To test technology-enabled escalation control, I use a mixed-method research design that leverages both experimental and observational approaches. I combine experiments embedded in
61 Matthew Fuhrmann and Michael C. Horowitz, “Droning On: Explaining the Proliferation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” International Organization 71, no. 2 (Spring 2017): 397–418.
62Ankit Panda, “Meet China’s East China Sea Drones,” The Diplomat, June 30, 2015, https://thediplomat.com/2015/06/meet-chinas-east-china-sea-drones/.
63 Alexander Fulbright, “Iranian Drone Shot down in Northern Israel in February Was Armed with Explosives,” The Times of Israel, April 13, 2018, https://www.timesofisrael.com/iranian-drone-shot-down-in-northern-israel-in-february-was-armed-with-explosives/; Khalil Dewan, “Why Are Iran’s Drones Crossing into Pakistani Airspace?,”
Middle East Monitor, July 11, 2017, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170711-why-are-irans-drones-crossing-into-pakistani-airspace/.
64 Ramananda Sengupta, “India Unperturbed by Drone Sale to Pakistan- The New Indian Express,” The New Indian Express, October 11, 2018, http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2018/oct/11/india-unperturbed-by-drone-sale-to-pakistan-1883942.html; Imtiaz Ahmad, “India Denies Its Drone Shot down by Pakistan along LoC,” The Hindustan Times, January 3, 2019, https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/india-denies-its-drone-shot-down-by-pakistan/story-8vUAq8aP3RyS8JafNjUbHN.html.
military wargames, survey experiments fielded on expert and public samples in the United States, and nested case studies of U.S. and Israeli drone operations. The various components of the research design allow me to probe and compare how drones affect preferences for escalation across different groups of actors in different countries. Wargames and surveys fielded on military officers allow me to test if and how drones affect military decision-making on escalation. Surveys fielded on public samples allow me to assess whether members of the public are more supportive of operations carried out by drones than those conducted using manned assets, and whether they demand different reactions after a rival’s attack on a manned aircraft than an attack on a remotely operated one. Case studies allow me to move beyond hypothetical experimental scenarios to investigate whether and how drones shape decisions made by actual senior civilian and military leaders during real world crises. By examining drone use by both the United States and Israel, the case studies allow me to compare whether different political, security, and cultural contexts influence the effect of drones on escalation.
The project draws from fieldwork in Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas, where I gathered archival materials and conducted extensive interviews that provide firsthand insights into national security decision-making. During research at military and presidential archives, I unearthed documentary evidence of how drones affected decisions on escalation and the use of force from the tactical to strategic levels. I discovered numerous records including assessments of drone missions over China and minutes of National Security Council meetings where Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and President Lyndon Johnson discussed whether to launch drones or manned aircraft on missions over Cuba. I also conducted over 70 interviews with subjects ranging from drone operators and intelligence analysts to former national security advisors, generals, and
senior defense officials from more than a dozen states including the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and Israel.
While interview and archival materials shed light on how decisionmakers factor drones into strategic and operational planning, these observational data alone are insufficient for assessing whether drones contribute to more or less escalation than manned assets. This is because real world events do not allow us to observe both an incident where a drone is involved and the counterfactual:
the exact same incident, but where a manned aircraft is involved instead of the drone. More formally, the observational data suffer from the fundamental problem of causal inference: It is impossible to observe the degree of escalation following an incident involving a drone and the same incident involving a manned aircraft. As a result, it is impossible to measure the causal effect of drones on escalatory dynamics on the basis of such data alone.65
To overcome this challenge, I use a variety of experimental approaches to generate original data that I use to identify the causal effect of drones on escalatory dynamics. I rely on survey experiments in which military officers and members of the public answer questions about preferences for escalation in a variety of hypothetical crises, where I vary whether drones or manned assets are involved. These survey instruments also collect qualitative inputs from free response questions that allow me to assess the mechanisms underlying respondent preferences. I also introduce a methodological approach that is new to the social sciences – embedding experimental manipulations into wargames played by teams of military personnel.
As chapter three describes in greater detail, I design a scenario-based exercise in which participants are exposed to various crises that have the potential to escalate: the shootdown of a
65 Archival materials can shed light on the decision-making process leading to the deployment or non-deployment of certain types of assets or specific reactions to incidents, yet a more controlled comparison through experimental research enables more robust inferences. To be sure, however, these experiments face challenges of external validity.
U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane, the intrusion of an adversary’s attack aircraft into friendly airspace, and an operation to strike a rival’s chemical weapons facility. In each of these scenarios I randomly vary whether a drone or manned assets are involved and ask participants to develop a response to the crisis. By holding all other elements of the scenario constant across the wargaming teams (i.e. treatment groups), the research design allows me to identify how drones affect decisions on escalation. Interaction between participants during the wargames also provides rich qualitative insights on the assumptions and logics that inform decisions on the use of force. I replicate the wargames multiple times to explore and document trends in decision-making among military personnel.