Does the intersection of targets’ sex, gender, and race shape public perceptions of legitimate drone warfare? Scholars argue that targets’ lived identities can bias public opinion for drone warfare, though they often conceptualize identity along a single axis—such as sex or race. Dr. Paul Lushenko, US Army War College, and Dr. Shira Eini Pindyck, US Naval War College, tested this claim by fielding an original survey experiment among a representative sample of Americans, varying targets’ sex, gender, and race.

They found that female targets performing masculine gender roles enhance public perceptions of legitimacy, suggesting that Americans interpret such targets as socially deviant. Regardless of targets’ sex, respondents perceive strikes against White—versus Black—targets as more legitimate, corroborating research on the perceived racialization of drones. Finally, they observed that Americans’ perceived gender shapes their attitudes toward drones. Americans who self-identify as feminine are more likely to view drone strikes as legitimate. This new evidence offers important insights for US drone policy and strategy.

Speakers
Dr. Paul Lushenko is an Assistant Professor at the US Army War College, Professorial Lecturer at The George Washington University, Chief Strategist for the US military’s Joint Counter Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office, and Senior Fellow at Cornell University's Tech Policy Institute and Institute of Politics and Global Affairs. His work lies at the intersection of emerging technologies, politics, and national security, and he also researches the implications of great power competition for regional and global order-building.  Paul is the author and editor of three books, including Drones and Global Order: Implications of Remote Warfare for International Society (2022), The Legitimacy of Drone Warfare: Evaluating Public Perceptions (2024), and Afghanistan and International Relations (forthcoming). He has also written extensively on emerging technologies and war, publishing in academic journals, policy journals, and media outlets such as Security Studies, Foreign Affairs, and The Washington Post.

Dr. Shira Eini Pindyck is an Assistant Professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Technology and International Security at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and the Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories. Her research interests include international security, military technology, and the role of gender in innovation integration and military effectiveness. She has published in the Journal of Strategic Studies, and her book project, Innovation, and Inclusion in the Armed Forces, builds a broad theory of gender and military innovation, with cases extending from the experiences of Israeli drone operators to Australian and Turkish counterinsurgency doctrines.

Host:
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Cohost: 
Cornell Brooks School Tech Policy Institute

Cosponsor: 
Gender and Security Sector Lab