Are Drone Strikes Effective in Afghanistan and Pakistan? On the Dynamics of Violence between the United States and the Taliban
David Jaeger and
Zahra Siddique
No 6262, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
Abstract:
Strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, have been the primary weapon used by the United States to combat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This paper examines the dynamics of violence involving drone strikes and the Taliban/Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan from January 2007 to December 2010. We find that drone strikes do not have any significant impact on terrorist violence in Afghanistan but that drone strikes do have a significant impact on Taliban/Al-Qaeda violence in Pakistan. We find that our results are robust to examining different time periods and lag structures. We also examine the impact of successful and unsuccessful drone strikes (which did or did not succeed in targeted killing of a militant leader) on terrorist attacks by the Taliban. We find strong negative impacts of unsuccessful drone strikes on Taliban violence in Pakistan, showing the deterrent effects are quite strong, while the incapacitation effects appear to be weak or non-existent.
Keywords: time series models; conflict (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C32 D74 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2011-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)
Published - revised version published in: CESifo Economic Studies, 2018, 64(4), 667-697
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Journal Article: Are Drone Strikes Effective in Afghanistan and Pakistan? On the Dynamics of Violence between the United States and the Taliban (2018) 
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