts. Chris Krugenberg and Grayson Scogin for helping with the research. The Fall 2016 Senior Seminar for work-shopping that sentence (it opens ). Tomasz Hoskins, Arub Ahmed, and everyone at I.B.Tauris for making the book a reality. And thank you Alyssa Prorok, for everything.

As Iraqi, Kurdish and American forces advanced on Mosul in January 2017, trying to retake Iraqs second largest city from ISIS militants, drones attacked them from above. These were not the large unmanned aircraft the United States uses to monitor and strike suspected terrorists, and they were not firing high-tech missiles. They were small, swept wing planes, about six feet wide, that ISIS modified to carry grenades, mortars and other explosives. Coalition soldiers shot down most of the drones before they could drop their makeshift bombs. But not all.

Other drones stayed back, observing. These were quadcopters, which fly and hover using four rotaries, retail for $1,200 or less, and carry cameras. Somewhere in Mosul, ISIS commanders watched the live video feeds, adjusting their orders. The US-backed coalition does not know the location of ISIS snipers or booby-traps, or where fighters hide among civilians, making urban warfare slow and costly. With drones monitoring the coalitions movements, ISIS sets up ambushes and anticipates when to retreat. The insurgents are outgunned, but this information helps them compensate.

On January 21, while Iraqi soldiers and their American advisers fought ISIS in Mosul, two cars exploded in the town of al Bayda in Yemen, 2,000 miles to the south. US drone-fired missiles destroyed both vehicles, killing at least three members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, including field commander Abu Anis al Abi. Most likely, the strikes came from a Reaper, a sleek unmanned airplane, slightly longer than a four-passenger Cessna. Over the last decade, American drones have launched hundreds of similar strikes, killing thousands.

This is a book about capabilities and strategy. What can drones do now, what will they be able to do soon, and how do they change the way states and terrorist organizations fight each other? The more we know about that, the better we can develop security strategies, craft laws, and make informed moral judgments as robotic technology becomes increasingly prevalent in warfare, policing, intelligence, business, and entertainment; firing missiles, spying on suspected criminals, delivering packages for Amazon and other companies, dropping contraband into prison yards, providing innovative angles for sports broadcasts, tracking oil spills, and much, much more.

One of the most significant strategic situations of the twenty-first century is asymmetric warfare: any big-against-small armed conflict, such as guerrilla warfare, insurgency, and terrorism. These competitions are especially interesting because they are inherently unfair. By definition, one side of an asymmetric conflict is stronger, controlling more material resources than its opponent. The weaker side, facing an adversary with more soldiers, more advanced equipment, and more money, has to design strategies that work around these disadvantages. This, in turn, creates challenges for the stronger side as it tries to translate its material advantages into victory.

Terrorists know the target and timing of a planned attack, which gives them an informational advantage over counterterrorists, who must martial their resources to protect many locations at once. For example, the Tsarnaev brothers knew they were going to attack the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, but the FBI did not. When their homemade pressure cooker bombs exploded at the finish line, creating a chaos of shouting, blood, and lost limbs, the police had to scramble to catch up. The bombings killed three and injured 264, and it took a three-day manhunt to find the perpetrators. Security cameras near the finish line showed two young men carrying backpacks before the bombs exploded, but not after.