How many US drone strikes occurred under each president year-by-year from 2009 to 2025?

1. Official baseline: DNI’s partial accounting and what it covers

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released two public tallies used widely as a baseline: 473 U.S. strikes between Jan 20, 2009 and Dec 31, 2015, and 53 U.S. strikes during calendar year 2016 — often cited together as 526 strikes in the 2009–2016 timeframe ^{[1] [2]}. Those DNI numbers apply to “areas outside areas of active hostilities” (reports distinguish outside-Afghanistan/Iraq/Syria actions) and therefore are not a full, global count of all strike activity under each president ^[1].

2. Independent trackers: different scope, different year-by-year counts

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, New America and related projects maintain year-by-year strike databases for Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan but exclude many active-battlefield actions and use open-source methods that can diverge from U.S. government disclosures ^{[3] [6] [5]}. Airwars and archived reporting note that Obama-era figures were far higher than Bush’s and that 2009 alone saw dozens of strikes in Pakistan — different datasets record varying yearly totals because of country selection and inclusion rules ^{[4] [7]}.

3. Why a tidy year-by-year presidential table is elusive

Sources explicitly warn that datasets differ because of classification, secrecy, and definitional choices: some counts exclude Afghanistan/Iraq/Syria or conventional airstrikes and missile strikes; some include “signature” strikes and covert actions; reporting gaps and methodological differences produce different year-by-year totals ^{[3] [5] [4]}. For example, Airwars and BIJ pressured the White House to disclose numbers, after which the DNI produced partial tallies — but those DNI tallies are not a full accounting of all kinetic activity ^{[4] [2]}.

4. What the available sources say about 2009–2016 patterns

Multiple sources agree on broad patterns: strikes rose sharply under President Obama compared with the Bush years, with large activity in Pakistan early in Obama’s presidency (2009–2011 peaks); the DNI’s released figures underpin the frequently cited 473 (2009–2015) and 53 totals ^{[4] [2]}. Independent trackers also show sustained strike activity across Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan through the 2010s, but year-by-year totals differ by dataset and country scope ^{[3] [6]}.

5. Post-2016 and through 2025: data gaps and recent reporting

Available sources in the set document broader monitoring through 2020 (BIJ/Drone Wars) and note continued strikes into the late 2010s and 2019, but they do not provide a definitive year-by-year presidential breakdown through 2025 in the supplied material ^{[3] [5] [8]}. Recent legal and journalistic attention — including court cases and reporting on U.S. bases’ roles and continued operations — confirms ongoing activity but does not enumerate strikes per year by president up to 2025 in these sources ^[8].

6. How to interpret competing figures and what to do next

Different totals can all be factually correct within their own definitions: cite the DNI 473/53 official figures when discussing U.S. disclosed strikes outside active hostilities ^{[1] [2]}; use BIJ/New America/Drone Wars for localized, investigative tallies that may include covert or battlefield-adjacent actions ^{[3] [6] [5]}. If you want a precise year-by-year table for 2009–2025, compile side-by-side columns from (a) DNI reports (official, limited scope) and (b) BIJ/Drone Wars/New America/Airwars (open-source, country-by-country) — available sources in this packet do not themselves present a consolidated year-by-year presidential table through 2025 ^{[3] [4] [5] [2]}.

Limitations: sources differ in scope and methodology; official disclosures are partial; independent databases fill gaps but produce divergent yearly totals ^{[1] [3] [5]}.