Airstrikes, Civilian Casualties, and the Moral Hazard of Wartime Aid

• In Event: Ethics, Law, and Civilian Casualties in Wartime Settings: Experimental Evidence

Abstract

What, if anything, do we owe civilian victims of American drone strikes? How does the public's support for drone strikes shift once innocent civilians are harmed? And can providing post-harm aid to victims inadvertently create a moral hazard dilemma, where individuals support the relaxing of ethical restraints on drone strikes because they know mistakes will be compensated? To date, the small-but-growing literature on drone strikes has neglected post-harm mitigation efforts. We conduct five interconnected online experiments centered around ethical obligations and compensation for drone strike victims in both the United States and Pakistan, which has recorded the third-highest drone strike total. Taken together, these experiments allow us to 1) understand beliefs about the treatment of civilians harmed in drone strikes, including the amount and type of restitution deemed appropriate 2) explore how different framing of a real drone strike (the US strike that killed 10 civilians in Kabul in 2021) affects the size and amount of compensation 3) examine how video treatments of this drone strike influence support for continued use of drones and the willingness to lobby for additional restrictions on drone strikes 4) explore how different framings of the victims and their presumed responsibility for the drone strike affects decisions about what, and how much, compensation is owed, and 5) test for the existence of a hidden moral hazard by examining whether willingness to loosen restrictions around drone strikes, and to privilege military necessity over ethical conduct, increases with higher amounts of compensation promised to victims.

Authors

• Elsa Voytas, Dartmouth College

• Jason Lyall, Dartmouth College