Thread by @RikeFranke

The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation has put out a good report on German #drones.

Whaat, Rike siding with the LINKE?!
Well no, but I can appreciate good research and (overall) coherent arguments.
(Short thread)

rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_…

The report is written by @matthimon who has been working on this for many years (I spoke with him for my PhD research ages ago).
He clearly knows his stuff and the report is a good overview of German #drone capabilities.

A sidenote here: there is little love lost between me and the LINKE but they have been playing a great role in German drone politics through their inquiries (questions to the government). I used these questions and answers extensively in my research. That's just good politics.

Beyond the facts about which drones Germany flew when, of course there aren't that many points the author and I agree on. But there is at least this one: he agrees that there really now has been quite a discussion about drones in Germany!

But of course, there are lost of points I disagree with, so let's look at those.

Twice we find the argument that if Germany takes a decision against the procurement of armed drones, it would "take a stance", and "send a signal" to others, especially partners.
I understand that this *sounds* right, but nothing I have heard or seen supports this. ...

... Our partners don't care. Or rather, they care about the capabilities we actually *have*, but not the ones we don't. Given how Europeans either already have or are procuring armed #drones, I just don't think Germany has that role.

BTW, this isn't just my view, but my favourite @Sicherheitspod colleagues made a similar point when we discussed this in our #DrohnenDebatte2020 episode (from min 00:32:37) soundcloud.com/sicherheitshal…

This one I don't quite get:
"What is certain is that the inhibition threshold for their use will decrease. The Bundeswehr confirmed this in the 'drone debate' by complaining that it was often 'condemned to watch' with its unarmed drones".

That the Bundeswehr complains that they couldn't act when they wanted to (because they had no armed drones), doesn't mean that drones *lower the inhibition* to use force. There was no inhibition - rather there was no capability. So that argument doesn't work for me.

The paper also has a preface by Norbert Schepers und Ingar Solty, and, that is actually a pretty well argumented case against armed #drones.

Again, I don't agree with their take, but in the German drone debate we've had such bad arguments for so long that I genuinely appreciate this. (SPD, I'm sorry but the LINKE actually does this better than you here...)

A few points from that essay:
"As credible as [the statement that drones won't be used for extralegal killings] may be for the moment, it is certain that the technology, once acquired, can be used at any time in the future as instruments in a policy of extrajudicial killings."

THAT is the point. That is the crux of the matter. It's about trust. Trust in the political decisions of future governments, trust in the Bundeswehr. And many opponents of armed #drones just don't have that.

So the argument isn't so much (or shouldn't be) "armed drones are evil", but it's "we don't want to give future governments/our military means that can be misused".
Now that argument shouldn't just apply to drones. But it is much more coherent than "evil drones!".

This is where armed drone opponents and proponents diverge in the end. * I * believe the German government when they tell me they won't start US-style targeted killings outside of official battlespaces. And I don't think future govs are likely either. The authors disagree.

Alright, this thread wasn't short in the end, but I will end here.
The report is useful. That's how you participate in the Drohnendebatte.
rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_…

(sorry, one addendum for the non-Germans, in case this wasn't clear from "Rosa Luxemburg Foundation": This is the political foundation of the LINKE party, the most left party in the German parliament, descendant to the East-German SED. So yeah, not my kinda crowd 😁)