Title: Eye in the Sky; Direction: Gavin Hood; Year: 2015; Country: United Kingdom: Running Time: 115min

Sinopsis: Colonel Katherine Powell leads an international mission to capture a terrorist group located in Nairobi, Kenya. The discovering of plans to carry out a suicide attack from the terrorist changes the mission goal from capturing them to kill them. Drone pilot Steve Watts targets the safehouse for destruction but reports a nine-year-old girl entering the kill zone. Powell contacts politicians and lawyers to determine whether or not to take act.

The flight of a drone

Written by Marc Grau Moragues

BA Philosophy, Politics and Economics

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

The complex interaction of the actors involved in contemporary international security mission is perfectly portrayed in the film Eye in the Sky directed by Gavin Hood. The events are focused on a mission to capture a terrorist located in Nairobi, Kenya. However, the action does not only take place in such set. There is a set of multiple locations which are closely interconnected with the ongoing situation in the African country. First, we have a situation room in which a military General, an office minister, an attorney general and a member of parliament supervise the current mission. In such scenario, there is a wide disagreementbetween the pragmatic and resolute view taken by the military and the divisive and conflictual opinions between both the politicians and the lawyers gathered in meeting. Despite the lack of consensus, such group of actors are the most powerful ones as they the ones deciding which actions to take, along with the other governments. Secondly, we find the British army crisis room held by Colonel Katherine Powell, in which the security operation to target down the terrorist is orchestrated. Such actors lacks the power to decide what to do as is under the surveillance of the first room. However, it does have a deeper knowledge on the situation and is the intermediate between the ones who decide and those who have to apply such considerations. Thirdly, we find the British air force soldiers who execute the decisions taken by their superiors. These actors lack the power to take any decision. Nonetheless, they can refuse to apply those decisions who may collide with the rules or procedures stablished. We can see an example of such refusal in the scene in which both drone pilots decide to postpone their military involvement as they consider that the area in which the missile will explode may imply collateral civil deaths. Finally, we find the Kenyan army which is the only one which has any direct involvement with the terrorists. This actor also lacks any power in the decision-making process and its duty is to apply those orders received from London.

The film focuses on a terrorist cell which are part of an international organization. However, the case depicted is centred on urban conflict and public security. And so, the battlefield is spread into the Kenyan city and the war takes place in the different civil neighbourhoods. The enemy is not a national or foreign army but rather the civil population. In such context, the films depicts a set of different ethical dilemmas which are confronted by the different actors. To begin with, the military face the fact of afflicting civilian targets while taking down the terrorist. Such conflict is furthered by the fact of lacking the means to assist such civilians and having to execute the operation from abroad. The use of drones implies that no direct assistance can be made and that once the missile is dropped, the targets and its surroundings are already in danger, no adjustment can be done. The second dilemma is the one faced by the politicians and the government which confront themselves the idea of killing a civilian to achieve a military aim. However, the core of their hesitation is focused on the impact that such action may have in the public opinion and the media. And so, their worries are not centred on the fact of killing a civilian but rather on the effects that doing so may encounter. Moreover, the film itself illustrates the ethical and political conflicts which rose from the fact of having such a large chain of decision-makers involved in the mission. The use of modern military technologies does not reduce the process of decision-making but rather multiples the actors involved and therefore, requires a greater amount of agreement and coordination between political and military actors.

In the third place, the depiction of the forces fighting against the terrorist group is based on a a burochratic and rational approach as it defines them as a hierarchical combination of actors chained into a decision-making process. The allied forces work in order to destroy the terrorist group, a pre-defined enemy whose elimination is targeted by a combined set of actors which decisions are supported by the law. In the first place, we can see the higher level of the decision-making process, led by the political representatives whose decisions are ultimate. Despite their farness from the conflict and their sometimes lack of knowledge regarding the implication of each decisions, there are the ones who lead the operation. Secondly, the intermediate actors are represented around the General Powell and the situation rooms. These actors are the ones with a deepest understanding of what is going on in the real-time conflict-situation and despite having the same goal, their visions on how to achieve such and which limits should be considered are quiet different. While the military support the attack to the terrorist at all-cost, the politicians at the situation room debate which consequences it may have in the public opinion and the media. Finally, we may consider the third level of decision-making which are the executors, the drone pilots and the other military stuff who cannot reject any order. However, they do have the power to claim for reconsideration or revaluate of the received orders. This does not imply that they may change the final decision but they have the power to postpone a decision that they may consider inadequate to the missions end.

On the whole, the film is an interesting portrayal of the contemporary international conflicts which are directed far from the place in which the action is taking place. The use of drones, the set of actors that participate in the decision-making process and the variety of countries involved are some of the variables that the film Eye in the Sky focuses to put the ongoing global security mission under the surveillance of those affected by it, the civil society.