The problem with unmanned warfare

In a society that values human life, the attraction of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned naval vehicles (UNVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) seems obvious. When you add to that the Congressional appeal of reducing paying all those highly trained fighter pilots, sea captains and battle tank drivers — not to mention self-piloting service vehicles, autonomous support aircraft, freight ships, warehouse computerized robots and so on — well, the benefit of getting rid of about half the military personnel is quite enticing. If you add to the equation the lack of soldiers’, sailors’ and pilots’ benefits going forward, plus (hopefully) a lack of ever-increasing medical battlefield needs, well, you can see why Congress and the Pentagon are jumping aboard the unmanned bandwagon.However, I am old enough to remember the similar attractiveness of the atomic weapons development programs. The reduction in the need for combat scenarios, the reduction in the cost of maintaining a military force (let alone manage the draft) was a huge part of the argument to expand the atomic weapons’ programs, including the development of the H-bomb (which was heralded as “the peace maker”), the NATO atomic howitzer shells designed to stop a USSR tank invasion and, never least, the neutron bomb designed to kill every living thing but leave all the buildings and assets intact. Oh, yes, we developed all those at huge cost. They are still here, stockpiled somewhere.The only thing which prevented those atomic weapons being used, even used in limited ways (as Barry Goldwater advocated) was the incredible risk of escalation, the obliteration of life as we knew it should events get really rolling. Today’s generation may not remember the repeated evaluation of the effects of radiation as meted out in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even as late as 1978, there were updated reports of the suffering caused by those bombs in 1945. Deformities, cancers, breakdown in body tissues and functions occurring decades later were hardly the “quick end of hostilities and a resultant peace” as pro-atomic warfare touted.• • •The problems we are facing with the expansion of autonomous warfare machines is exactly the same, without the safety evaluation of atomic radiation to balance the discussion. Would Congress or a future president (or indeed Putin and his cohorts) think twice about putting a machine in harms’ way? No, why would they, it is only money, not people. And we all know how easily they spend money...Some may say why does it matter if machines battle it out? It is what they are battling for that matters. It is the increased ease of leaders to debate whether to engage in battles that matters. As any foot soldier will tell you, there comes a time in any battle when you have to deal with people, people you are fighting for or fighting over. The consequences for populations are always personal, real, deadly. What we need to be afraid of — very afraid — is that these unmanned warfare vehicles, seemingly so capable and yet seemingly without risk to human operators, become so ubiquitous (as atomic weapons became) that they similarly become so easy to deploy without the evaluation of the end result. Warfare always has an end result: People die or are conquered. That’s the discussion that should be considered before we over arm ourselves with these UAVs, UNVs and UGVs so readily.You may hear talk of a reduction in the military. That is a lie. There may be a reduction in military personnel planned, but the military is actually ramping up, building more efficient, much more capable, easily-deployable killing machines. Think I’m kidding? What the heck do you think those drone strikes are? Just the beginning.Formerly a resident of Amenia Union, columnist Riva now lives in New Mexico.