Precision guided democracy : the American war on terror from catch and release to kill and capture

While the Barack Obama administration continued the war on terror that George W. Bush began, it looked extremely different. Obama’s war on terror was facilitated by unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones. In contrast, President Bush’s policy of catch and release relied upon ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and capturing suspected terrorists. This thesis examines how and why the war on terror changed under the Obama administration, the justifications for that shift, and why drones became the central weapon in the new strategy of capture and kill.