Sarah Kreps

So financially, this doesn't pay, this doesn't sort of exact a cost, but also then they're not seeing the cost in blood because they're

their own people are not coming home.

And again, there are big advantages to that.

We do not want our people coming home in body bags, but you can also see how these kind of theoretical constraints just might not operate the same way.

And again, you see this just with the justification for Congress, which is we are not deploying, we don't have boots on the ground, and so we don't need congressional authorization.

You know, my work has found that it really depends on the context and that that has changed over time.

When the Obama administration started really escalating the use of these in the early 2010s, it was clear that the civilian casualty rate was inexcusably high.

And he, even at the end of the administration, said, you know, this just became too easy.

There were no constraints.

And the technology made it seem like this would be a kind of sanitized version of war.

But, you know, interestingly, human rights groups were then putting pressure on him.

And by the end of the administration, the civilian casualty rates had gone close to zero.

And that was really a prerequisite for the way the administration was using drones.

What I think we see now or what I see now is that there has been a lot more care.

But also, you know, when some people have made the argument that these technologies can actually...

minimize civilian casualties because they can do what's called loitering.

That's where the phrase loitering munitions comes in.

They can loiter around, collect surveillance, do reconnaissance, and ensure that civilians are not in the area to be able to then strike.

So there are some arguments that suggest that this might, if conditional on there being a conflict, might be a better way to do it than something much less discriminant.

Yeah, that's a complex and controversial topic.