Just for the record, using a drone is a military action. Also, that made me wonder whether CIA action is military. I’ve decided to think of it as non-military military action.
As to whether we are at war with Yemen and Pakistan, I would say we are not. You can have military actions without declaring war. North Korea is always doing provocative things to South Korea. But they are considered peaceful, although I think, technically, N. Korea is at war with the U.S. India and Pakistan have had numerous border skirmishes and terroristic acts, but they aren’t at war.
I think war is a technical thing. It has to be declared by Congress. Wikipedia has an informative page about the theory and practice of declarations of war.
I think what you are talking about is whether the acts we have made are acts of war. I.e., it doesn’t matter if we have a formal declaration; what matters is the functional definition.
Personally, I don’t think we are at war, functionally speaking, with Pakistan or Yemen. I think these actions are covert, and are essentially the kind of thing the CIA does. I would call these non-military military actions. The main difference between military actions and non-military military actions is the attempt to perform these actions so that noone sees them until after they are over, and possible, as well, to maintain some form of deniability.
There is another form of military action that is non-military in nature. That is the same actions as depicted above, except that they are not covert. They are quite overt since they are meant as warning messages. Essentially, they are bullying actions. Warnings. Shape up, or there will be worse to come.
I guess the US can get away with this in small countries, that will never become powers. You’ll notice we don’t do these things (that I know of) for powerful nations like China or Russia. I don’t know if it’s effective though. It is usually aimed at “terrorists” who are warriors with no clear state affiliation. We have cruise missiles. They have terrorists. It’s inchoate war, perhaps.