Drone Warfare

So this was going to be about North Korea but then I saw the new movie Robocop with some friends. Now if you have seen the film you will note that it depicts the United Sates military as being nearly wholly automated (as in the soldiers are robots who are not directly controlled by humans, only supervised by them). So after we got back one of my friends asked me "so what do you think about drones in war?" as I began to think about it another message from him popped up that read: "I mean is it not dangerous as a software malfunction could cause the drone to start killing civilians as no human is controlling it?"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO.

As we can see from this info-graphic I took a pretty dim view to the question. As I looked further however I discovered that actually quite a few people thought that this was the case.

So first off before I recount the pros and cons of drone warfare I would like to make sure everyone know what a few things mean. So, without further stalling to make the formatting look nicer:

Automated: This is machines controlled by themselves. This like the AI on a video game or antivirus on you computer, it is something that has had a program written for it which is follows but is not directly controlled by a human user.
Unmanned: This just refers to a vehicle that has no pilot inside it, it may also be automated (programmed to fly around  or over an area as reconnaissance) or it might have a human pilot flying it via video feed.

What Drones do we use? 

Well there are a bunch of training, target (yes, literally a target for people to shoot AA weapons at) and recon(think remote control aeroplane with a camera) but the main two are the American made MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper, pictured right with 4 Hellfire anti tank missiles and 2 Paveway laser guided bombs (which kill everything). The MQ-1 is a smaller version of the MQ-9 which is now used mainly for reconnaissance (which actually can be the most dangerous missions as obviously you are not quite sure where the enemy are). The MQ-9 is the one you see on TV blowing things up and is also the one that replaced the MQ-1 in it's role as a combat drone and does the mush feared "drone strikes".

What is so good about Drones?

Well they are a lot less risky to humans as they are flown from monitors back at base (very few missions bar reconnaissance are automated and all combat operations are controlled by people). Drones are also a lot faster, easier/faster to refuel and more manoeuvrable than jets as they do not waste space with a cockpit or many of the on board instruments a manned aircraft might need. So they are more effective in combat and safer for the people controlling them.

The Problems

The problem with drones is two fold. The first issue is one it shares with many modern strike craft. Take, for example, the AC-130 pictured left. It has many weapons and packs a wallop. These were used much like drones in both the Afghanistan and Iraq invasion to destroy ground borne enemies from a position of relative impunity (as by the time they were deployed all enemy air defence had been destroyed). Both these strike craft and others have a thermal imaging display as a means of identifying targets. The problem with these displays is that they blur the line between combat and simulation. A pilot of an AC-130 or F-18 or MQ-9 will not see people or faces, just heat signatures. This makes target identification much harder and also does not convey to pilots the full psychological impact of what they are doing. So in summary the disconnect from what the display says to what is actually happening on the ground is arguably too great. This problem though is mainly due to the increased scale, range and effectiveness of the weapons we are using.

The second problem with drones is the way in which they can be used. Currently one of their most controversial uses is in Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan to attack targets as part of the War on Terror. Here they can be used multiple times every day, are faster to scramble and do not involve putting human lives at risk. For these reasons they are used to attack targets as ordered by the CIA. Civilian deaths from these targets from 2010-11 have been reported at 0 by the United States government but the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (a London Based non-profit organisation) puts the total number of civilians killed in these years as anywhere from 136-339. So there is clearly a lot of debate around how many civilians die due to these strikes, humanitarian organisations like Amnesty international working inside Pakistan have put the casualty figures much higher than the US government and in March 2013 a report from the UN said that over the entire campaign over 400 civilians had died as a result of Drone strikes. 

Implications

Drones make warfare faster and easier, which is probably not a good thing. Their ease of use and the fact that they do not risk human lives mean that more firepower can be called in to missions that originally would not have warranted such zealous responses. Equally the way in which they are used, to strike at targets which often have not engaged our forces, is morally very suspect. The problem is that the drone fleets are being expanded and every day advances in avionics make them and other strike craft faster and deadlier. Finally I believe it is difficult to argue that if drones were not used similar strikes would not occur in Pakistan and Yemen by manned jets as in other warzones they already do.

I hope this has provoked some interesting ideas in whoever has read it. Apologies for bad grammar or spelling.