…majority support for drone strikes may be fragile precisely because they put civilians at risk. But support is unlikely to soften if there is no one to lead the opposition. And when Republicans like Graham are saying that drone strikes against terrorists are “one of the highlights of President Obama’s first term,” I wouldn’t expect opposition leaders to emerge any time soon.
That’s the conclusion of my latest post at Wonkblog, drawing in particular on this survey experiment by James Igoe Walsh. The post is here.
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Nice Wonkblog post. One of the things that’s interesting to me about the drone discussion (it really doesn’t rise to the level of a debate) is that the use of drones seems qualitatively little different from other military measures that significantly reduce offensive casualties such as high altitude bombing, long-range artillery, snipers, overwhelming air superiority in a combat zone, even night vision technology. One who is opposed to the use of drones yet not opposed to these other measures seems to be guilty of logical inconsistency (not that we all aren’t from time to time).
I did want in particular to commend you for the caveat you wrote concerning the Walsh 2012 survey: “There is reason to treat these findings with some caution. It is just one experiment and the subjects were not a random sample of the American public.” That’s a caveat that could–and should–be heard more more often concerning plenty of single-experiment research using convenience samples.
That caveat was Walsh’s as well!
The claim that there is no support for opposition because there is no leader is a weak argument to support the author’s findings that most Americans support the use of drones. Also, the author indicates that the subjects were not a random sample–this invalidates the argument because the American population is not adequately represented.