An Empirical Analysis of Targeted Killing

The Lawfare Podcast

The Lawfare Institute

Military, Intelligence, International Law, Constitutional Law, Rule Of Law, Politics, International Relations, News, Government, History, Diplomacy, Terrorism, National Security, Current Events, Law, Foreign Policy

4.7 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2022

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What does the American public actually know concretely about the effectiveness of U.S. drone strikes? Jack Goldsmith sat down with Mitt Regan, a professor at Georgetown Law School and the co-director of its Center on National Security and Law, who seeks to answer this question in his new book, “Drone Strike—Analyzing the Impacts of Targeted Killing.” They discussed his deep analysis of the empirical literature on the effectiveness of targeted strikes outside active theaters of combat against al-Qaeda and affiliates and the impact of these strikes on civilians. They also explore the theoretical challenges to real empirical knowledge of these questions, the extent to which drone strikes have contributed to security within the United States, and what his findings imply about the consequences of the impact of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair
0:07.2	podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair.
0:14.7	That's patreon.com slash LawFair.
0:18.2	Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair
0:25.6	no bull and the aftermath.
0:33.9	You can see contemporaneous correspondence that describes the disruptive and destructive
0:40.5	impact that these strikes are having the ways in which they are limiting mobility, the
0:46.7	ways in which they're limiting ability to communicate with the rest of the network,
0:52.0	the difficulty in replacing people who are sufficiently capable.
0:57.1	And eventually, in that case, the directive by bin Laden himself to evacuate leadership
1:03.8	from the tribal areas.
1:05.9	And in addition, in other kinds of cases, there are interviews that just help flesh out
1:13.5	what the numbers can tell us.
1:14.7	So what I tried to do was take a look at all those forms of evidence and come to the best
1:23.1	conclusion that I could draw about what the impacts had been.
1:28.1	I'm Jack Goldsmith and this is the LawFair podcast of June 8, 2022.
1:34.8	What does the American public actually know concretely about the effectiveness of US drone
1:39.8	strikes?
1:40.8	I sat down with Mitt Regan, a professor at Georgetown Law School and the co-director of its
1:46.4	Center on National Security and Law, who seeks to answer this question in his new book,
1:51.7	drone strike, analyzing the impacts of targeted killing.
1:56.0	We discussed his deep analysis of the empirical literature on the effectiveness of targeting
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Lawfare Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Lawfare Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.