[meatysnapper]

This cannot be stressed enough. A robotic military allows the government to wage wars with impunity because the average voter just doesn't care. If you have skin in the game, it would be different.

Perhaps a remedy for this would be to force the ranking members of congress to function as consuls, and make them live in Afghanistan for the duration of the conflict?

[anigbrowl]

That's true, but look how poorly we behave when we go in with troops instead, qua Iraq. The upsides (such as they are) of drone war are that it's very limited in scope and stimulates a conversation about objectives and interests, such as we are having now. As soon as you send troops in somewhere, a large swathe of the public stops even pretending to think about those issues and goes straight into 'support our troops, crush the enemy' mode, completely detached from any kind of strategic, fiscal, or ethical considerations.

[moskie]

My problem with this perspective is that you're suggesting we go out of our way to put more people (US soldiers) in danger.

If we (the US, or the military, or what have you) determine that a certain military act is justified, I think the approach should be to do it in a way to minimizes the danger as much as possible.

I can't imagine going to a soldier (who might be your son) and saying, "Hey, so, we could do this with a drone, but we'd prefer instead to put your life on the line."

[TeMPOraL]

It's a form of checks and balances.

Right now we can see that the more we can outsource the wars, the less public cares about them. Which incidentally also means the other side has to figure out a more drastic way to make us stop. Drones are terrorist-breeding machines.