The new phase is in some ways a continuation and evolution of trends seen under Obama. The same reluctance to deploy American troops applies, as does the impetus to respond militarily to radical groups around the world. But as extremist groups spread and metastasise, the US’s military engagements are becoming ever more widespread, and complicated. Peter Singer, a senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, who is a leading expert on security, says: “Shadow wars have been going on for a long time, but what’s clearly happened is that they’ve been accelerated, and the mechanisms for oversight and public notification have been peeled back. The trend lines were there before, but the Trump team are just putting them on steroids.”

A new US drone base has been built in Niger, but its ultimate purpose is unclear. In Afghanistan, the US is trying to prevail over the Taliban, without committing to a substantial increase in troop numbers, by waging an increasingly secretive air war. In Yemen, the US is leaning on the United Arab Emirates as its on the ground counterterrorism partner, a country with a troubled human rights record. Meanwhile, proxy confrontations with Iran are threading themselves into the mix.

Our Shadow Wars project will widen the focus of the Bureau’s drone warfare work. Over the next year, we will bring new and important aspects of US military strategy to light, of which drones are just one troubling aspect.

We will explore issues such as America’s increasing reliance on regional allies, the globalisation of the private military industry, the blurring of lines between combat and support missions and the way corruption fuels a state of permanent conflict. As with our work on drones, our primary concern in this new project is to publicise the effects these evolving practices of war have on the civilians on the ground.

Whilst pursuing new investigative angles, we will continue to maintain our extensive databases on strikes in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. When we began recording these operations, they were still cloaked in secrecy. In part because of the work of organisations such as the Bureau, they became slightly less so – under President Obama, some measures towards greater transparency on drone strikes were introduced, and a formal policy on the use of lethal force outside of warzones was published.

However, the current phase of the war on terror has seen a concerning rollback of even these small steps, and collecting data and holding the US government to account for its actions remains an urgent task. You can read our 2018 report, Naming the Dead, looking back on our seven years of investigation into US drones strikes, here. You can continue to get the data on strikes and other drone warfare updates by clicking here.