First Robotic Drone Squadron Deployed 772
coondoggie writes with a link to a Network World blog post on the world's first unmanned attack squadron. The US is deploying a full squadron of combat drones to Iraq this week. These armed and remotely controlled robots can be manipulated from on the ground in the field, or via satellite from thousands of miles away. "The MQ-9 Reaper is the Air Force's first hunter-killer unmanned aircraft. It is the big brother to the highly successful and sometimes controversial Predator aircraft, which General Atomics said this week had flown over 300,000 flight hours, with over 80% of that time spent in combat. The company said Predator series aircraft have flown an average of 8,200 hours per month over the past six months while maintaining the highest operational readiness rates in the U.S. military aircraft inventory. The MQ-9 Reaper is twice as fast as the Predator - it has a 900-horsepower turbo-prop engine, compared to the 119-horsepower Predator engine - and can carry far more ordnance - 14 Hellfire missiles as opposed to two."
Ok... (Score:2, Insightful)
Robotic? (Score:5, Insightful)
faceless (Score:1, Insightful)
Great, (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone explain this (Score:2, Insightful)
If so, one pilot per drone please.
Pilots are cheaper than ($17 mil) drones.
Pilots are also a lot cheaper than the fallout from any mistakes.
Re:Video game ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Who do you think is sitting in those darkened control rooms flying these things NOW?
My assessment (Score:4, Insightful)
The human in me: Why the fuck do we have to spend so much money on killing each other?
It's also a psychological weapon. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Someone explain this (Score:2, Insightful)
ha-ha fallout from mistakes ?? you mean the us armed forces are responsible for anything ? they don't even adhere to modern warfare practices and try and bully others into letting them out of the world criminal court.
Re:The US is deploying (Score:4, Insightful)
The actions of the US Government ARE the Actions of the United States. The actions of individual citizens without direct government sanction are not.
If you feel the government is not acting as commanded by the people you are obligated to remove them from office.
But hey. The current war in Iraq was well and truly on and known to be a fraud before the last presidential election. Even so Bush was returned to office. That tells me he has the approval of the American people. Those who disagree are free to do so vocally and repeatedly but don't delude yourself.
These planes are being deployed by the United States of America.
What are the moral implications? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the new Star Wars trilogy is massively disappointing so I hesitate to use the term "droid army" but that's still the best phrase I can come up with. What are the moral implications of operating a droid army? In conventional armies, a general who orders his soldiers to massacre civilians could meet with resistance. Even a Chinese Army tank driver balked at the idea of rolling over a protester in Tienanmen Square. Who is there to object in a droid army? The lowest level humans involved would be the support crew. Would they even know what the bots are up to?
I do think that the decision to go to war will become much easier with droids. What motivates objections to our current Iraq war, dead Americans or dead Iraqis? Would we object any less if it was 0 dead Americans instead of 4,000 and the Iraqi toll was still around 700k? I would like to think we wouldn't but people can be selfish.
Controversial? (Score:3, Insightful)
In what way is the Predator aircraft controversial?
Re:That can happen in a smaller way (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That can happen in a smaller way (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, drop a squad of robot soldiers into the same situation. Sure, the controllers don't need to see the carnage that they inflict. That said, they also do not have their life threatened. If the order from up high is to "don't kill any civilians", then they can happily let their little robot squad return fire with the weakest and most precise weapons they have at their disposal and if they are over run? Eh, a few thousand dollars into the shitter. It isn't a happy ending, but hell, when you already pay a few thousand for the lid to a real shitter, it isn't the end of the world.
War might never be 'humane' but it certainly has the capacity to be a lot more humane then it is. The easiest way to make war safer, besides spewing some idealistic crap about 'lets never fight wars!' is to take the survival of soldiers out of the equation. With the survival of soldiers out of the equation and human controlled robots that will happily let themselves die rather then tear apart an apartment complex where a single sniper is shooting from, we have the capacity for a war with far fewer civilian causalities.
As for the squadron being discussed in the article, these are UAVs, not 'soldiers'. The difference between flying a UAV and an attack airplane is that the UAV is cheaper and you don't die if it gets shot down. In both cases, you see what you are blowing up on a little TV screen. UAVs don't go down any 'slippery slops' that we have not already wondered down.
Re:That can happen in a smaller way (Score:5, Insightful)
1) They are remote controlled. Humans still make the decisions.
2) Despite what you want to believe, everything from the Milgram experiment to the Holocaust demonstrates that humans can easily be programmed to kill with complete disregard for "morality," just like robots. All it takes is a little nationalism, religion, racism, or just plain sternly-stated orders, and men will commit atrocities with the efficiency of any killbot.
Re:My assessment (Score:5, Insightful)
War is Violence ... (Score:5, Insightful)
War is violent by definition. The way to end war by winning it. The winner is one who is better at killing the other side. So in a way, this plane ends wars. The quicker you end a war, the fewer casualties are the result. This war machine is a life saver (especially our own!!)
Look, I know that this is a long string of logic, but long drawn out wars are the worst on both the armies fighting it and the innocent population bystanders. With precision weaponry fought by machines (at least on our side), we can minimize the civilian risk as well as our own.
Are you kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, think again, buddy. When the people doing the firing are far away from the consequences of their actions, and when the people that they're targetting are little different from sprites in a computer game then, as research has proven, those people are more not less likely to be indiscriminate with their use of force.
One of things you learn from being in the field is that actions have unintended consequences, and it's often those unintended consequences that give veterans an appreciation of the true horrors of war and the real value of peace.
Do you think that the UAV pilot sitting in his comfy chair somewhere in Arizona will have the same insight into the war that these guys [independent.co.uk] have had?
Re:Controversial? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That can happen in a smaller way (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Someone explain this (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, what part of "modern warfare practices" do we not adhere to? The US is the trendsetter on modern warfare practices. Oh, I gotcha, you mean the absurb legal constraints that the wcc tries to put on war fighting, like not shooting back at mosques when enemy fire is coming from those mosques. Thanks, but no thanks. You can keep your stupid rules that no one follows anyway.
Re:That can happen in a smaller way (Score:5, Insightful)
2. It's psychologically easier to kill people the farther removed from them you get.
Re:That can happen in a smaller way (Score:3, Insightful)
If anyone does complain about civilians being killed by robots, the military would just fall back on the same tired old excuse that it was the "terrorists" fault for hiding among the civilians. This excuse would never wash if the same strategy was applied in a western country of course.
Re:War is Violence ... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the exact same justification the 9-11 attackers used.
Re:There should be some way for civilian control (Score:2, Insightful)
a) The drones are not autonomous; they are remotely piloted. A human is always in control (RTFA for that one)
b) The military already IS under civilian control, in the form of the President and the Secretary of Defense. You may not like them, but the are civilians. And the US hasn't had a military coup or direct military rule in a looong time.
c) Civilian control of tactical military decistions (and these are tactical devices) is a miserably bad idea. Ask how well it went when Johnson and McNamara per personally picking each day's bombing targets in Viet Nam.
So, your comment would be insightful, except that every premise in it is completely incorrect.
Re:That can happen in a smaller way (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, let us say they get their hands on a Reaper plane. Now what? They need access to a satellite network (this isn't the Tamil Tigers hijacking bandwidth on a commercial satellite in order to run the Tamil Tigers Power Hour), not to mention reprogram the thing so that they can operate it. Replacement parts? Unlikely. Then make sure that it isn't calling home to the US military so that a different bot-plane can buzz by and blow the snot out of you. And that's just the start of it.
Then again, that might not be such a bad strategy.
Sure, unregulated arms sales and trafficking is important to keep to a minimum, but comeon.
Re:It's also a psychological weapon. (Score:4, Insightful)
I must agree with the GP (to an extent). The feuds between factions in Iraq are very old. Some can be traced back to the time of Muhammad, others probably originate with somebody sleeping with someone else's wife thousands of years ago. Saddam only controlled the feuds by violent suppression. Take that away, and they all come back.
Where I disagree with the GP is the fact that the fundamental problem is somehow limited to the Arab region. It's actually a problem with humanity as a whole, and the Arab region just happens to have the oldest feuds.
Re:Are you kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Drones don't face this problem. Drones can follow the rules of engagement to the letter while soldiers can't. If you tell a drone operator to never use heavy weapons on civilian buildings where there is a reasonable chance that civilians are inside, they won't. For a drone operator, it is nothing for their drone to 'die'. Further, the entire thing is constantly being recorded and any misconduct is easily rooted out. You can have strict rules of engagement and the drone soldiers will follow them to the death.
I am not saying that a drone army doesn't have a slightly higher potential for abuse in some instances. Certainly, it is a easier to line up and shoot civilians using a drone then it is to be there in person. That said, only two things lead to civilians being lined up and shot, crazy soldiers who have been under constant fire from people dressed in civilian clothing, or genocidal leaders. Drones eliminate crazy soldiers and eliminate soldiers putting their lives before the mission. As far as genocidal leaders, well, I doubt even the most hearty cynics believe that anyone will get elected on the "let's kill all the woman and children so they can't breed any more" campaign.
Civilian casualties the American inflict comes from soldiers and leaders picking the lives of soldiers over the lives of civilians, not some concerted effort of the higher up leadership commit genocide for shits and giggles. Reduce the number of soldiers that need to be protected in combat and you will see the number of civilians that die drop dramatically.
Re:Violence ... (Score:4, Insightful)
You're technically correct, joto - the best kind of correct
I think the point was that the more physical distance there is between the inflicter and the victim of violence, the more emotional distance there tends to be as well. Obviously there's not a statistical correlation between meters of distance and degree of violence, the point is that the more detached the inflicter is from the scene of violence, the more willing they are to be brutal and abusive. The Milgram experiment [wikipedia.org] is excellent proof of this.
A good example of this is how many, many people are perfectly willing to eat a hamburger without a second thought, but would balk at the prospect of killing a live cow themselves - or at least be uncomfortable doing so. The psychological "distance" from the actual violence makes it much more acceptable to the average person.
Re:Great, (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at the reasons why public support for the war in Iraq has flagged: primarily, it's because of the loss of U.S. troops. Yeah, occasionally you hear about Iraqi civilian deaths, but it's usually only from people who are already against the war. It's not changing any minds. Americans, to put it bluntly, are pretty well inured to civilian death that's not their own. (Particularly, and I hate to say this but it's pretty obvious, when the people dying are non-White, non-Christians.)
So, looking at this from a military commander's perspective, who needs to both fight the enemy while also maintaining support from the public at home, weapons systems which protect his soldiers -- even if they might encourage terrorism against civilians in the short run -- are a good thing overall, because if he takes too many casualties, the public will just pull the plug and then he'll fail at his mission. And politically, by turning the enemy into civilian-slaughtering terrorists, it makes the case for attacking them that much easier, while also making them less likely to achieve their political/strategic goals.
Re:You're a math whiz (emphasis on WHIZ) (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.de
BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) -- War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis or more than 500 people a day since the U.S.-led invasion, a new study reports.
Violence including gunfire and bombs caused the majority of deaths but thousands of people died from worsening health and environmental conditions directly related to the conflict that began in 2003, U.S. and Iraqi public health researchers said.
"Since March 2003, an additional 2.5 percent of Iraq's population have died above what would have occurred without conflict," according to the survey of Iraqi households, titled "The Human Cost of the War in Iraq." (Watch as the study's startling results are revealed -- 1:55 )
The survey, being published online by British medical journal The Lancet, gives a far higher number of deaths in Iraq than other organizations. (Read the full report -- pdf)
Re:Is that really a good thing?? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:My assessment (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, and there's a difference between people our enemy kills and people we kill. The vast majority of the Iraqi "civilians" (ie civilians not involved in killing other civilians) killed, probably 95%, are killed by insurgent and terrorist groups. The reason your Dept of Defense bill is so large is that they pull out all the stops to prevent mistakes.
Re:War is Violence ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody is going to want to go out and plant roadside bombs if the chances are good that they're going to get spotted by a predator and killed doing it.
Even if they had a SAM that could shoot down something the size of a predator at 60,000 feet it would make them an instant target and chances are good they'll get killed doing it, to accomplish nothing more than destroying a disposable asset.
Depending on where they deploy these and the tactics they use to employ them, I can imagine it'll force the insurgents to further refine their tactics.
However, when I think about how this will change their tactis, my only thought is that they'd instead go after softer targets, they'll instead draw American forces into situations where it'll be impossible to use a predator (such as a gun fight in a market). Situations where they can cause large numbers of civilian casaulties and blame the Americans.
The solution to this problem is to change the nature of the game.
Re:War is Violence ... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's true that it will definitely save American lives. It will also make it easier and less risky to kill foreign people. Intuitively, it seems like the result of that would be a lot more foreign people getting killed.
Now, you seem to make the claim that since this plane is such an efficient killer, it will actually result in
What this plane will do is make it easier and less risky for the US military to conduct bombing runs. The more bombing runs get done, the more people (innocent and otherwise) get killed.
In general, new US military advances do result in more death.
Re:That can happen in a smaller way (Score:2, Insightful)
That is the rationale of the animal, not the thinking man. That kind of thinking is exactly what evolution is trying to weed out, as we speak.
collateral damage makes their genes less likely to be passed down
What are you, some kind of mad scientist? Or just another victim of collective idealogy? Are you REALLY sitting there thinking that you're on a team, like in sports, along with everyone else living under the rule of "your" government, and the "enemy" living under the rule of another centralized power is all on a common team as well?
For christ's sake, open your eyes and accept human nature: individuals think and act by choice, not by collective mind-control. Furthermore, if you believe yourself to be fighting on behalf of any other individual, you'd better damn well confirm it with THAT individual -- not yourself -- first.
Re:It's also a psychological weapon. (Score:2, Insightful)
Robotic Drone Pilot (based in Nevada): "Killed a bunch of towelhead terrorists. Just another day at the office."
There is a moral problem here, I think. What'd the people on the screen ever do to the operator back in Nevada? I knew our 'war' was lost when I watched the murder of some rebellion fighters broadcast on the National Geographic channel (? - perhaps it was History Channel, or Discovery Channel, or one of the others). They were showcasing modern weapon systems, and had night-vision video of some guys with guns trying to hide from their enemy. The operator casually picked two off, and found the third one trying to hide in a truck. So he turned the machine gun on the truck, which promptly exploded. I seem to recall that they were showing off the Predator drone, but wikipedia says that it doesn't have a machine gun. ?
Really - "terrorists" aren't so different from you & I, and if I had been born where they were I'd probably become a 'terrorist' too.
Re:Those things look slow (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, most man-portable SAMs are heat-guided. A Reaper has its engine and exhaust vents on top of the ship and flies at 50,000 ft, so it would be resistant to heat-guided SAMs. It doesn't travel fast enough to heat up the leading winig edges. I bet it's stealthier than you might think.
Re:War is Violence ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That can happen in a smaller way (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is that really a good thing?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:First Skynet! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's called a helicopter.
I know what you meant, but since these drones are remotely controller rather than autonomous, I see it more of an additional cost than an asset right now.
Besides, why invest money in damage assessment aircraft when you have the local news media willing to do it for free? The local news station here on the Alabama Gulf Coast has a helicopter with a very nice pan-zoom camera system.
Re:That can happen in a smaller way (Score:2, Insightful)
Agreed. If the desire of the people to have "help" changes, then the assisting forces need to leave.
Totally agreed.
Not exactly, but I think I know what you are getting at. In opposition to your opinion, I feel that a standing army is a good thing, as it provides an immediately accessible means of self defense in the event of an attack, and it also serves to deter would-be aggressors. I also have no problem with taxes being used to fund the army, but I think there needs to be some severe limitations:
I think those restrictions would make for safer use of a standing army. Some of them may be untenable, though. My belief is that a government is appointed to, among other things, defend the citizens. In the course of this task, it may be necessary for the government to act immediately without consent of its subjects. I realize this presents a risk. However, there is also a risk associated with not being able to act quickly in an emergency. The risk associated with giving the power of military control to the government can be at least partially mitigated by the fact that leaders who abuse that power can be quickly replaced.
Re:Holy War (Score:2, Insightful)
want to kill every man that is not a muslim
Not really... Koran 5:32:
"For that cause We decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind. Our messengers came unto them of old with clear proofs (of Allah's sovereignty), but afterwards lo! Many of them become prodigals of the earth."
and rape every woman that is not a muslim
Nope, not that either...
"A person who commits this act (sexual intercourse outside of marriage) is not a true believer of their faith" Imam Bukhari and Muslim (See Ibn Al-Atsir, Jami al-Ushul, XII/329 no. 9330).
What they want is the non-believers out of the Arabian Peninsula.
"The only reward for those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom..." Koran 5:33
Are they willing to distort and corrupt their own religion to do it? Sure. Are they evil? You bet -- our lives mean very little to them.
But you've gotta ask yourself two questions...
#1 why are we on their land?
#2 why are we creating more terrorists every day by acting just like them? (http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/07/15/marines.ira
Respectfully,
A rational non-Muslim
Re:War is Violence ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That can happen in a smaller way (Score:3, Insightful)
The major difference being, of course, that oil is not a resource that is strictly required for survival.
Re:Violence ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Here is what happened in 415 B.C. — when distance you are talking about was zero (unless archers were used):
All of the genocides recorded in history — starting, perhaps, from the one mentioned above — were performed with rather low-tech implements, in the immediate proximity to the victims. They were using machetes in Rwanda — to hack the men and to cut the women's breasts off (so that they would not be able to feed their babies)...
In other words, your attempts to redefine, what the term "violence" means is bullshit.
Re:It's also a psychological weapon. (Score:4, Insightful)
Saddam didn't control the feuds with violent suppression. Sure, he controlled the country that way and prevented any significant uprisings that way, but violent suppression is not going to cause a Sunni and Shia who otherwise would have killed each other to marry! And intermarriage was quite common, as were Sunnis and Shias working together and living together and Saddam didn't force them to do so. In other words, at least in Iraq, the Sunni/Shiite rift was not as inherently violent as you may now suppose.
In fact the sectarian violence that seems to define Iraq now, and which you may have predicted to occur as soon as Saddam was out of power, didn't really kick up significantly until 2006. That's when the cycle of killing--reprisal killing--re-reprisal killing took off, starting in particular with the bombing of the Shia mosque. Before that there had been what appeared to be targeted killings, but on a much smaller scale and more importantly without the violent reaction -- leaders of both sects urging calm and peace, not retribution, in an effort to not create a huge rift where there hadn't been before.
Now, though, things are much worse, and formerly integrated neighborhoods have become segregated because one sect or the other is too at risk from insurgents knocking on their doors. I've even seen photographs of Sunnis and Shiites signing over the deeds to their houses to each other so that they can move their families. The very fact that they can peacably cooperate to deal with this new terrible circumstance just shows that Iraq wasn't this way, and didn't have to be this way.
Ultimately I think both al Qaeda and Iran are responsible for causing this, each has significant reasons to want to create a rift between people in Iraq, both to get one sect or the other to align with them, and to disrupt our efforts in the country. And, yes, I put some blame on the U.S. planners in particular the Sec. of Defense for completely and utterly failing to predict or prepare to counter these influences.
Re:War is Violence ... (Score:5, Insightful)
World Trade Centre, centre for American economic imperialism.
It was a valid military target, when you think about it.
As a result America attacked Iraq and are now forcing a new oil agreement on the Iraqi people.
Capitalism in the U.S. is becoming tied to the military, and the military isn't about choice or freedom, no matter what politicians say.
Re:That can happen in a smaller way (Score:2, Insightful)
I think we're talking apples and oranges here. Saddam's country wasn't suffering from inadequate resources for survival. They had all the oil they needed. The issue was entirely economic -- less oil to sell. I think what they accused Kuwait of doing was horizontal drilling across the border. But the accusation seems a bit thin because rather than provide public proof that Kuwait was guilty, they just accused and invaded. Smart political handling would have had Kuwait enjoying sanctions from the UN instead of Iraq.
Agreed. Personally, I think that we could get along just fine without oil here, but despite what some of the radical greens think, there's no way we could make a sudden switch. If oil were suddenly not available, the entire economy would collapse and there would be widespread starvation and general gnashing of teeth. But it would be possible to transition over time to a non-oil economy. I personally think we could do it in 10 years if it became a priority (that means giving up a lot of "nice things" that we are used to in the short term, and it almost certainly means much more widespread use of nuclear power for the immediate future). But the chances of that happening are slim.
I'd settle for both a president and a congress that refuse to protect "big energy". I want to see a huge windfall tax on the oil and gas companies for the boat loads of money they have made at the expense of the public. Because energy is only partly a discretionary-use product, the energy companies are in the perfect position to generate artificial shortages and manipulate the market. And frankly, I'm having a hard time believing that the record number of outages we are experiencing in the refineries this year are only a coincidence. Today's is ripe for the rise of disruptive technology that will leave the energy companies out in the cold (pun intended). My biggest fear is that new advances in alternate energy will be met with regulatory roadblocks imposed by government officials who are in bed with the incumbent players in the market.
Re:Is that really a good thing?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Your argument ignores differences between Arabs and Germans/Japanese, who have more of a tribal than national structure.
The Japanese civilians did not quit. Their emperor quit, with the result that the militaristic aggression of the Japanese stopped in unison (with the exception of a few living out in the jungle who did not get the message). And Germany was occupied, and the press seized by the occupiers (which was the effective mode of communication between leadership and rank and file).
To get the Iraqis to quit in unison is a lot harder. The hierarchy is a lot lower level, and thus harder to control. That's part of the reason they don't tend to do well in organized, large scale, European type battles, but do well at irregular type warfare. Easy to invade, hard to control.
There is also the question of the pretext of the war. On what grounds is the US justified in carpet bombing Iraq into submission? WMD or bringing democracy?
Re:Is that really a good thing?? (Score:3, Insightful)