International law prohibits the use of armed force unless the United Nations Security Council authorizes an attack, or in the case of self-defense.

But short of launching a full war, drones can legally be deployed for counterterrorism operations, surveillance and other non-self-defense needs, creating a slippery slope to military conflict.

Figuring out the national and international rules of the sky for drone usage is hard.

For 20 years, experts have tried to create international agreements on arms – and some countries supported an informal 2016 U.N. agreement that recommends countries document the import and export of unmanned aerial vehicles.

But these efforts never evolved into serious, comprehensive standards and laws that kept pace with technology. There are several reasons for that. In order protect their national sovereignty, governments do not want to release drone data. They also want to avoid duplication of their technology and to maintain their market share of the drone trade.

The U.S. has wrestled with how to balance drone warfare as it became involved in overseas operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and other conflict zones.

The U.S. killed a top al-Qaida leader with a drone strike in Afghanistan in 2022.

But there have been other instances of drone strikes that resulted in unintended casualties and damage.

In 2021, The New York Times reported that a U.S. drone strike on a vehicle thought to contain an Islamic State bomb resulted in the deaths of 10 children – not three civilians, as the U.S. said might have happened.

There is scant public opinion research on how American feel about the use of drones overseas, which makes building public support for their military use difficult.

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