Paul Lushenko, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army

Department of Government, Cornell University

I am a U.S. Army Officer with 16 years of experience providing intelligence support to Special Operations Forces as well as a PhD student in International Relations at Cornell University. I combine my passion for the "English School" of International Relations Theory, sometimes referred to as constructivism, with my expertise in drone warfare to understand why America's use of strategically consequential drone strikes erodes its reputation and international society's legitimacy in some instances but not in others, although surgical force is similarly applied and with like - operational - effects. This puzzle begs an important but under-analyzed research question, partly because realist explanations dominate the literature. Why does America conduct drone strikes and how do their intended purpose(s) inform the balance between Washington's vital national security interests and the legitimacy of international society, which is constituted by consensually negotiated norms?

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Publications

I am the author of numerous chapters and articles. I am also co-editing a book with Professor William Maley (The Australian National University) and Senior Lecturer Srinjoy Bose (University of New South Wales, Sydney) entitled, Drones and Global Order: Implications of Remote Warfare for International Society (2022). The book, due out December 29, 2021, aims to fill two gaps in the extant literature. First, scholars reify states’ use of drone warfare to materialist calculations of interests, power, and security. Second, scholars demonstrate preoccupation with atomizing the legal, moral, and ethical implications of drone warfare at the expense of interrogating its impacts on global order. The edited volume advances the scholarship on drone warfare by linking the competing logics that inform states’ use of drone strikes to the trade-offs imposed on global order, as well as the managerial recourses that are available to international society.

Advanced praise for the book includes:

'This book is timely, insightful, and provocative—exactly what is needed to advance the drone warfare debate. The co-editors 'bridge the gap' between academia and the military by including chapters from the world’s leading experts and practitioners of remote warfare. The authors’ insights will help inform decisions of combat leaders across all—tactical, operational, and strategic—levels of war. Students at the War Colleges must read this book to adequately prepare for an era of robotics-enabled warfare.'--Barry McCaffrey, General Retired, U.S. Army

Media

Appearances

I lecture and speak widely on military and security affairs, and am an Adjunct Research Lecturer for the Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security located at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Australia.