Eighteen months.

Eighteen months passed between the presidential authorization of a strike on an American citizen without judicial approval and the public admission of the massive civil rights violation. The act: an administration-sanctioned drone killing of Anwar al-Awlaki and his son that, two weeks ago, rose back to national consciousness when a federal judge began to question the legality of President Obama’s extrajudicial executions. The case illuminates the perils of drone warfare, which epitomizes the complicated moral calculus that America has faced since Iraqi rebel retaliation, has prompted decentralized warfare across the Middle East.

Drones were first used near the turn of the century for reconnaissance both in Desert Storm and Kosovo. In 2002, the government had 167 drones that it used for intelligence on state enemies—in particular, Saddam Hussein. The unmanned aerial vehicles offer many benefits to commanders. Not only do they remove soldiers from the field of combat, but they also allow the military to strategically deploy resources without worries of being stretched as thin. At the time of its invention, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that it, along with quickly developing cyber warfare, would revolutionize the way combat was fought in the 21st century.

Across the Middle East—Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.—American military forces have utilized guerilla warfare tactics on their enemies, fighting in a region where friends and foes are not easily distinguishable. Nationless terrorist groups aren’t contained by geographic boundaries and cannot be overcome by invasion. Additionally, unfamiliarity with a hostile region further complicates the difficult situation soldiers face abroad.

Enter drones.

The drone program has increased almost 40-fold since being first used in the “war on terror” by Bush in Pakistan. Since the count in 2002, the program has expanded to 7,500 drones in 2010, with the CIA—an intelligence agency with no combat fleet—acquiring 35 of their own.

The growing motivation behind all of this? To keep America safe from those who would threaten her citizens without risking the lives of her residents: in short, preventing another 9/11 while keeping soldiers safely at home. The burden for this, the responsibility for the safety of a nation, rests squarely on the shoulders of the commander-in-chief, the country’s political and military leader. Having the onus of protecting a nation of 300 million is a unique curse, however, and Bush and Obama have taken it upon themselves to fulfill this sacred duty by whatever means necessary.

The libertarian argument against drones is easy to understand. It’s easy to see the expansion of the drone program in the eyes of libertarians. Columnists Glenn Greenwald and Conor Friedersdorf contend that the extrajudicial killings amount to a metaphorical middle finger to the Fifth Amendment and the guarantees of due process and a right to life that it guarantees. Taking the lives of innocents—which drone strikes do with regularity—without soliciting the opinion from an independent judiciary is easily immoral. Circuiting the War Powers Act by using combat devices without officially declaring war short-circuits the separation of powers process and allows the executive branch to claim previously unexplored powers. Abroad, the killing of innocents helps to create anti-American sentiment in popular drone locations like Yemen, where Friedersdorf argues that the strikes serve as an inadvertent al-Qaeda recruiting tool.

By no means can I sanction the extrajudicial killings that our presidents have launched, but their position—which must be explored in an age of increasingly decentralized warfare—involves a unique set of moral obligations. Friedersdorf’s concerns about liberty and the deaths of innocents abroad presumes that every life abroad is viewed the same as an American one. This idea isn’t reconcilable with the role presidents have in protecting the safety of the nation. Commanders-in-chief weigh the lives of American citizens differently and cannot ignore threats on the health of their constituency, no matter how tenuous. Drone strikes offer an easy reconciliation of the problem for presidents, with American lives saved at home and American interests protected abroad. Is this right? No. Is it convenient? Yes.

Under conventional morality, there are a host of problems with drones. The actions of the past two administrations have licensed a president to be judge, jury, and executioner. By many accounts, Anwar al-Awlaki was not the al-Qaeda operative he was suspected to be—although he had connections to the Fort Hood shootings, malicious intent has not yet been proven. His innocent son perished in the bombings, his life snuffed out without a trial or even a defense.

However, the responsibilities of the president involve a very different moral calculus. A commander-in-chief has his first, second, and third obligations to the people who elected him to protect them. One cannot tackle this problem without acknowledging the president’s dual role as the military’s leader; presidents are in charge of the nation’s safety as much as they are the economy.

Drones are only the beginning in an army of technological advances (cyber warfare, nanorobots, etc.) that will enable a president to keep America safe with soldiers safely at home. Already drones have been involved in the pursuit and assassination of Osama bin Laden, with cyber warfare used to retard Iranian efforts to develop nuclear technology. They are a symbol of expanded executive power but more than that, of a unique set of logic. Obama must weigh every innocent life taken in a drone strike against those of soldiers he has taken out of the danger zone. He is responsible for the safety of 300 million persons, not seven billion. The expansion of the self-preservation instinct isn’t moral in conventional terms, but for a man whose elected duty it is to protect his country, operating by whatever means necessary has become part of the job description.

David P. Freed ’16 is a Crimson editorial writer in Mather House. Follow him on Twitter @CrimsonDPFreed.