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Here’s the latest on Yemen:

The CIA is expected to begin operating armed drone aircraft over Yemen, expanding the hunt for al-Qaeda operatives in a country where counter-terrorism efforts have been disrupted by political chaos, U.S. officials said. ….Because it operates under different legal authorities than the military, the CIA may have greater latitude to carry out strikes if the political climate shifts in Yemen and cooperation with American forces is diminished or cut off.

I know I’m not the first to ask this, but exactly what theory of military action allows President Obama to do this without congressional approval? In Afghanistan and Nicaragua in the 80s, you could argue that we were merely funding allies, not fighting a war ourselves. In Grenada and Panama, you could argue that we were merely pursuing small-scale police actions. In Pakistan, you can argue that our operations are all part of the Afghanistan war. You might not like any of those arguments, but at least they’re something.

But what’s the theory here? This is obviously not a short-term operation (it began well over a year ago). It’s obviously not part of the Afghanistan war. You’d have to twist yourself into a pretzel to pretend that the post-9/11 AUMF applies here. (The fact that Congress is considering an extension of the 2001 AUMF in order to cover operations like this is a tacit admission that the old AUMF doesn’t apply.) Nor does the fact that Yemen’s president has given it his blessing really mean anything from a war powers standpoint.

In practice, the theory seems to be that unmanned drones are somehow not as real as actual manned fighter jets. After all, does anyone seriously believe that Obama could send sortie after sortie of F-22s over Yemen and not have anyone complain about it? I doubt it. But as long as they’re just drones, no problem. Given the inevitable growth of robotic warfare in both the near and long term, this doesn’t bode well for the future.