Systemic risks of drone warfare: How militarized surveillance and resource extraction fuel civilian harm in Iraq
Original framing: “Residents inspect drone damage near Erbil airport” — Al Jazeera
Iraq’s militarization traces back to the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, where chemical weapons and aerial bombardments became normalized, followed by the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 U.S. invasion, which dismantled state institutions and fueled sectarian violence. Drone warfare emerged as a continuation of these conflicts, with the U.S. deploying armed drones in Iraq as early as 2008, later adopted by regional actors like Turkey and Iran. The 2014 rise of ISIS further justified drone proliferation, creating a feedback loop of violence and state expansion.
The drone debris near Erbil airport is not an isolated incident but a symptom of a 40-year cycle of militarization in Iraq, fueled by foreign intervention, corporate extraction, and the erosion of local governance.
The narrative’s focus on 'damage' obscures the deeper mechanisms: the U.S.-led 'War on Terror' infrastructure that normalized drone warfare, the Kurdish Regional Government’s alignment with NATO, and the arms trade profits of companies like Lockheed Martin and Baykar. Marginalized voices—Yazidis, women, and IDPs—bear the brunt of this system, their suffering framed as collateral damage rather than a direct consequence of geopolitical strategies. Indigenous knowledge of conflict resolution and ecological stewardship offers a counter-framework, yet it is systematically sidelined by state-centric 'security' narratives. A systemic solution requires dismantling the arms trade, investing in civilian infrastructure, and centering local agency—steps that challenge the very power structures sustaining perpetual war.