New insights into America’s drone war

By ⋅ December 2, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment
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by Jeb Sharp

One of the prickly bits of information made public by the leaked diplomatic cables is the discord between the US and Pakistan. The relationship has long been a delicate one. It’s made more so by controversial American drone attacks.

The US uses remotely-piloted drone aircraft to go after terror suspects in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.

The cables confirmed that Pakistani officials condone the attacks in private while opposing them in public. Daniel Markey of the Council on Foreign Relations says the pace of the drone attacks has picked up under in recent years.

“It’s turned from what was a very special and probably highly reserved tactic to one that is now almost a staple of US counterterrorism efforts,” Markey said. “As such we probably need to start asking some bigger questions about it.”

P.W. Singer agrees with Markey that drones deserve more scrutiny. He’s written a book about the military robotics revolution called “Wired for War.”

“Something that was viewed as just science fiction is now the new normal of war,” Singer said. “We’re seeing massive use of unmanned aerial systems.”

Singer says future combat aircraft will not have pilots in them. He says there’s not a single US aerospace company that’s building a manned combat system in terms of research and development right now.

Everything in research and development is unmanned (piloted remotely). Singer points out that the technology is advancing far more quickly than the human ability to grapple with the consequences — that’s as true for robotic airplanes as it is for computers.

If Wikileaks is pushing legal and political boundaries so is drone warfare according to Singer.

“We haven’t declared war in terms of our operations in Pakistan but we’ve carried out over 200 air strikes there.” Singer said. “Congress hasn’t even held a single hearing on it to say they support it or they’re against it.”

Singer has no doubt some of the strikes on terrorism suspects are justified but he worries some of them are not, that killing becomes too easy when the person pulling the trigger is thousands of miles from the battlefield.

He’s not the only one. Critics have long complained that the drone strikes result in too many civilian casualties, and may in fact backfire by angering and alienating local populations.

But Military analyst John Pike of www.globalsecurity.org has a different view.

“What’s the alternative?” Pike asked. “That we want to make it more difficult to kill the enemy? That we want to put our soldiers into a fair fight with the enemy?”

That is perhaps the most powerful attraction of the drones for US policy makers — that they keep the pressure on the enemy while keeping US forces out of harms way.
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Wired.com: Everybody wants drones


Discussion

One comment for “New insights into America’s drone war”

  • Kenneth Lilja

    A vital and educational hobby of flying model aircraft is under threat by two factors.

    As our fear of the use of drones by terrorists grows the government would like to get rid of a perceived “problem” proactively. Anything that moves can be a threat, letters in the mail, rental trucks and airliners. Shall we limit or ban these also?

    The second threat is from the FAA and some commercial aviation interests. They would like to severely limit some model aircraft operations in the name of safety. The model aviation community has an excellent safety record. Should we try to correct a non-existent problem?
    The FAA is looking at lumping in radio control aircraft with UAVs. UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles)are radio controlled aircraft that fly over the horizon (out of sight) of the operator for commercial purposes . They can be very large and most do not share operational characteristics with model aircraft. We operate on a see and avoid basis. If an aircraft approaches when I am flying mu sailplane, I am acutely aware of its approach, descend and put a lot of airspace between us.

    A vital hobby? Many pilots, civilian and military, aircraft mechanics, aircraft designers and other aviation oriented people were introduced to aviation by building and flying models. This is even true all the way to the level of astronauts. Burt Rutan, designer of SpaceShip 1 (the first privatly funded aircraft to reach the boarder of space)had his start from model aviation.

    We need to encourage young people to take an interest in something besides video games. I teach aircraft maintenance and find that 70% of my students have no interest in aviation or have ever had a hobby. We need model aviation to help in reviving technical savvy and craftsmanship.

    Of course we need to protect ourselves from malicious drone attacks. We also need to safely integrate UAV operation into civilian airspace. Please, in our hurry to protect ourselves and pursue profits, let us not destroy an activity that lead the Wright brothers on the path to aviation. Much of our future creativity in aviation may come from people who had their start through model aviation.