GPPi director argues for global rules on new military technologies

In a commentary published 13 June 2013 by Deutsche Welle, GPPi Director Thorsten Benner writes that President Obama has relentlessly pursued a revolution in military technologies and that Europe must push to embed those technologies in a global framework of rules. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has vowed during a meeting next week in Berlin to confront Obama on the recently revealed online surveillance activities by the US National Security Agency (NSA). While she’s at it, Benner writes, Merkel should also raise a much broader concern with the conduct of the Obama presidency: the relentless, often reckless use of technological possibilities to achieve short-term security gains with little regard for the global costs. 

The NSA programs for which the US enlisted its leading digital economy companies serves as just one example of the Obama administration’s hi-tech warrior mentality. It has capitalized fully on the revolution in military technologies where the US enjoys a significant edge, including offensive cyber capabilities, drones and autonomous weapons systems.

All these technologies have the promise to be more effective and often more targeted and proportionate than conventional alternatives. Most of all, they are less risky domestically because they put fewer US lives directly on the line.

At the same time, argues Benner, these technologies operate mostly outside any global legal framework. And until now initiating and developing such a framework has been an afterthought for Washington, which will learn to regret the lack of a rules-based framework once other nations have caught up and can develop new cyber arms that are capable of threatening the US itself.

German leaders should take this simple and sober message to Obama. They should not do so in the moralizing tone in which Europeans often pretend they are the better guardians of shared values. Instead, Europeans should offer their own concrete suggestions on how to develop global rules on new military technologies. 

For most European countries and certainly the EU as a whole, this means they have to engage in some serious catch-up work on the home front since Europeans themselves have not had a real debate on the use of drones, offensive cyber capabilities or the development of autonomous weapons systems. 

Negotiating and implementing a global framework of rules that tackles all of these critical issues can’t be done overnight, Benner writes. It’s high time for Europe and the US to start the process before it is too late.