Stimson report cited in Commonweal Magazine

This past summer the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank devoted to global security, issued the report of its task force on U.S. drone policy. It makes for depressing reading. Among other things, the report concludes that although the American use of drones for targeted killing may be legal, the pervasive use of drones threatens the rule of law. “While the legal norms governing armed conflicts and the use of force look clear on paper,” the task force concluded, “the changing nature of modern conflicts and security threats has rendered them almost incoherent in practice. Basic categories such as ‘battlefield,’ ‘combatant,’ and ‘hostilities’ no longer have a clear or stable meaning. And when this happens, the rule of law is threatened.”