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4.1 Introduction

This chapter explores the role of drones in US grand strategy during the Bush administration, particularly in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It delves into the foreign policy outlook of the administration, the ways in which drones were employed, and their intersection with US grand strategy. The central argument is that the use of drones during this period was linked to a shift in grand strategy, transitioning from a defensive realist stance of previous administrations to an offensive liberalist posture. The chapter examines the impact of preventive and preemptive drone strikes in targeted states, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen. It contends that these strikes undermined Bush's grand strategy due to unintended civilian casualties, heightened anti-American sentiment, increased retaliatory strikes by insurgents, and their role as recruitment tools for extremists. Despite limited global proliferation during Bush's tenure, the deployment of armed drones set the precedent for their wider adoption, as their efficacy in US counterterrorism missions became apparent.

The chapter is divided into four sections. The first part analyses the foreign policy of the Bush administration before and after 9/11. The second part explores the emergence of a post-9/11 grand strategy, including the influence of neoconservatism. The third part assesses the evolution of Bush's drone warfare from 2000 to 2008. The fourth section examines the role and rationale behind drone use during the administration. Finally, it examines whether the use of drones undermined the US grand strategy during this period.

4.2 George W. Bush’s Foreign Policy Before and After 9/11

Since the end of the Cold War, successive US presidents have crafted distinct grand strategies in the absence of a major adversary. These strategies encompassed George H.W. Bush's “New World Order,” Bill Clinton's “Engagement and Enlargement,” George W. Bush's “Primacy,” Barack Obama's “Restraint,” Donald Trump's “America First” to Biden’s ‘ “Resolute Restraint.” Before the devastating events of 9/11, the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration primarily followed a defensive realist strategy. During this period, the administration showed limited interest in pursuing global democratic interventions. Analysts argued that it lacked offensive liberalism elements, particularly in projecting military force into rogue states or those serving as safe havens for terrorists. This was evident in Bush's reluctance to pursue regime change or engage in offensive military actions against Iraq's Baathist government. The early foreign policy orientation, often referred to as the “First Bush Doctrine” by Robert Jervis, focused on bolstering US military power and managing great power competition with Russia and China. This approach also manifested in Bush's objections to deploying US military power in open-ended democratic intervention missions, as evident during his 1999 presidential campaign (Chollet et al., 2009). In summary, the foreign policy of the Bush administration before 9/11 revolved around transforming the Clinton-era “enlargement and engagement” strategy into a more defensive realist approach characterized by multilateralism, limited interventions, and a cautious stance towards offensive liberal endeavours (Miller, 2010).

However, the tragic events of 11 September 2001 shifted the trajectory of US grand strategy. The terrorist attack brought forth new security concerns and heightened fears of radical groups acquiring Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) to target US interests. It raised the spectre of possible alliances between rogue states and militant groups, leading to increased vigilance against potential terror threats (Schmidt & Williams, 2008). Consequently, the 9/11 attacks prompted a change in priorities and a new foreign policy direction for the Bush administration, encapsulated in the “Second Bush Doctrine” (Miller, 2010). The new doctrine was outlined in the 2002 National Security Strategy (NSS) and revolved around four key aspects of US strategy in the post-9/11 security environment. First, the core of the Bush doctrine emphasized anticipatory self-defence, calling for immediate and offensive action by the US to deal with global terrorist threats (Gaddis, 2005). This included engaging in preventive and preemptive wars against imminent threats from rogue states and terrorist groups seeking to acquire WMDs (Jervis, 2003). Second, the strategy strongly advocated for maintaining US military primacy, asserting that a preponderance of US power could ensure global peace and stability, with the primary concern being the rise of any all-encompassing challenger to US political, economic, and military dominance (Art, 2013). The fundamental objective was to vigorously safeguard the international order against illiberal threats and potential challenges from foreign powers. Fourth, the doctrine emphasized the goal of promoting democracy through force, particularly in the Muslim world (Miller, 2010). This new approach became the central focus of the administration's foreign policy and marked a shift towards an offensive liberal approach to US grand strategy.

Following the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration recognized the inadequacy of its existing foreign policy strategy in addressing the threat of transnational terrorism. Defensive and offensive realist approaches were deemed ill-suited for dealing with non-state threats like suicide bombings, rogue states, and transnational terrorism (Leffler, 2011). Bernard Miller (2010) argued that these grand strategies were ineffective in responding to non-state threats. Defensive realism relied on deterrence, which could work against traditional state actors and nuclear-armed states but was ineffective against “irrational” terrorist or rogue states willing to support transnational terrorist networks and use WMDs without regard for their own lives (Kaufman, 2007). On the other hand, while offensive realist strategies allowed for preventive attacks against rogue states and terrorist groups, they did not address the potential for hostile regimes to rebuild infrastructure and conduct clandestine activities (Leffler, 2011). Defensive liberalism, based on multilateral diplomacy for non-proliferation, also proved inadequate in dealing with regimes likely to hide their WMD programmes or rogue states supporting transnational terrorism covertly (Gurtov, 2006).

Formulating a grand strategy to combat the threat of al-Qaeda and rogue states proved challenging and could not be achieved through a rational, linear process. The aftermath of 9/11 saw a convergence between neoconservative thinking and the immediate needs of the administration. The Bush administration was faced with the critical task of devising the most appropriate approach to address the growing threat of Islamic terrorism, leading to the resurgence of neoconservative ideas in shaping US foreign policy during that period. Neoconservatism had been a significant presence in the US foreign policy debate since the end of the Cold War, with its intellectual roots going back to the 1960s. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, neoconservatives advocated for an offensive liberal strategy centred around enforced democracy promotion as the foundation of a new American foreign policy ideology (Halper & Clarke, 2007). Within the Bush administration, key figures like Paul Wolfowitz represented the neoconservative viewpoint, offering a well-developed and credible response to the post-9/11 threats based on their long-standing offensive liberal agenda, particularly concerning Iraq and the Middle East. Analyses by Robert Jervis and Robert Kaufman revealed that the neoconservative programme included an assessment of the sources of terrorism, which identified Middle Eastern states as supporters of terrorism by fuelling anti-American sentiments and fostering the spread of radical Islamic ideologies. The programme also encompassed plans for forcible regime change in Iraq and a comprehensive strategy for dismantling terrorist operations and rogue regimes allegedly providing them shelter (Jervis, 2003; Kaufman, 2007). Paul Wolfowitz, a staunch neoconservative in the Bush administration, further advocated the replacement of rogue regimes with liberal democracies, positing that a more democratic world would foster peace and friendliness towards America.

4.3 Bush and the Evolution of Lethal Drone Warfare 2001–2008

Since the first lethal drone strike in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in October 2001, the Bush administration’s use of drone warfare evolved and expanded in terms of the range of operations and targets. This evolution is divided into three phases (see Table 4.1) and the casualty figures (see Table 4.2). The first phase (2002–2004) served as the testing period for the use of drones for the elimination of HVTs in targeted states. The second phase (2005–2007) was characterized by slight increases in strikes on HVTs. The third phase (2007–2008) consisted of the escalation of drone strikes in targeted states.

Table 4.1 Phases of bush drone warfare
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Table 4.2 Drone strikes and casualty figures in the bush era
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The initial phase of Bush's drone warfare commenced in mid-November 2001 when a drone strike successfully killed Mohammed Atef, an al-Qaeda military commander. Subsequently, another CIA drone strike took place in the Maarib province of north-eastern Yemen, resulting in the elimination of six al-Qaeda militants, including Salim Sanin al-Harethi, and marking the first instance of a drone strike killing an American citizen, Kamal Derwish (Hudson et al., 2011). In 2004, the next significant attack targeted and killed Nek Mohammed, a prominent member of the Taliban and a former Mujahedeen. The total number of High-Value Targets (HVTs) killed during this period, based on published data from TBIJ, is estimated to be around five or six. The second phase of drone warfare mainly unfolded in Pakistan, witnessing a slight increase in drone strikes targeting al-Qaeda and Taliban HVTs in the remote FATA region. However, some reports have presented conflicting information, suggesting that most of the targets killed during this phase were low-value targets (LVTs) rather than high-ranking members of the al-Qaeda core (Boyle, 2013). Nonetheless, this phase did see the elimination of Hamza Rabia, the number three in the chain of command in al-Qaeda. The third phase marked a pivotal shift in strategy, as the use of drones for leadership decapitation became a key component. Lethal drone strikes were intensified in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia, leading to the elimination of a greater number of HVTs (see Table 4.3). This phase demonstrated the growing significance of drone warfare in the Bush administration's approach to combating terrorism and securing national interests.

Table 4.3 Drone strikes against HVTs in the third phase of the bush administration's drone warfare
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The rationale for the use of drones for leadership targeting is expressed in the 2003 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism (NSCT). The document highlighted the intersection between leadership decapitation and the collapse of terrorist organizations.

The terrorist leadership provides the overall direction and strategy that links all these factors and thereby breathes life into a terror campaign. The leadership becomes the catalyst for terrorist action. The loss of leadership can cause many organizations to collapse. Some groups, however, are more resilient and can promote new leadership should the original fall or fail. Still, others have adopted a more decentralized organization with largely autonomous cells, making our challenge even greater.

Thus, the focus of drone strikes for the Bush administration was the elimination of leaders affiliated with global al-Qaeda and its affiliates. As a counterterrorism tool, it demonstrated that the US could leverage the precision and lethal weapon capabilities of drone technology for leadership decapitation when targets were identified and intelligence matched the kill order (Boyle, 2013). The success of drones in eliminating HVTs like Salim Sinan al-Harethi—who was targeted for his involvement in the October 2000 USS Cole bombing and the October 2002 Limburg attack—and Nek Mohammed, a senior Taliban leader in Pakistan, gave the Bush administration the impression that if limited drone strikes were successful at leadership decapitation and terrorist disruption, more strikes would be even better. The logic behind this argument is that drone strikes create a climate of fear among terrorist targets by fracturing their organization and eventually leading to their collapse (Rae, 2014). In writings discovered after his death, Osama bin Laden lamented the impact of drone strikes and recommended that Al-Qaeda leaders flee Waziristan to safer terrain to avoid them (Minhas & Qadir, 2014).

The US process behind making the decision to launch a decapitation strike through targeted killings is worth noting here. According to Gallarotti (2010), this involves (i) deciding if the target is a significant threat to US interests, (ii) cognizance of state sovereignty issues, (iii) high confidence in the target’s identity, and (iv) that innocent civilians will not be harmed and, finally, (v) engaging in an additional review process if the individual is a US citizen.

4.4 Conjuring Drone Use During the Bush Administration

The domestic rationale for lethal drones was predicated on the AUMF. The AUMF not only expanded the executive powers of US presidents to use force for matters of national security but also served as the basis for the rationalization of lethal drone strikes for Bush’s preemptive and preventive attacks in targeted states. The Bush administration further maintained that Article 51 of the UN Charter gave the US the authority to act in self-defence against high-level targets who were planning attacks, both in and out of declared theatres of war (Shaw & Ahkter, 2014).

Since their first lethal use, the precision, accuracy, and disruptive effects of drones on terrorist groups have helped to avoid the costs of conventional war—civilian and soldier deaths and collateral damage. This is premised on the idea that drones are more capable than human beings in gathering and processing information precisely, rapidly, and flexibly (Byman, 2013). Similar arguments assert that drones provide the US with greater incentive and capacity to defend itself from external aggression through the projection of force (Hazelton, 2012).

At an operational level, one of the many US responses in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks was the increase in the buildup of military and intelligence capabilities and the establishment of new military bases in Asia, including a new military command in Africa. This occasioned a rise in defence expenditures and emphasized the imperative of counterinsurgency initiatives for dealing with the new security threats in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Under Bush, drones initially served ISR functions, with limited lethality on the battlefield, but by the end of the administration and as a result of the change in his administration’s grand strategy, they had become weaponized tools for CT and COIN operations that more directly and forcefully served the offensive aspects of the Bush doctrine.

Relatedly, As Aqil Shah (2016) recounts, America’s experience in Afghanistan and Iraq showed that a quick and decisive victory over the Taliban and Iraqi forces did not result in the complete destruction of the militant groups. In Iraq, armed groups mounted sustained attacks on US forces resulting in high military casualties. According to the US Department of Defense, the US has lost 4,487 service personnel in Iraq since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom on 19 March 2003. By 31 August 2010, when the last US combat troops left, 4421 had been killed. In Afghanistan, US troops weakened but did not completely dismantle or eliminate the Taliban. The Afghan War caused al-Qaeda’s senior leadership to take haven in Pakistan’s FATA following the fall of the Taliban. This made it difficult for the US to bring to bear the extraordinary advantage in conventional military power it had in Afghanistan and Iraq and compounded the pressure (discussed in the next paragraph) on the US to make quick and decisive progress in Afghanistan, which required dismantling al-Qaeda’s haven in Pakistan (Khan, 2014).

The expectation that American military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq would be withdrawn as soon as stable and effective government institutions were created proved erroneous—meaning the US faced a choice between supporting a long-term presence in both countries or decreasing its military footprint and risking a protracted war and the overthrow of its local allies (Walsh, 2018). Also, al-Qaeda’s clandestine transnational network became increasingly complex for the US to track, disrupt, and dismantle, especially as it established links with other armed groups and terrorist affiliations as far away as Southeast Asia, Northern and Eastern Africa, and the Middle East (Yousaf, 2017).

The onset of intense violence, the rising cost of war, mounting American soldier deaths, increasing uncertainty over the US democracy promotion mission in Iraq, and the perception that the administration lacked an exit strategy and a defined path to victory served to undermine President Bush’s foreign policy and public support for it (Miller, 2006). Initially, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan received the support of a majority of Republicans and Democrats in Congress and from the majority of the American public. Pew Research conducted in 2013 when the Iraq War began in March 2003 showed more than seven in ten Americans (73%) supported the use of force, including 93% of Republicans, 66% of Independents, and 59% of Democrats. Towards the end of the George W. Bush administration, support for military action in Iraq had plummeted, with only 17% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans supporting the war (Pew Research Center, 2011). Thus, the use of drones under Bush, particularly in the latter stages of the administration, offered a way to continue the conflicts in the Middle East without sapping public support.

The Bush administration’s experience in Iraq following the invasion of 2003 thus made the use of drone strikes a more attractive strategy (Gurtov, 2006). As their use in the latter part of the administration showed, drones became a manifestation of primacy and hard power empowerment for an offensive liberal grand strategy. Used in this way, drones fulfilled an important objective of aggressively countering terrorism as “an assertive and determined strategy to rollback threats that challenge US national security” (Nau, 2012). In sum, the use of drones after 9/11 under Bush reflected not only America’s technological and military power but also reiterated the commitment of the US to act alone in defeating al-Qaeda and its affiliates. This pivotal role was expressed in its utility as a tool for the propagation of a form of “American First” multi-unilateralism—which advocates the use of brute force when US interest is threatened without compromising the benefit and necessity of multilateral cooperation (Walsh, 2018).

4.5 The Dilemma of Drone Warfare for the Bush Administration’s Grand Strategy

Since the 9/11 attacks, drones have played an important yet controversial role in US counterterrorism strategy. Despite the acknowledged utility of drones for targeted killings, reducing troop deployment, and casualty figures, the intensification of their use in targeted states had several negative effects. Ultimately, they worked at cross-purposes with the more liberal elements of the Bush administration’s grand strategy and undermined efforts to promote democracy in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. This was due to the countervailing democratic reactions engendered in the aftermath of drone strikes in these targeted states, such as local protests against their use, unintended civilian death, anti-American sentiments, and militant recruitment and violence. From this lens, rather than consolidating democratic promotion, drone use triggered the conditions that undermined it.

A number of scholars have taken up this line of reasoning. The use of drones against HVTs from 2002–2007, as Kilcullen (2010) avers caused indignation about their use in targeted states. They argue that drones engendered three effects that undermined their use (these assertions are supported by data outlined in the next paragraph). First, they created a siege mentality in targeted states, triggering a blowback effect for unintended civilian deaths and collateral damage. Second, drone strikes sparked opposition from the population in target areas and increased anti-American sentiments due to the moral and territorial issues associated with their use. Third, drones externalize the burden of war. This approximates Krieg and Rickli’s (2018) explanation that drones are an instrument of “surrogate warfare”—which places the burden of war on human and technological surrogates, particularly in instances where the US judges no vital American interest to be at stake. This is analogous to what Shaw and Akhter (2014) call the “dronification of state violence,” which highlights the shifting pattern of US state violence towards the inclusion of weaponized drones.

More specifically, attempts to expand the offensive liberal strategy of the Bush doctrine beyond Iraq to Pakistan and Afghanistan appeared self-defeating and disempowering for the US. The reliance on drones as a tactic for targeted killing operations of terrorists increased the cause of anti-Western militancy and engendered political opposition in targeted states that supported drone operations (Gallarotti, 2015). Boyle (2013) contends that the way the US used its power in the WOT increased American vulnerability by energizing terrorism and galvanizing support for anti-Western movements within the countries in which drone strikes occurred. Hazelton adds, “drone strikes appeared to inflame existing enmities the US had prior to 9/11 by creating a web of fear and vulnerability in targeted states” (Hazelton, 2012). The next paragraph supports the case that drone strikes inflame anti-American sentiments in targeted states. A recent study by David Jaeger and Zahra Siddique (2018) outlines the negative feedback in targeted states and the perception of the US as a military threat following drone strikes during the Bush era. The study reported the vengeance effects of drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan based on an analysis of terrorist datas attacks on the Taliban from January 2005 to September 2011. The study showed that drone strikes induced further violence through vengeance by the Taliban.

A 2010 poll based on a sample of 1,000 residents in all seven FATA agencies showed that 76% of respondents opposed drone strikes; only 16 percent thought that such strikes accurately target insurgents, and 48 percent believed that the strikes largely kill civilians (Bergen & Tiedemann, 2012). Moreover, 60 percent believed that suicide attacks against the US were “sometimes” or “always” justified. Bergen and Tiedemann (2011), who conducted the survey, used these figures to claim that suicide attackers are popular across FATA and that the main motivation for anti-American militancy “stems from anger at CIA-directed drone strikes at militants living in the area.”

Kilcullen and Exum (2009) imply that the aftermath of drones in targeted states elevates the level of anti-American sentiment, which is counterproductive for US objectives to win the hearts and minds of the population in targeted states. This is against the backdrop of the siege mentality drone fosters in targeted states akin to what transpired in Somalia in 2005 and 2006, where targeted attacks against Union of Islamic Courts forces caused the Islamist's popularity to soar and consequently emboldened the use of extremist tactics. This eventually resulted in the military intervention in Ethiopia, a surge in the regional insurgency, and a rise in offshore pirate activities. Thus, while insurgency is usually unpopular, domestic outrage emanating from faceless drone attacks that kill innocent civilians makes the former less ominous. From this lens, instead of drones to advance the strategic objectives of the US, it creates negative outcomes that serve to undermine it.

As Ashan Iqbal cited in Williams (2010), of the Muslim League Party (MLP) notes, the Islamist parties have used the pretext of the aftermath of drone strikes to mobilize thousands of followers throughout Pakistan in large protests in Punjab, North West Frontier Province, and Sindh. To this end, the excessive reliance on hard power (and drones) in dealing with terrorism under the Bush era rather than improve the US image as a promoter of democracy, or address terrorism through legal mechanisms, served to undermine it.

Drone strikes have been argued to spur militant recruitment and retaliation in targeted states (Gusterson, 2016). It is, however, hard to prove a direct causation between drone strikes and militant retaliation—that the increase in suicide bombings was related to the emergence of insurgencies in targeted states that would probably have occurred even had drone strikes not been happening. For instance, insurgent action against the Pakistani government has been ongoing prior to drone strikes, particularly in FATA and NWFR. This was established by Luqman and colleagues, based on a comparative analysis of the mean deviation of suicide attacks following drone strikes interval between the Bush and Obama. The report determined that at least one suicide attack occurred 3-days after each drone attack—compared to one in 20 days under Obama (Saaed et al., 2019). They attributed their findings to drone attacks killing more children and women under Bush, which caused more reprisal actions compared to Obama, who had “cleaner” or surgical strikes.

However, drones clearly fuelled the conditions under which these insurgencies grew. Boyle (2013), for example, argues that there is a substantive relationship between the increasing number of drone strikes and the mounting number of retaliation attacks. As data published by the TBIJ 2014 report shows, for every high-profile, purposeful attack by the US, many more low-profile attacks take place. This position is supported by a report published by the CIA (2009) on HVTs:

The potential negative effect of high-level target operations includes increasing the level of insurgent support, strengthening an armed group's bonds with the population, radicalizing an insurgent group's remaining leaders, creating a vacuum into which more radical groups can enter, and escalating or de-escalating a conflict in ways that favour the insurgents.

Drone attacks generate what Kilcullen (2009) describes as the “accidental-guerrilla” phenomenon—which explains that drones incentivize the militarization of the locals and increases the propensity of reprisal attacks. Acknowledging the accidental guerrilla phenomenon, Shah (2018) writes, “the new combatants unable to retaliate against the US within FATA, crossed over the border into Afghanistan, where US troops, NATO forces, and Afghan security forces are concentrated and present easily identifiable targets by joining the ranks of groups like the Pakistani Taliban, whose attacks within Pakistan destabilize the US-Pakistani alliance.”

These “new combatants” contribute to the growth of terrorist cells, which hinder US counterinsurgency operations. This implies that the use of drones as a decapitation strategy served as a propaganda tool for the creation of accidental guerrillas in targeted states—a consequence of which engendered a paradox of Bush CT operations. Articulating this, Jessica Wolfendale (2016) stated that “counterterrorism policies that are intended to enhance security often have a counterproductive and paradoxical effect.” This corresponds to a modified version of security dilemma analysis which explains situations where the actions taken by a state to increase its own security cause reactions from other states, leading to a decrease rather than an increase in the state’s security (Tang, 2009).

Data published by the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) supports this, as retaliatory attacks in Pakistan increased with the intensification of US counterterrorism operations. This corresponds with evidence from research on terrorist radicalization and recruitment between 2004 and 2008, which reported a steady rise in attacks by suicide bombers in Afghanistan and Pakistan—the two main centres for the Bush-era drone strikes (Leffler, 2011). Though a recent study by Shah based on interviews and surveys of “well-informed” respondents in FATA, Pakistan, discredits the credibility of militant recruitment following drone strikes, his study still confirms drone strikes as contributing to the precarious security situation in Pakistan.

The use of drones as a CT instrument of statecraft under Bush came at a high price for US soft power. Drones emphasized US hard power, which complicated its strategic mission in Afghanistan, as well as affected its fragile relationship with Pakistan (Minhas & Qadir, 2014). The negative feedback of the new drone policy, particularly in targeted states, undermined the domestic and international soft power of the administration’s foreign policy. According to Byman (2013), drones caused “enormous pressure for governing structures in these countries while at the same time worsening social volatility in the target area with an unpredictable outcome.” This was the case in Pakistan, where the intensification of drone strikes culminated in a series of protests against the Pakistani government for aiding the US in killing its citizens.

Likewise, the US COIN mission in Afghanistan also became a victim of two forms of blowback. The first blowback arose from the feeling of asymmetric vulnerability from non-combatants on the ground in the target area. The feeling resulted in the desire to fight back and inflamed national sentiment against the use of drones. The second blowback is that drones potentially engender stiff resistance to local authorities in targeted states which are shown to be powerless (or even complicit) to stop drone strikes over their territories (Sadat, 2012). The point here is that the Bush administration’s drone attacks served to further destabilize an already fragile nation by deepening divides between the citizenry that abhors the attacks and the government institutions that tolerate or facilitate them.

4.6 Chapter Summary

In this chapter, the role of drones in the grand strategy of the Bush administration has been critically assessed. One of the key arguments is that drones served as a tool for facilitating US offensive liberal strategies under Bush. The utility of drones for targeted killings, leadership decapitation, and as an instrument of statecraft in targeted states were also highlighted. The overarching argument in this chapter is that drone strikes in targeted states undermined rather than supported US grand strategy, especially towards the end of the Bush administration. Furthermore, the use of drones by Bush for CT set a precedent that made them attractive to other states and non-state actors, and while substantial armed drone proliferation did not take place until the Obama administration, their use under Bush established a legacy for the advancement and development of armed drones. As such, the US would lose its US monopoly on drone technology (this is further investigated later in the book).

In the next chapter, the Obama administration’s use of drone warfare and its impact on US grand strategy is examined. Is there a continuation of the US offensive liberal agenda under Obama? Did his foreign policy show continuity with Bush doctrine? How and to what extent were drones used to facilitate US strategy? Were they successful? What undermined it? These questions are a core interest in the next chapter. The chapter also provides an assessment of Obama's drone policy in particular, and more specifically for drones and US grand strategy.