The critics of drone warfare argue that without Americans running the risk of death, a vital restraint upon murderously aggressive military action will disappear, and countless innocent civilians will die. But in combating insurgents and terrorists, an action’s political effects matter just as much, if not more, than their purely military ones, and high civilian death tolls are not just moral outrages, but political disasters. This is problematic for a couple of reasons. First, it assumes that drones won't be applied to non-insurgent conflicts when they next arise, and second, it assumes that civilians and insurgents are separable in some meaningful way that allows for an outcome, which our current evidence doesn't seem to bear out. If you look at Iraq and Afghanistan, many of the 'terrorists' or 'insurgents' switched sides, once or more. There is a real question about what drones are actually effecting. Can they win a conflict? Are they mostly just a suppressive aggression? Also, I thought this was pretty ridiculous: Which is certainly one reason why the administration likes drones. Drones are not cruise missiles, or shells fired by Big Bertha. They are controllable, and are explicitly designed to allow the military to target opposing forces as carefully as possible. Of course, targeting raises its own set of questions: War that takes the form of a campaign of assassination is both morally problematic and politically counter-productive. But that is a separate issue. Is it? Actually, I think it's the crux of the issue raised by the critiques in the beginning of the article. And finally: If you are concerned about American aggression, it is not the drones you should fear, but the politicians who order them into battle. False choice. You can reasonably fear both.