Drone warfare won't win in Libya

Unmanned aerial combat vehicles, better known as Predator or Reaper drones, are sleek, small, flexible planes that look like gliders. They have capabilities that larger, heavier manned jet aircraft do not possess.

Drones are cheaper to use than planes. If they are shot down, no U.S. pilot is killed or captured. And because they are unmanned, President Barack Obama uses them in places where, for political reasons, he does not want a significant U.S. military presence.

Yet that is the fatal attraction of drones -- they may not seem like a weapon of war but they are.

On Friday, CNN reported that the United States had begun using combat drones in Libya. CNN also reported that a drone attack in Pakistan had killed at least 25 people -- a third of them women and children.

As this death toll demonstrates, drones are battlefield weapons. Predators and Reapers launch Hellfire missiles or drop bombs weighing up to 500 pounds -- firepower only permitted in armed conflict. The United States is not in an armed conflict in Pakistan; it is not supposed to be in one in Libya.

In Pakistan, despite continuous drone attacks since 2004, the terrorism threat remains. In 2010, the United States attacked more than 110 times, killing 600 to 700 people. Greg Miller of The Washington Post has reported that in all of those strikes only two people on a list of high-level terrorism suspects were killed.

Top counterterrorism experts from the Rand Corp. to the Obama administration have said the use of military force, which includes combat drones, is counterproductive to the goal of ending terrorist groups. Bob Woodward revealed in his book, "Obama's Wars," that the president knows this:

"Despite the CIA's love affair with unmanned aerial vehicles such as Predators, Obama understood with increasing clarity that the United States would not get a lasting, durable effect with drone attacks."
Pakistanis protest U.S. drone action
RELATED TOPICS

* Drone Attacks
* Libya
* Barack Obama
* Moammar Gadhafi
* Terrorism

What U.S. drone policy in Pakistan has managed to accomplish is the increasing alienation of Pakistani authorities and the Pakistani people. The one thing the U.S. does need to counter terrorism is friends.

Opinion: U.S.-led drone war is self-defeating

Drones are likely to be just as ineffective in Libya. The official U.S. aim there is civilian protection. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 of March 17 says the use of "all necessary measures" is authorized "to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in" Libya.

The resolution responded to the imminent rout of Libyan rebels from Benghazi, and the fear that Libyan armed forces would exact revenge on civilians left behind. The resolution did not authorize outside intervention in a civil war. Indeed, an earlier resolution, Resolution 1970, imposes a weapons embargo on all of Libya. Resolution 1973 continues that embargo with an exception to establish a "no-fly" zone and take other steps to protect civilians.

After defending Benghazi, the U.S. should have turned immediately to seeking a peaceful end of the crisis. The U.S. rejected out of hand the African Union peace initiative, thereby putting no pressure on the rebels to come to the table. Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron instead took the new position that Moammar Gadhafi must go as a condition of ending the use of force.

In this case, such a position is unlikely to help the cause of peace -- it only backs Gadhafi further into a corner. Each day the war continues, civilians are killed or die as a result of the fighting. Just as the fighting seemed to settle into a stalemate that could only be broken by negotiations at last -- the drones arrive. Their deployment appears set to move the conflict even further from a peaceful settlement. Even if the unlikely occurs and Gadhafi and his sons leave or are killed, continued fighting or chaos are predictable.

Perhaps the U.S. aim is not primarily civilian protection but regime change? If so, drone attacks will be no more helpful to that aim than to civilian protection. Air attacks can keep the rebels in the fight but cannot win the war for them. A civil war can only be won by control of territory, not control of the air.

Controlling territory requires military and civilian leadership, organization, training and equipment to defeat the Libyan army and replace the government. The rebels have deficits in all of these categories. Even if air attacks could buy NATO time to try to organize and train the rebels, Resolution 1970 does not permit arming the rebels.

Sending drones to Libya is unlikely to bring the rebels a military victory. Drones are likely to prolong the fighting and the deaths of civilians. Sending drones does not even help Obama keep his promise that NATO would take the lead. Drones controlled by the U.S. deploy major military force.

Drones give the appearance of a sophisticated, high-tech policy, not involving a big U.S. military presence. What they really give us is death and destruction that will not lead to the end of terrorism in Pakistan -- or peace in Libya.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Mary Ellen O'Connell।

Editor's note: Mary Ellen O'Connell holds the Robert and Marion Short Chair in Law and is research professor of international dispute resolution at the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. She is a specialist on the international law of armed conflict and is the author of "The Power and Purpose of International Law" (Oxford University Press, 2008). She has been a professional military educator for the U.S. Department of Defense, chaired the Use of Force Committee of the International Law Association (2005-2010) and is a vice president of the American Society of International Law.

(CNN)

Six non-obvious points about conflict, security and development

Launched today, the 2011 World Development Report is on “Conflict, Security and Development.” In making a presentation on its relevance to Africa to my World Bank colleagues, I counted six messages that are new and different.

1. 21st century violence is different from 20th century violence.
2. Conflict and violence are caused by a combination of weak institutions and external stresses.
3. Build good-enough coalitions to break the cycle of repeated violence.
4. Create jobs, even with second-best approaches that are inefficient and likely not sustainable.
5. Address external stresses alongside institution building.
6. International partners should do more good than harm.

More on each on them:

1. 21st century violence is different from 20th century violence. The former is characterized by repeated cycles of conflict and violence. Political violence in apartheid-era South Africa was followed by criminal violence, conflict in Guinea-Bissau by drug-trafficking-related violence. These cycles mean that the economies of some fragile states are caught in a low-level equilibrium trap.

2. Conflict and violence are caused by a combination of weak institutions and external stresses. While this may seem obvious, it suggests an economic model of violent conflict that I haven’t seen before. The decision to engage in violent conflict has a type “collective action” problem associated with it. The cost to any individual in taking up arms is lower the greater is the number of other people taking up arms. But you don’t always know who else is going to join the fight. What external stresses, such as food price spikes, natural disasters or widespread drug trafficking, do is provide a “focal point”—information that everybody receives—to solve this collective action problem.

3. Build good-enough coalitions to break the cycle of repeated violence.This means going against our instincts in divided societies to have a “big tent” and bring everybody under it. You may need to exclude some groups, as Colombia did, in order to get enough of a coalition that restores confidence in collective action.

4. Create jobs, even with second-best approaches that are inefficient and likely not sustainable. For instance, public works schemes are often very costly ways of creating employment, but using demobilized soldiers to rebuild roads in Liberia helped both the demobilization and infrastructure goals.

5. Address external stresses alongside institution building. There may be a special role for the international community here, because some of these stresses—such as terms of trade shocks or drug trafficking—are the result of factors outside the fragile states themselves.

6. International partners should do more good than harm. This may sound like a platitude, but it’s worth repeating because too often we may be doing the opposite. The problem is that external partners don’t sufficiently distinguish between fragile and non-fragile states. For instance, we provide budget support to both types of countries. In the latter, the aid is intended to stimulate growth and poverty reduction through policy and institutional reforms. In the former, it is essentially “life support”—to pay civil servants’ salaries and reduce the chances of a resumption of conflict. The criteria should not be the same. Likewise, the total volume of aid is typically conditioned on performance; but if these countries are caught in a low-level equilibrium trap, perhaps aid should also be conditioned on “need”—so that they can emerge from the trap.

UN Office Highlights Concerns Over TFG

GBAGBO MUST HAND OVER POWER TO OUATTARA

THE AU REITERATES ITS URGENT CALL TO MR. LAURENT GBAGBO TO IMMEDIATELY हैण्डOVER POWER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC, MR। ALASSANE DRAMANE OUATTAR
Addis Ababa, 1 April 2011: The Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union (AU),
Dr. Jean Ping, follows closely the current situation in Côte d'Ivoire, marked by military
operations conducted under the authority of the internationally‐recognized President of the
Republic in order to consolidate legality on the entire Ivorian territory.
The Chairperson of the Commission recalls the efforts made by the AU, in close cooperation
with ECOWAS, the United Nations and other partners, to find a peaceful solution to the
crisis that broke out in the aftermath of the second round of the presidential election of 28
November 2010, on the basis of strict respect for the will of Ivorians who have chosen Mr.
Alassane Dramane Ouattara as the President of the Republic. In particular, these efforts
culminated in the proposals made by the AU High‐Level Panel for the Resolution of the Crisis
in Côte d'Ivoire, endorsed on 10 March 2011 by the 265th meeting of the AU Peace and
Security Council (PSC), held at the level of Heads of State and Government, which, at the
same time, directed that negotiations be convened between the Ivorian parties to agree on
the modalities for the implementation of these proposals.
The Chairperson of the Commission deeply regrets that the refusal by the outgoing
President, Mr. Laurent Gbagbo, to accept these proposals, to which President Ouattara has
formally adhered to, as well as his rejection of all other initiatives aimed at ending the crisis,
have not made it possible to speedily complete the implementation of a peaceful solution to
the crisis that would have spared the Ivoirians the additional suffering being visited upon
them today. He urges Mr. Gbagbo to immediately hand over power to President Alassane
Dramane Ouattara, in order to shorten the suffering of the Ivorians.
On its part, the African Union will continue, in close coordination with ECOWAS and other
partners, to work with the President of the Republic, Mr. Alassane Ouattara, and other
stakeholders, to promote genuine national reconciliation among all Ivorians, the deepening
of democracy and the consolidation of peace.
The Chairperson of the Commission reiterates the imperative of protecting the civilian
population and the obligations of all parties in this respect, as provided for by international
humanitarian law, including access of humanitarian actors to civilian populations in need.
He encourages UNOCI, within the framework of the relevant resolutions of the UN Security
Council, in particular resolution 1975 (2011), to vigorously implement its mandate to protect
civilians.