Drones 1, McKiernan 0: The Limits of Robot Warfare

May 12th, 2009 by Tina Casey

The U.S. military budget has started to tilt toward sustainability, and in part that means putting more focus on leaner, lighter aircraft, namely drones. But as the abrupt firing of Afghanistan commander General Kiernan shows, sometimes sustainable technology is only as good as its user. So, how much did the use of drones – which we’ll classify as robots, for our purposes – have to do with the end of a military career?

Drones, Robots and Sustainability

First, the good news. Advances in military technology have a way of paralleling civilian life or even, as in the case of the Internet, propelling the civilian world into a new technological age. That can be a good thing when it comes to the role of drones and other robots in our sustainable future. Just a few recent examples: drones are flying over Greenland to measure its ice sheet, robotic fish are cleaning up water pollution, and climbing robots are inspecting wind turbines.

War with the Robots

Now for the dark side. Drones have rapidly emerged as Public Enemy #1 in the Afghanistan war. This was supposed to be the “good” war, at least compared to Iraq. Now it’s not. As uninvolved as we statesiders can be, it’s only a matter of time before the anger overseas shows up on our radar. For a generation raised on Star Wars and Terminator (ok, you can throw in Stealth), robot warfare touches a lot of nerves.

McKiernan, Drones, and Robots

McKiernan’s firing came about with practically no explanation, so for now we can make up our own. From a technological point of view, it wasn’t just about Afghanistan. McKiernan pushed robot warfare too far, too fast, to the point where public revulsion could threaten the U.S. military’s robotics programs overall. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the announcement but our new Commander-in-Chief’s fingerprints are all over McKiernan’s firing and the message that it sent: when it comes to drones and robots, tread lightly.

Image: techburst at flickr.com.

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Tags: afghanistan, drone, McKiernan, robot

About the Author

Tina Casey Tina Casey specializes in military and corporate sustainability, advanced technology, emerging materials, biofuels, and water and wastewater issues. Tina’s articles are reposted frequently on Reuters, Scientific American, and many other sites. Views expressed are her own. Follow her on Twitter @TinaMCasey and Google+.

Steve

What? Robots fighting wars is bad? I don’t like war, few do, but until these neanderthals stop building bombs, blow them up. Robots seem like a good way to do that.
Steve

What? Robots fighting wars is bad? I don’t like war, few do, but until these neanderthals stop building bombs, blow them up. Robots seem like a good way to do that.
Nikos Retsos

We have become a militaristic society, and every knew

invention in the market is studied by the military for warfare applications. Chemical, bacteriological,

space and ocean exploration, computer technology, telephones, airwaves, the TV spectrum, press and media for propaganda, trade, medicine, religion, animals -seals and dolphin trained for underwater military missions, and even mind altering food additives.

Can we control the world with all those terrific tools on our disposal? No, because our ability to kill with impunity has made us the global bully that

everybody likes to bust whenever they can. We have sown unscrupulous bombing and killing of civilians around the globe, and now we are harvesting global hatred and terrorism. And as the article suggests, and as it was proven in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Pakistan, our bombing and robotic warfare -with Predator drones- just increased the hatred against us, and did not lead us to victory.

I remember back in the 70’s and 80’s there were some movies made of real stories of bullies that terrorized small towns, and the authorities couldn’t or didn’t do anything about. One day, someone blew the head of those bullies off, and nobody in the town knew anything. The authorities tried and tried, but the shooters was never caught. The authorities called it “collective town consent” [to deal with the bully with deadly force], and that is what is happening against the U.S. today in a global scale. There is “a collective anti-U.S. consent” around the globe, and we have created it with our bullying attitude, and with our military dogma to kill all who hate us – if we can do so with impunity – especially in poor countries that cannot defend themselves.

Retired Cuban president Fidel Castro called out military “a killing machine.” But its senseless and wanton wars in small countries after WWII didn’t bring home any victory that we can be proud of. It just brought home murder and mayhem (what the Revered Jerehiah Wright called “the chickens [revenge] come home to roost”), and made us the most hated nation on earth. Too bad Obama didn’t take his pastor advice. Sure, we can kill a lot of Afghan and Pakistan civilians robotically, trying to blame the Taliban for using them as human shields to conceal our crime, and then give their families $ 2.000 to bury the hatchet. But as Afghan president Hamid Karzai has said 100 times: “That is not a way to win a war.” And unless we start showing respect for human life, and stop killing civilians and call them collateral damage, the change of Generals in command in Afghanistan won’t make any difference.

Obama’s National Security Advisor, Gen. Jones, said

“U.S. airstrikes will continue because we cannot fight a war with one hand tighten behind our back,” on quote. Translation: We don’t want to fight a conventional battle and take casualties in a village when we can bomb and obliterate that village from the air. And if the civilians there die, so be it!

It reminds us what the Israel did it recently by bombing Gaza into rubble and killing 1350 civilians and injuring thousands. And “that is not a way to win as war,” as Afghan president Karzai said.

Nikos Retsos, retired professor
Nikos Retsos

We have become a militaristic society, and every knew

invention in the market is studied by the military for warfare applications. Chemical, bacteriological,

space and ocean exploration, computer technology, telephones, airwaves, the TV spectrum, press and media for propaganda, trade, medicine, religion, animals -seals and dolphin trained for underwater military missions, and even mind altering food additives.

Can we control the world with all those terrific tools on our disposal? No, because our ability to kill with impunity has made us the global bully that

everybody likes to bust whenever they can. We have sown unscrupulous bombing and killing of civilians around the globe, and now we are harvesting global hatred and terrorism. And as the article suggests, and as it was proven in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Pakistan, our bombing and robotic warfare -with Predator drones- just increased the hatred against us, and did not lead us to victory.

I remember back in the 70’s and 80’s there were some movies made of real stories of bullies that terrorized small towns, and the authorities couldn’t or didn’t do anything about. One day, someone blew the head of those bullies off, and nobody in the town knew anything. The authorities tried and tried, but the shooters was never caught. The authorities called it “collective town consent” [to deal with the bully with deadly force], and that is what is happening against the U.S. today in a global scale. There is “a collective anti-U.S. consent” around the globe, and we have created it with our bullying attitude, and with our military dogma to kill all who hate us – if we can do so with impunity – especially in poor countries that cannot defend themselves.

Retired Cuban president Fidel Castro called out military “a killing machine.” But its senseless and wanton wars in small countries after WWII didn’t bring home any victory that we can be proud of. It just brought home murder and mayhem (what the Revered Jerehiah Wright called “the chickens [revenge] come home to roost”), and made us the most hated nation on earth. Too bad Obama didn’t take his pastor advice. Sure, we can kill a lot of Afghan and Pakistan civilians robotically, trying to blame the Taliban for using them as human shields to conceal our crime, and then give their families $ 2.000 to bury the hatchet. But as Afghan president Hamid Karzai has said 100 times: “That is not a way to win a war.” And unless we start showing respect for human life, and stop killing civilians and call them collateral damage, the change of Generals in command in Afghanistan won’t make any difference.

Obama’s National Security Advisor, Gen. Jones, said

“U.S. airstrikes will continue because we cannot fight a war with one hand tighten behind our back,” on quote. Translation: We don’t want to fight a conventional battle and take casualties in a village when we can bomb and obliterate that village from the air. And if the civilians there die, so be it!

It reminds us what the Israel did it recently by bombing Gaza into rubble and killing 1350 civilians and injuring thousands. And “that is not a way to win as war,” as Afghan president Karzai said.

Nikos Retsos, retired professor