Wargame of Drones: Remotely Piloted Aircraft and Crisis Escalation

• Author: Erik Lin-Greenberg
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00220027221106960
• Published date: 01 November 2022
• Date: 01 November 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Journal of Conf‌lict Resolution

2022, Vol. 66(10) 1737–1765

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00220027221106960

journals.sagepub.com/home/jcr

Wargame of Drones:

Remotely Piloted Aircraft and

Crisis Escalation

Erik Lin-Greenberg

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Abstract

How do drones affect escalation dynamics? The emerging consensus from scholarship

on drones highlights increased conf‌lict initiation when drones allow decisionmakers to

avoid the risks of deploying inhabited platforms, but far less attention has been paid to

understanding how drones affect conf‌lict escalation. Limited theorization and empirical

testing have left debates unresolved. I unpack the underlying mechanisms inf‌luencing

escalation decisions involving drones by proposing a logic of remote-controlle d restraint:

drones limit escalation in ways not possible when inhabited assets are used. To test this

logic and explore its instrumental and emotional microfoundations, I f‌ield "comparative

wargames." I immerse national security professionals in crisis scenarios that vary

whether a drone or inhabited aircraft is shot down. I validate wargame f‌indings using a

survey experiment. The wargames shed light on the microfoundations of escalation,

highlight limits of existing theories, and demonstrate the utility of comparative war-

gaming as an IR research tool.

Keywords

politics of emerging technologies, escalation, interstate crises, wargame, drones

In October 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian drone that had strayed into Turkish

airspace. Russia publicly ignored the incident and took no observable retaliatory

1

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Erik Lin-Greenberg, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, E40-491, Cambridge,

MA 02139, USA.

Email: eriklg@mit.edu

measures (Coskun 2015).

1

In stark contrast, after Turkey downed an inhabited Russian

jet just 1 month later, Russia launched airstrikes on Turkish-backed rebels and supply

convoys in Syria (Bertrand 2015;Lowen 2015).

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What factors—instrumental and

emotional—underpin the radically different responses to the loss of drones and in-

habited platforms? More broadly, how do remote warf‌ighting technologies affect

decisions on escalation during interstate crises?

Prominent international relations (IR) theories expect belligerents to initiate conf‌lict

when technology reduces the costs and risks of military operations (Jervis 1976;Va n

Evera 2001). Accordingly, the emerging consensus from scholarship on drones

highlights increased conf‌lict initiation when drones allow decisionmakers to avoid the

risks of deploying inhabited platforms. Far less attention has been paid to understanding

and empirically testing how drones affect conf‌lict escalation. The limited scholarship

addressing the link between drones and escalation is largely conceptual. It leaves

unexplored the underlying mechanisms, provides limited empirical evidence, and

yields mixed results about whether drones contribute to escalation (Horowitz, Kreps,

and Fuhrmann 2016;Mahnken, Sharp, and Kim 2020;Lyall 2020).

I intervene in these debates by developing a logic of remote-controlled restraint and

test it using an innovative methodological approach: comparative wargaming.

3

The

logic expects that when used as a substitute for inhabited assets during interstate crises,

drones (and other remotely operated weapons) can help prevent crises from escalating

into broader conf‌licts in ways not possible when inhabited platforms are used.

Technologies that allow decisionmakers to conduct operations without putting friendly

personnel in harm’s way reduce the potential human costs of military action. On one

hand, this can mitigate the political obstacles associated with dispatching troops,

enabling states to deploy drones more often than inhabited assets (Kaag and Kreps

2014). On the other, drones may ameliorate subsequent escalation spirals. Relative to

the loss of an inhabited platform to hostile action, the loss of a drone should be less

escalatory for two reasons. First, it is less likely to elicit an instrumental desire to

degrade a rival’s military capabilities. Second, it is less likely to trigger emotions like

anger that contribute to aggressive, risk-acceptant behavior. In turn, leaders should take

more restrained retaliatory measures following an attack on a drone. Since a state’s

response to an attack is a key determinant of whether a crisis escalates, drones can alter

the dynamics of crisis escalation.

To test remote-controlled restraint, I f‌ield original comparative wargames, which

merge a military tool (wargaming) with social science techniques (case study and

experimental research design). I recruit national security practitioners to participate in

scenario-based exercises that feature the shootdown of a U.S. military aircraft. In the

games, I randomly vary whether the aircraft is inhabited and ask participants to

formulate a response plan. By holding all other scenario elements constant and re-

peating the wargames several times with different participants, I create “control”and

“treatment”games to qualitatively explore whether and why drones help limit esca-

lation. The wargames, which I validate using survey experiments f‌ielded on military

off‌icers, provide support for the logic of remote-controlled restraint.

1738 Journal of Conf‌lict Resolution 66(10)