What's next for the drone war?

On Jan. 20, the drone war entered its third Administration. Over the inaugural weekend, American drones fired missiles at suspected Al Qaeda fighters in Yemen, killing five people. The drone war, that is, the popular, unmanned-vehicle term for America's strategy of targeted killing, is an outgrowth of President George W. Bush's war on terror, a vestigial organ that became the centerpiece for the Obama administration's eight years of low-intensity warfare. With much of American national security strategy poised to change under the new Trump administration, it's worth taking a step back to examine what, exactly, the United States hoped to do with its drones. The United States is, it's worth noting, at war.