We have seen a great deal of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in recent
operations. In the recent Airshow too, with technology we can
reduce risking our pilots on dangerous missions.
The United States has launched some 40 UAV-carried missile
attacks inside Pakistan alone last year. Whereas British forces are
relying increasingly on unmanned drones to attack targets in
Afghanistan, mirroring controversial tactics used by the US.
They are launched near areas of combat but are then "flown" by
remote control, via satellite links, operated by pilots who may be
thousands of miles away.
The drone revolution addresses two urgent requirements for
today's military:
From BBC:
There is no risk of your pilots dying
Pilotless planes promise to be cheaper to make and run than
conventional fighter jets
The US military already has over 7,000 unmanned aerial systems, and
the RAF is following in its wake.
The RAF's 39 Squadron flies Reaper drone missions over
Afghanistan from the Nevada base. The US authorities refused a BBC
request to visit, but we were able to speak to RAF personnel there
by phone.
Andy Baverstock analyses the images beamed back from the
Reapers' cameras. He describes his team's advanced situational
awareness as they watch intently what's happening in
Afghanistan.
"Because you're doing it for so long, you can tell whether a
group of people are moving tactically or whether it's a group of
guys going to irrigate a field."
Ethics
How do they decide whether to use lethal force when they are so
far from the battlefield? Wing Commander Jules Ball replies that
they often respond to requests for support from soldiers on the
ground.
Otherwise, "we would most definitely be having to go to higher
headquarters in order to ensure that what we were doing was
appropriate, necessary, proportional and legal. We wouldn't be
doing it autonomously if you like from 8,000 miles away".
It is not just the military who fly drones.
The CIA uses them to attack al-Qaeda and Taliban targets,
sometimes on the territory of Pakistan, a US ally.
The US government believes drones enable it to strike back at
terrorist leaders where conventional forces have failed. Pakistani
media have reported hundreds of civilian deaths in such
attacks.
CIA operations like this require presidential authorisation.
According to the New America Foundation, a think tank, President
Obama has been authorising drone strikes at a higher rate than
President Bush.
Such is the secrecy surrounding CIA operations that there are no
clear rules of engagement. There is "no accountability after the
fact" says Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial
executions.
Vicki Divoll, who worked for several years as a CIA lawyer,
refuses to confirm that such attacks happen as reported. But based
on "what we believe to be happening," she reveals deep divisions
within the CIA about the use of drones.
Using drones to kill people has been "extremely controversial"
at the agency, she says.
"When the controls are manned by someone in a suburb of
Washington rather than by someone in the field you become so
detached that there's no cost, there's no limitation on you."
The implications of the robotic revolution are profound.
The US is already recruiting drone pilots from among young men
skilled at computer games. Instead of flying into danger they may
never need to leave the security of a cabin full of computer
screens on home soil.
Will this revolution change attitudes towards killing and make
governments feel war is less costly or risky?
Air Vice Marshal Tim Anderson, trained in British military
tradition, has his concerns.
But he hopes that responsibility for combat will still "imbue
within operators an appropriate sense of culture and ethos, such
that it never becomes a video game".
What does it mean for the British pilot Mark Jenkins, based in
Nevada, when he kills people remotely?
"It's going to weigh on your mind. It does. I don't think you'd
be human if it didn't. But I've got a family at home and I need to
be there for my family, so I deal with it."
