Air Supremacy Is Not Enough: The Effect of Drone and Air Strikes on Terrorist Attacks in Somalia and Yemen

Adelaide Baronchelli, Alessandra Foresta, Roberto Ricciuti, Flavio Santi and Tadele Tefera

No 12242, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Drones are among the most recent evolutions in warfare, used to respond to or deter insurgent activity and to serve as substitutes for direct troop engagement. We empirically evaluate the effect of drone and air strikes as a deterrent for terrorist attacks, using Somali and Yemeni data from 2016 to 2020. We construct a novel dataset from different sources, such as the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, the Global Terrorist Database, and the New America Foundation. Given the specific features of the data (spatial heterogeneity, interaction between phenomena, and low intensity), we implement a Cox model with different specifications. Results show very limited effects of both drone and air strikes, indicating that air supremacy is not sufficient in fighting against non-state actors.

Keywords: drones; terrorism; heterogeneity; Somalia; Yemen; air supremacy; non-state actors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 F51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
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