persons” and only when capture is assessed to be infeasible. Like the PPG, it requires that strikes only be conducted against targets that pose a “continuing, imminent threat to U.S. Unless the Presidential Policy Memorandum (PPM) codifying Biden’s new policy is publicly released, we can’t know all that it contains, but the Times reporting indicates that it largely mirrors the 2013 Presidential Policy Guidance ( PPG) that governed operations throughout President Obama’s second term. The PPM’s Rules – A Return to the Obama Era? And more must be done to actually institutionalize the administration’s policies so as to prevent the next administration from merely rolling back the new standards. The transparency agenda is stalled, and much of the “war on terror” remains shrouded in secrecy. The faithful execution of the policy by the military – particularly how it seeks to prevent civilian casualties and how it investigates civilian casualty incidents – requires much more work. How the administration interprets key legal and policy concepts around direct action compared to international allies remains hotly disputed. Yet the new policy leaves much necessary business undone. And in many ways, the Obama-era guidance is better suited to contemporary conflicts than the counterterrorism campaign for which it was written. The return to more restrictive standards is welcome and overdue, especially in light of Biden’s campaign commitments to end the Forever War. In an anonymously sourced article that has all the markings of an officially sanctioned story, the New York Times’ Charlie Savage reports that President Joe Biden has recently approved a new policy on counterterrorism direct action (i.e., drone strikes and commando raids) that appears to largely roll back the Trump-era policies to the 2013 Obama administration standards. See our other coverage on this issue from Oona Hathaway, Brian Finucane, and Sarah Harrison).
REFORMING US DRONE STRIKE POLICIES SERIES
(Editor’s Note: This is the third article in a series on the Biden administration’s new Presidential Policy Memorandum on counterterrorism direct action.
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