ON January 23rd 2009, just three days after his inauguration, President Barack Obama authorised his first drone strikes. The targets were two houses in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, a semi-autonomous area covered by jagged mountains. The first drone dropped a missile on top of one of the homes, searing a hole through the roof and killing five suspected al-Qaeda militants. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a British-based news outlet that compiles reports on drone strikes, the second hit the wrong target, killing at least five civilians.

America’s armed forces began using drones away from battlefields in 2002, under George W. Bush. After taking office Mr Obama scaled up the programme, authorising over 470 drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Libya and Somalia. Though journalists and non-governmental organisations reported on the strikes, for years Mr Obama declined to recognise that the military was using armed drones outside Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, which are considered areas of “active hostilities”. “It was the worst-kept secret in the world,” says Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation, a think-tank. It was not until 2012 that Mr Obama acknowledged, on a social network, that this was happening.

On July 1st Mr Obama took another step towards transparency by releasing the administration’s estimate of how many “non-combatants” have been killed in drone strikes outside war zones. According to a short document released by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), between 2,372 and 2,581 combatants and between 64 and 116 non-combatants were killed in such strikes between Mr Obama’s inauguration in 2009 and the end of 2015. These numbers are considerably lower than those compiled by other organisations. The DNI document attempted to explain the gap, stating that, “the government uses post-strike methodologies that have been refined and honed over the years and uses information that is generally unavailable to non-governmental organisations.” “So what they’re saying is, ‘We have more information, we can’t tell you about it, just trust us’,” says Hina Shamsi of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Along with this tally, Mr Obama issued an executive order requiring future administrations to make such declarations annually. The president wants to leave behind a settled body of laws and norms governing areas such as surveillance and warfare, where technology has made things possible that his predecessors could not do. He is doing so quietly: July 1st was the Friday of the Independence Day weekend, when few Americans had their minds on drone policy. “Short of putting it out on Christmas Day, it’s hard to think of a day when it would get more buried,” says Mr Bergen.

Their precision compared with manned air strikes is still hotly contested, but the Obama administration’s drone strikes have become more accurate over time. According to the New America Foundation’s calculations, in 2009 drone strikes in Pakistan killed 385 militants and 63 civilians. Since 2013, when Mr Obama published guidance requiring that drone pilots have “near certainty” that non-combatants will not be harmed before firing, drone strikes in Pakistan have killed 352 militants and only six civilians. Although the new guidelines probably played a role in bringing down the non-combatant death-count, technology helped too (see chart). Newer drone models, such as the MQ-9 Reaper, can kill suspected terrorists without harming their friends or family in the next room.

But even if drones were infallible, the intelligence they use to identify targets sometimes falls short. In 2012, 68-year-old Mamana Bibi was wandering through an open field in Pakistan with her young granddaughter when she was killed by a drone strike that seemed to be aimed directly at her. The American government never acknowledged the attack. A year later, a drone mistakenly killed 13 civilians attending a wedding in Yemen. Most recently, an American drone inadvertently killed Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto, development workers from America and Italy, respectively. The pair had been kidnapped by al-Qaeda and were being held in a compound on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan when a drone dropped a bomb on them in January 2015.

Lawfare

Beyond expressing horror at such fatal mistakes, plenty of lawyers doubt the legality of the drone programme. America is officially engaged in armed conflict with al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and with IS in Iraq and Syria. In all other countries it is meant to abide by peacetime laws, killing only when immediately necessary to save a life. In Pakistan, Yemen, Libya and Somalia, however, the armed forces seem to be operating according to the more permissive laws of armed conflict, where the requirements for lethal force are lower. Hostilities between a country and a non-state actor, such as the Taliban or IS, are considered armed conflict only when violence passes a specific threshold and the armed group is organised enough to adhere to the laws of war.

Mr Obama’s advisers have done little to assuage such misgivings. In 2012 John Brennan, who was then a counter-terrorism adviser at the White House, stated: “As a matter of international law, the United States is in an armed conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces, in response to the 9/11 attacks, and we may also use force consistent with our inherent right of national self-defence.” But some contend that the administration has not proved that its actions outside of Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq pass the objective international law requirements to be considered “armed conflicts” where the laws of war are applicable.

“Drones have enabled the US to convert the whole world into a war zone, stretching the laws of war far more than they’re meant to be stretched,” argues Elizabeth Beavers of Amnesty International, a pressure group. Mary Ellen O’Connell, of the University of Notre Dame Law School, says that Mr Obama’s use of drones will make it harder for him to criticise other countries for spurning international norms. “He has made international law weaker and easier for other countries to violate.” Considering 19 countries are estimated to possess armed drones, including Iraq and Iran, some clearer rules and norms about their use are overdue.