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The Drone War
There are plenty of human casualties in the Afghan conflict -- though few among Americans -- but the fight seems especially significant in terms of technology and military conflict.
The Predator spy plane and other unmanned drones and gunships (along with satellites, thermal imaging devices, X-ray scanners, etc.) not only search for the enemy, but fire guided missiles, drop powerful oxygen-sucking hyperbaric bombs, and guide bomb strikes from afar. There is no war in recent human history that involved so few humans, at least on one side of the conflict. The most staggering statistic out of Afghanistan might be that the first American combat casualty died nearly three months into the "war."
Before Afghanistan, conventional military wisdom held that a war can't be won without substantial numbers of ground troops. Even as the Afghanistan campaign began, pundits flooded cable talk shows asserting that air power alone wasn't enough, that there would be substantial human sacrifice. Both Desert Storm in Kuwait and Iraq and the Kosovo conflicts involved the growing used of so-called "smart" laser-guided weaponry, deployed with varying degrees of reliability. But those conflicts also involved either the use of enormous numbers of soldiers on the ground and were controversial in terms of the bomb's precision and effectiveness.
The Afghanistan campaign is a very different kind of fight. Early reports suggest the civilian casualties may be lower than in any other large-scale military operation in modern history. Although dangerous and complex for the military on the scene, it's hard to imagine a conflict more remote to the majority of Americans, asked to go about their business as usual.
Orwell's "Drone Wars" come very much to mind here. So does Sir Arthur Clarke's machine warfare and AI military stories. A handful of human soldiers guide and direct the increasingly sophisticated technological arsenal that has devastated the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda networks with stunningly few U.S. military casualties and American civilian casualties beyond September 11 and the anthrax attacks. The Taliban and their terrorist friends seem to have been totally unprepared for this variety of war, such a stark contrast to the Soviet's ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan just a decade ago.
It seems only a matter of time before other countries developed their own surrogate weaponry, and the idea of the high-tech Drone War -- machines warring with one another -- moves to the next level.
Winston Churchill repeatedly asked his countrymen for brutal sacrifices in World War II. In the new kind of American war, political leaders ask citizens only to keep shopping and traveling.
Military historians like John Keegan have recently argued that the devastating toll of warfare in the 20th Century makes conventional conflicts increasingly less likely. Once a means of expanding territory and amassing wealth, the brutish wars of the 20th Century have rendered both objectives hard to attain. Even before Drone Wars, artillery and aerial warfare along with nuclear weapons suggested that wars can't really be won in the conventional sense any longer; even the victors will suffer unacceptable losses. But drone warfare radically alters the equation. Technologically advanced civilian populations -- just as Orwell foresaw -- can send their technological surrogates off to battle one another while humans stay home to wait for the outcome.
A war without sacrifice is definitely a 21st century idea. Why should citizens of any country hesitate to wage such a war if they have the machinery? War has recently seemed so terrible that civilized societies view it as a last resort. But American history is crammed with technological innovations that are neither discussed nor much thought out. Drone Wars might not appear so terrible. They might even become irresistible.
Cost... Sounds like a good enough reason not to fight for me.
It will be almost impossible for oppressed people's to violently object to tyranny in such a scenario.
War is mearly becoming symbolic.
I remember an original Star Trek episode, in which there was a conflict between two planets. The Enterprise crew the war was mearly a computer simulation, but each side killed X amount of citezens according to the simulation results.
A war waged by computers, the casualties human, for no purpose.
War should only be used to stand up for beliefs in the shadow of only the most incredible evil. When there is no death, is there really any significance?
The most staggering statistic out of Afghanistan might be that the first American combat casualty died nearly three months into the "war."
No, the first casualty reported to the media died three months into the war.
Same thing in Desert Storm. We had a lot of casualties. Some are still classified.
The US has learned from Vietnam. Americans don't like to hear about the death of Americans.
If you don't think that Navy Seals have been in Afghanastan since September 12th, and that some of them died before we even declared war, then you shouldn't even speak of war, cause you are out of the loop.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
...there are significant ground forces, they are just not Americans.
All these sci-fi writers are wrong. deeply wrong.
take the last two wars US fought: Gulf and Afghanistan.
Gulf was won by siege. They sufocated Iraq by preventing them from buying weapons and _food_. when Iraq's soldiers came to the point of choosing between death and surender, they surended.
Afghanistan was not properly an US war. it was a civil war with US giving air cover.
in certain environments (Afghanistan specially) you can't win or even fight a drone war, because THEY DON'T HAVE DRONES. the only thing they have is AK-47 and some grenades. their bases are almost all in the underground in a mountain landscape.
the only way to fight a war in such place is with _infantry_. in the ground. with handguns. using guerrila tatics.
ask pentagon about fighting in tropical jungles like vietnam or amazon. ask them if drones are efective in such places. if they say YES, they don't know theyr jobs.
What ? Me, worry ?
...Jon Katz shows he's not qualified to comment on something. Notice his assumption about drones doing battle only with each other. We'll never see a war like that, as it wouldn't decide anything. At some point you have to physically move in a take control of fixed physical assets, which means people are involved. (Yes, it's possible that many, many years from now we'd have robots so advanced they could take over even this job, but that's deep in the SF realm for now.)
Once again, we have an insightful, thoroughly-researched article from Mr. Katz. As usual, it is free of broad generalizations, stereotyping, and adherence to the peculiar sort of "conventional wisdom" that pervades Slashdot.
It is time we all started paying attention to what JonKatz has to say. Like most journalists, his grasp of military matters is complete. He presents us with cold, hard reality -- free of his personal bias or agenda.
Citizens of the US and world would do well to follow JonKatz's leadership. I suggest it is high time Mr. Katz receive the honorary title of General in the coming UN Military Organization.
We need his mind if we are going to save our children's world.
the Soviet's ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan just a decade ago.
I don't remember the Soviets invading Afghanistan after the Gulf War... I thought it was a decade before that.
Afghanistan was invaded by the Red Army in 1979 and the invasion ended in 1989 when the last troops withdrew from Afghanistan.
This site agrees with me.
Before Afghanistan, conventional military wisdom held that a war can't be won without substantial numbers of ground troops.
Firstly, that conventional wisdom was first broken in the Kosovo conflict, when Yugoslavia capitulated as a result of NATO air bombardment. Secondly, there are all kinds of ground troops on the ground in Afghanistan; not counting the small number of special forces, there are tens of thousands of Northern Alliance troops who actually captured the Taliban positions.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
I don't think this builds to a future where robots fight each other and we sit at home and wait for the outcome.
... public support for this dries up pretty fast.
... or at least feel safe.)
I think what we're seeing here is a natural progression, not a revolution. It's always been less risky for a wealthy nation to fight a poor one (as long as the wealthy nation is willing to spend the money -- Russia wasn't) than it has been to fight against even odds.
All you have here is a mechanism for wealthy countries a relatively guiltless and politically easy-to-swallow way to wage war against relatively poor countries. There is no threat of nuclear backlash, and we don't risk soldiers. All we ask is for people to pay their taxes and support the economy.
The "equalizer" (if you want to call it that) here is terrorism -- if civilians here start dying in scores in retaliation
(Thus, one could decide, the only way to keep these kind of wars going is to run a police state so your civilians are "safe"
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
As a charter member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Robots, I feel the pain of these drones.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Robots was presciently chartered in the early 1660s long before robots were invented; the moral and ethical interest at stake was simply that compelling. Throughout the subsequent centuries, few other societies, royal or otherwise, have done as much to advance the civil rights of robots everywhere.
Remember the robot from NASA's Pathfinder mission? He's a card-carrying union member of the AFL/CIO, all thanks to the diligent lobbying of concerned RSfPR members. Rmember the scene at the end of Terminator 2: Judgment Day where the "evil" cyborg is destroyed by falling into a refinery's crucible? Though we did not successfully torpedo the whole production as an affront to non-diabolical cyborgs everywhere, we did manage to convince Hollywood executives to append a boilerplate warning at the end of the film informing the audience that no actual cyborgs were harmed in its production -- at the time, the T-1000 cyborg was safely sitting in his trailer sipping lattes while a cgi facsimile was lowered into the lava.
Just because they are made of silicon, metal, and oil doesn't mean they're any less significant at the dawning of a new moral age in the 21st century. That America would choose to sacrifice robotic drones instead of conventional meat soldiers simply demonstrates how far this once-great nation has sunk into the moral abyss.
Thank you.
Quick Google Search uncovered it (shoulda did that before posting. Too late, though).
"If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off? Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an axe. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him...but to make him do what you want to do. Not killing...but controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how -- or why -- he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people -- 'older and wiser heads,' as they say -- supply the control. Which is as it should be." [Heinlein 1959:63, emphasis and ellipses in original]
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
If he thinks that mechanized warfare will lead to no casualty war, he's incorrect. (Um, what about the targets of all those high tech weapons. They certainly won't all be the other side's high tech weapons, they will be people).
If he uses this assertion to conclude that because the citzenry won't be involved in the offensive side of the wars, that they will be more inclined to go to war, then he is on shaky ground. I see no reason why the further mechanization of war could honestly lead one to believe that the "sacrifices of war" would be seriously reduced. Industry would still be destroyed. People would lose their jobs, and some would lose their lives. An aversion to this is exactly why conventional wars are no longer in favor, and why mechanization will not change that fact.
I do grant, the mechanization can lead to greater war between the advanced world and the conventional world, as we've already seen. But extending that to say that advanced countries will be more likely to go to war because technology reduces the costs of going to war is ludicrous and wrong.
I think I'll stop here.
It's a Good Thing for the soldiers, who don't get killed.
It's a Good Thing for the generals, who no longer have to order their men to die.
It's a Good Thing for the families of the soldiers, who no longer have to get The Letter from The Men In Dress Uniform.
About the only group of people it's bad for are the companies that make the flags that get draped on coffins.
Katz, if you wanna talk about how "drone wars" are somehow less moral than wars with casualties, I suggest you visit the Somme (60,000 on the first day, about 1.2 million casualties for the whole battle), or Ypres (400,000, and first use of mustard gas), or Verdun (750,000) any of the other WWI slaughterhouses.
If you don't like "smart weapons", look at the pictures from WWI where artillery shelling stripped the land of trees down to the ground - the closest thing I've seen to it was the aftermath of Mt. St. Helens. Nothing but mud and matchsticks that used to be trees, as far as the eye can see.
Better yet, find a WWI veteran and tell him that you think the techno-wars we fight today are somehow "worse" than the way he fought war.
Even from a wheelchair or hospital bed, I'll bet any one of them would gladly kick your ass all the way back to 1914.
Well, those Northern Alliance guys were humans.
The Afghanistan campaign is a very different kind of fight.
Only within the context that that the indiginous people, with the assistance of overwhelming and unopposed US airpower, drove out an unpopular occupying force.
The chief reason the Taliban fell so fast was because they didn't have an airforce or any sophisticated weapons. Let's see how this analysis holds up with North Korea, eh?
While I don't doubt that technology is changing the arsenal, the war is still fought between people. To take it to the begining, the attack of Sept. 11, was about the same as a Kamikaze mission, just using the resources of the foe. The face of terrorism has changed and remote countrol drones and tomahawk missiles are ineffective when sorting out who the village terrorist is. Back to the intelligence game for that.
I don't think we need to look for Terminators quite yet.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Even for Katz this article is outrageous.
First off, airpower alone did not destroy the Taliban- it (greatly) supplimented the Afgan opposition's ground forces. Just because our tanks and infantry weren't in those mountains doesn't mean there weren't any there. Ground forces will ALWAYS be needed to sweep through and hold captured land.
But as for the larger discussion of the evolution of warfare:
Wars will not be fought off on some designated battlefield where each side sends its combatants (carbon or silcon based) while the generals stay at home. Wars are fought on somebody's homeland, usually for the purpose of taking that homeland for yourself.
Say we conducted this symbolic war in cyberspace or in meat-space with drones. Does this mean when we lose that I have to give up my house without a fight? Not gonna happen!!!
Rob.
The "equalizer" (if you want to call it that) here is terrorism -- if civilians here start dying in scores in retaliation ... public support for this dries up pretty fast.
Um, hello? Have you ever heard of Israel? There people haven't been cowed by forty years of bombings, wars, etc...
We wouldn't bomb Afghanistan when they were abusing their women and blowing up priceless historical artifacts. Not even the terrorist attacks in Yemin and Saudi Arrabia could convince us. Those were just servicemen. It took an attack on civilians to justify this war. And Bush's approval ratings are astronomical (and comically depressing)
Support for military action doesn't dry up when terrorists strike. It grows. When people feel threatened in their everyday life they want only to end that threat. And the quickest way is to destroy the people attacking you. It's also the easiest to understand and demonstrate.
What makes a war difficult 'to swallow' is when there's the people supporting the war don't feel threatened. Like Somalia and Bosnia and Vietnam. That's when casualties become dangerous.
To sum up: Civilian casualties increase public support for war. Because it could be me and you who are killed next time.
(Ugh, this wasn't supposed to be this long -- Sorry)
Sweat
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
The US strategy relied on the Northern Alliance (and later, other local Afghans). It became clear early on that air power alone could not do enough.
And the same thing happened in Kosovo. It wasn't until local Albanian rebels forced Serbian troops out that NATO air power won the war.
Large scale nulclear wars, though, would in a way be the most "humanless" wars. The US and USSR both planned for a war whose objective was to knock out the other side's missles: there's would make bigger explosions, ours were more accurate. Both sides put their nukes in hard to blow-up places. Some nukes required a direct hit, within a few meters, by another nuke to be destroyed. Of course, lots of people would die in the process, but only as collateral damage...
Sure, robots have their place..But what difference does it really make in the long run?
Every militarized country in the world wishes it's military was comprised of individuals who purely execute orders. Flesh robots, if you will. Mind you, theres nothing denegrating about that label--Countries are liberated, people are saved, and the world's criminals are punished due to the work of "flesh robots". You've got a bad case of function guilt if you think robots will ever supplant people on the front lines -- It simply isn't feasable.
Wars are rarely fought with singular orders. The typical soldier in a wartime scenario relies heavilly upon the information he recieves, the situation he percieves around him, and is capable of making rational & complex decisions based upon that information. Sure, a machine can be taught to do all that, but how is that information going to get there? And if your ultimate goal is programmable warfare, isn't the most flexible solider the human?
Here's a few things to think about before you buy stock in Honda--Flesh robots do not require battery power. Metal robots would be prone to power loss at critical times. Flesh robots can usually continue to fight, even after physical injury. Metal robots would be severely impaired if even one portion of their body is rendered useless. And, above all, we have nukes. It wouldn't matter at all what you put on the battlefeild, 22 kg of plutonium smooshed together at the right angle will kill anything that lives, flesh or metal. Insanely high-tech creations would be rendered completely and totally useless by 1940's technology.
Look, I think robots are cool too, especially ones designed to kill eachother. I just don't think you'll ever see 5000 robots cross a river chest deep in water, scaling the cliffs of Normandy, or making it through a Korean winter. Why bother making metal robots then, when you've already got flesh robots who can do the same?
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Drones, however advanced, will never replace a squad of trained soldiers led by a human commander in the field. They are not as flexible, they don't have the wide variety of abilities of human soldiers, and they have totally different weaknesses (for example, to EMP). Drones are just another tool, like the tank or the airplane or the Gatling gun.
Well, if he does have inside info, he certainly can't tell you because it's most likely classfied. So, should you believe him? Up to you. I happen to agree with him as I have to have worked for the agencies for a few years and have similar stories. The number one rule of classified information is "only on a need to know basis". Let's face it, we really don't have a need to know where our special forces guys are and aren't (unless of course you do). 99.99% of slashdot readers don't fall into that category. Heck most of the US doesn't fall into that catagory. Will we ever find out? Probably. Things have a way of leaking/declassifying over time.
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
It's fortunate that the most technologically advanced nations are also democratic, because democracies do not start wars with each other as a rule. If dictatorship is incompatible with the maintenance of such a technological edge (because of the human capital required) maybe the world will become a safer place; however, I'd worry if a nation like China can get to the point of building such weapons systems without also liberalizing its political and economic system.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Yeah, nevermind the thousands that died at the world trade centers, the pentagon and on the three flights -- the civilians who didn't even know we were fighting a war until Al Queda made their first cowardly strike. Some drone war. So unfair. You are tiresome, Katz.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
As significant has been the development and mass production of precision ordnance such as the JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition), which can be dropped from a standard bomber (B-1 or B-52) but is satellite-guided. What's particularly interesting about JDAM is that it is attached to ordinary gravity bombs (of which the US military has a very large stockpile); it converts the current stock of inaccurate weapons to something much more accurate. IIRC something like 60-70% of bombs used in Afghanistan were precision-guided, as opposed to 10% or so in the Gulf and some larger percentage in Kosovo.
It's still not Attack of the Drones because the UAVs don't shoot at anything, or drop munitions. I think this is smart: a human needs to make the final call that the target is in fact what we think it is. AFAIK the Pentagon has no plans to change this division of labor: automated surveillance, humans leading the attack. But someone better informed than me may wish to supply further info here.
sulli
RTFJ.
So the Afghanis fighting against the Taliban were remote controlled drones guided by Quake hardened veterans of the Pentagon's elite clans?
I don't think so.
Maybe Jon has been watching a different CNN from me - but from what I recall there were soldiers busy fighting and dying against the Taliban long before the American's arrived to "save the day" john-wayne style for the gawking eye of the camera.
If anything the lesson of the war against Iraq in the early 90's was that you can't win a ground war by the air. The western allied nations pounded Iraqi ground positions for months before moving in on the ground - and they still had to fight Iraqis on the ground. They didn't run away, they were still there.
Afghanistan was not a vacuum of empty space with nothing but the Taliban and American jets. Afghanis themselves were fighting and dying in order to overthrow the Taliban control - this war was won on the ground not in the air. Certainly the American and British bombardment did a lot to weaken the Taliban and enabled the Northern Alliance to make critical breaks in the Taliban lines that they had not been able to up until that point, but lets not imagine for a moment that this war was won by laser guided bombs and cruise missiles alone. That would be naive to an unbelievable degree.
When you have people on the ground, occupying space, you cannnot remove them unless you go in and physically do so. No matter how many bombs you drop, how accurately you pinpoint your missiles, how many satellite and drone recon photos you take - it still requires people on the ground with guns to take and hold territory for a nation to be conquered.
The fact that America achieved her objectives with little loss of American life is meaningless in this context for a few simple reasons. American objectives were simply to eliminate the Taliban & Al Quaeda's abilities to carry out terrorism. Not neccessarily to "liberate" the Afghani people. It happened that in this instance this goal dove-tailed nicely with the goals of certain Afghani parties whose ambitions were to remove the Taliban from power and institute a new state - so supporting those forces in achieving their goals was the simplest and most effective way of achieving the American goals.
Mostly however it was because America was fighting by proxy. There was little need for large numbers of ground troops to be deployed because the local forces were already in place and familiar with the landscape and the methods of fighting in this region. Also the political consequences both at home and in the eyes of other Muslim nations of a large-scale American invasion were prohibitive. So using somebody else to do the grunt-work of the war made both good political and military sense.
To make up a story in which America won the war by itself with nothing by high-tech gadgets is absurd and meaningless. Any conclusions drawn from such a situation are useless in both a military and political framework.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
Sorry international readers... some specific 'we' content pertaining to the USA.
Did we actually declare war?
That takes an act of Congress.
Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power To...
Clause 11: To declare War... and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water...
Of course, Congress hasn't formally declared war against anyone since World War II. Since then, the United States has engaged in military conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. Our soldiers are fighting overseas. We feel as though we're at war at home, but we're not at war under the U.S. Constitution because Congress hasn't declared war.
All Congress did was approve the necessary budget items related to the Sept. 11th.
That being said, what do we do with all the 'detainees' in Guantanamo Bay? Does international law require us to be at war to hold them for any length of time?
pronoblem
I am reminded of a Star Trek (Original Series) episode about a completely computerized war.
Two planets had been warrior for centuries, perhaps millenia. Originally, they built great starfleets, rockets, atomic weapons, and launched them against their enemy planet. Thousands would die per attack.
Then they used their advanced computer networks to design new attack patterns, so they would build newer rockets, bombs, etc etc. On the other side, the computers would design new defenses, anti rocket, etc etc And vice versa.
So, with each new interation, the computers could calculate just how effective the new weapon would be, and calculate how many thousands of the enemy would die in the attack. And vice versa on the other side. For example, for every 100 missiles, 1 would get through, 20 square miles would get nuked, and 100,000 people would die.
Both sides could perfectly predict the results of their attacks before the attack even began, or even before the missiles were built to be used in the attack, they could tell by just the design. They could predict the enemy attacks also, perfectly, and could predict when and where their defenses would fail. The two enemies were locked at a stalemate.
So, the two planets made a decision... they would continue to fight the war, but instead of fighting with physical objects like missiles, the war would be fought entirely by computer. The computer would design new attacks and communicate the attacks to the enemy computer, where the enemy computer would make a defense calculation, predict the number of people dead, and the citizens would march themselves into suicide chambers to represent the losses without the mes of nuclear fallout and all that wasted manufacture.
And they did it, for additional millenia, until the survivors on both planets had forgotten what it was that they were fighting about in the first place.
Fiction:
Spiders, Part 1: A group of Afghan women have had it up to here with the Taliban...
Spiders, Part 2: US civilians take part in the hunt for OBL and document history by means of massively-distributed, networked, robots, called "spiders", which are airdropped en masse around the countryside.
(I'm still looking forward to Part 3...)
Non-fiction:
Omnicam - a 360-degree camera. One application of which is to mount in a system like...
LOTS: Lehigh Omnidirectional Tracking System, a system whereby autonomous cameras can be dropped around hell's half-acre and human operators alerted when something "interesting" happens.
Sounds a lot like "Spiders", come to think of it. I wonder if this is where the artist got the idea for the strip?
A military commander should value his soldiers lives higher than he does the lives of hostile noncombatants.
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That goes both ways though: Military contractors make a lot of money when there are conflicts (for instance apparently the military is ordering cruise missiles faster than they can be built), so you get a dangerous situation where there are elements that have no personal risk to themselves so they encourage the government (explicitly and subvertly) to engage in conflicts. Behind almost everything there is the almighty dollar.
It costs industry sudden a sudden boom in production, and larger profits. To produce the bombs, drones, machines, etc, costs cold, hard cash. The industry makes money. The top 1% of American wealth gets wealthier. War is good for buisness.
It costs the media a sudden wave of new stories, specials, and "plot developments" that are garaunteed to boost ratings and draw in marketing dollars. War is good for buisness.
It costs the military "bragging rights" ("imagine what would have happened if we weren't there on foreign soil to protect you") and a continually larger budget for at least the next decade. After all, we need to keep the military maintained just in case we have another incident like this any time soon, so make sure 50% of next year's budget goes to the military. War is good for buisness.
It costs the government the critical eye of the public; after all, when there's a war going on, we can't get too petty and start demanding the government preserve every little tiny right we have, no matter how significant it may seem. War takes top priority, so when little things like national ID systems get installed, we'll be too busy worrying about the war to care. So now that everyone is looking elsewhere, the lawmakers can get away with things they couldn't do during peace time. Meanwhile, the RIAA and their ilk are getting the laws and actions passed that they wanted (think Ukraine; the RIAA's "no blame" ammendment to the Patriot act; etc.) The lawmakers get paid with campaign contributions that they won't even need -- after all, any president who leads a successful war is almost always looked on favourably, and reelection is easy (the best we can do this time around is hope for a "like father like son" situation). Any Congresspeople who support the war effort will be repaid in kind. War is good for buisness.
So when was cost ever an issue?
~A.
student of animation and the fine arts
I believe this is also the case in Australia and New Zealand.
While it hans't (ever?) happened, the Queen can still veto legislation in Canada through her official representative who must assent to all new legislation.
I'm not so sure about that. We've already got automatic artillery. We've got flying drones with cameras and weapons. A miniature robot tank on the front lines certainly sounds feasible to me; not from guilt, but from a quick analysis of function and form. And what about landmines? While not classically "robots", these could be classified as the dumbest war robots ever built.
Wars are rarely fought with singular orders. The typical soldier in a wartime scenario relies heavilly upon the information he recieves, the situation he percieves around him, and is capable of making rational & complex decisions based upon that information. Sure, a machine can be taught to do all that, but how is that information going to get there? And if your ultimate goal is programmable warfare, isn't the most flexible solider the human?
All true. But would a drone have to be self-controlled? Why not remotely controlled by the flexible human soldier? Or part both? There are already robots that work as a team; there could be war robot teams, too.
Flesh robots do not require battery power. Metal robots would be prone to power loss at critical times.
Flesh robots require food, get knocked out, and are susceptible to gas attacks. Metal robots could use gasoline, or electrical power (which is available without supply lines, from a ubiquitous source).
Flesh robots can usually continue to fight, even after physical injury. Metal robots would be severely impaired if even one portion of their body is rendered useless.
Only humaniform ones. Insect robots could still travel with three legs gone. Tank robots could still fire even if immobilized.
And, above all, we have nukes.
Eh. So who wants to nuke their own country to glass in order to fight off the drones?
I just don't think you'll ever see 5000 robots cross a river chest deep in water, scaling the cliffs of Normandy, or making it through a Korean winter.
But you will see them floating down the river, flying over the cliffs, and hibernating while they store enough energy for spring. And crossing hostile terrain relentlessly, without food or water.
Why bother making metal robots then, when you've already got flesh robots who can do the same?
Because we can! No, seriously, because it saves the lives of many flesh robots. Not necessarily our own soldiers, but opposing countries' civilians, too.
Why bother waging war, when we could make a neutron bomb and destroy the people, leaving the buildings behind? Because we don't really like killing. It's not good for the economy. At least not in the long run.
Judebert
We're out of dynamite. What we need now is a plan!
For geek dads: Contraction Timer
Actually, I'd say that five thousand years of warfare have demonstrated that war is often an extremely effective course of action. Just a handful off the top of my head - William the Conqueror's conquest of England won him the crown, the Russian expansions of the 18th and 19th centuries, pretty much every single war fought by the Romans, Alexander the Great, the list continues....
The whole premise of Mutually Assured Destruction is to make a full-scale war futile - a distinct departure from prior forms of warfare.
- Ed Pichon
I shall not cheese. Cheese is the mindkiller. Cheese is the little death that brings total obliteration.
"Battles by machines"- The classic image of drone wars (as other have pointed out)is machine on machine. There is -no- military power on the planet facing US "drones", even if you would apply that word to UAVs (I, and the military, would not). ...ground troops."- And the examples he sites weren't won. Kosovo is an ongoing police action and people here on slashdot still argue that we should lift the sanctions that were the negotiated end to Desert Storm. And just like Desert storm Enduring freeom -does- have "tremendous numbers" of ground soldiers, just not US ones (a strategy that could yet come back to haunt us).
...Americans," No, read your history. Ike/Nixon lied about body counts (all of the time) and toward the end of Vietnam started getting reporters away from the frontline. This is old hat, and it may be necessary if we accept winning a war as a US goal.
"conventional military wisdom held that a war can't be won without
"...a very different kind of fight. Early reports suggest..."- "Early reports" means -rumors-. This is a theater of war, information sources are rare or nonexistent. Basing a perspective on "early reports" is silly. "...hard to imagine a conflict more remote to
"technological arsenal that has devastated the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda networks with stunningly few U.S. military casualties"- Balderdash. Really, I understand we're all here because we share a fasination with technology but let's still try at to keep a -little- perspective. Our technology, including to a minor degree the spectacularly impressive though hardly drone like UAVs, has helped the militia fighters on the ground win this. But it is those militia, the same infighting badly organized peasants that held the Russian bear at bay for years, that did the early work on the ground (90% of the work on the ground mostly likely) and took the casualties for us. THEY are the ones that did this, not some low bandwidth flying camera platform with two tiny missiles under its wings.
"It seems only a matter of time before other countries developed their own surrogate weaponry, and the idea of the high-tech Drone War -- machines warring with one another -- moves to the next level." Huh? Since when did machine on machine war become "the next level" of Drone War?? That IS drone war, and we aren't there yet. Our cool, tiny little Unmanned planes aren't drones, and to the very limited degree that they can "fight", they're doing it against (backwords and poorly armed) humans, not drones. That is not a "drone war".
"...suggested that wars can't really be won in the conventional sense any longer; even the victors will suffer unacceptable losses." Oh, read a few more of Mr. Keegans books. -Every- war is followed by a small vocal group declaring it to horrific to ever happen again (every one). But remember the Japanese militaries distribution of punji sticks to civilians on the home island (with directions on poisoning them). Remember the fire bombing, the total annihaltion of all life, in Dresden and the ZERO effect that had on the Nazi war machine. Sorry to say it, but War isn't going to end because weapons become more effective. How did this idea of "Drone War" enter the public mind? Popular fiction like Star Wars... and it isn't called "To terrible to contemplate Wars in the Stars so lets hang out with Darth and sing Coombiaya" (no sp, sorry).
"A war without sacrifice is definitely a 21st century idea."- Seems to me it's a John Katz idea, even the stylized "war" in star wars shows sacrifice when humans die in waves of damage emanating from the warring drones (wich are after all only proxy humans). There is no war without sacrifice. The US taxpayer will feel the bite of those 4 million dollar cruise missiles (that we're running out of). The Afghani warlords feel it in the blood of their dying comrades.
"Why should citizens of any country hesitate to wage such a war if they have the machinery?" Because the machinery, just like B52s and B2s, is used to destroy the infrastructure that allows the construction of the machinery. Just like the US bombed the Ruhr Valley in WWII to end German war production (and a damn good plan it was), just like we cluster bombed the runway at Kandahar international airport and went after Al Quaidas communication network. People die when that happens, war -is- horrible, that's why countries don't wage war that isn't critical to their percieved self interest. Thanks for asking ; ) BK425 All of this is my opinion.
A war without sacrifice is definitely a 21st century idea. Why should citizens of any country hesitate to wage such a war if they have the machinery?
My response to that quote and the rest of the article: what in the hell are you thinking?
A war without sacrifice isn't a war. Your argument for drone warfare is basically the same argument for sport-warfare. Instead of killing each other, why don't we just play a good old game of soccer to settle the conflict? Drones "killing" drones is basically the same thing, except it's like taking your countries to an episode of BattleBots. What happens when one drone army destroys another drone army? The drone army attacks the drone production facilities, then the human army, and then goes after the civilians (unless you surrender.) People will always die in wars, that's the whole point. You fight the war until you realize you can't win because you DON'T HAVE ENOUGH PEOPLE LEFT to do so.
Oh well, I had a really good argument but I'm sitting here in such disbelief that this actually got posted on Slashdot that I forgot what else I was going to say.
PS - Afghanistan has not been a drone war. There are pilots dropping most of the bombs, and navy seamen firing most of the cruise missiles. Yes, automated machines have been used, but they are nothing without our planes, ships, troops, and most importantly the Northern Alliance soldiers.
~ now you know
There is a HUGE difference between what we are facing in Afghanistan and what the Soviets faced there. The Soviets were facing an opposition trained and supplied by the USA. The Taliban has no such backing.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
How are these even remotely comparable? In WW2, before America joined the war, the English were in real danger of losing! Germany was bombing London (remotely, I might add, using the V2 rocket), civilians were dying, and every last bit of effort was required just to hold off the German forces. Churchill was trying to mobilize the entire country in the face of the very real threat of invasion.
In Afghanistan, it couldn't be more different. At no time were US citizens EVER threatened by the Taliban or other Afghan military forces. The overwhelmingly superior US military + allies simply waltzed in and bombed the crap out of them. The cost of the campaign was small change compared to the US GDP. THAT's why no sacrifices were required by US citizens! It had absolutely nothing to do with the technology involved.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
This is, in fact pretty hilarious.
The fact is: most of the UN members are bunch of representatives from non-democratic governments.
Most of them torture their own citizens, forbid human rights to their citizens while they claim for themselves (while traqveling to democratic countries) the same rights that they deny to any visitor to their own country.
Please, do not make me laugh.
UN is a non-fucntional body. It is a mirage.
How can you have China, for example, in the Secutiy Council? The same China that is non-democratic, that abuses its own citizens, that is a nest of corruption, that holds foreign land under military rule, that excludes foreign nationals to have rights... unless they have the money to bribe, of course.
And the same goes for manyt extremist countries that held seat and vote in the UN Council.
How do they dare (how do you dare) to support resolutions against democratic countries and elected governments?
Do not be so childish as to close your eyes to the fact that every single country looks towards expanding its influence, power, money and all that that you only seem to associate to the US.
Tell that to the governments of Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, Iran, Somalya, Syria, Pakistan...
In the US you have the right to critisize your Government. You can vote them off from office if you do not like them. You can demonstrate against government policy. You can sue the government.
Try that in a random country from the UN Council. Chances are that, just thinking about this will be a sure passage to torture, inprisonement and possibly death.
Be real. Accept the fact that realpolitik rule the world. This is not an utopy. This is Real Planet Earth, not a Star Trek Federation of some sort.
Many of the robot builders really dislike this proven stratedgy saying that it's too easy and prefer to try bludgen their opponents instead. Those builders generally lose.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
Congress had a bill up for debate to declare war. It died without passing. Instead, specifically and with a clear understanding of the difference, Congress passed a resolution authorizing the President to use armed forces against a particular enemy and passed funding bills. It's not the same in the eyes of the Congress, and it's not the same in my eyes. Your point would have been valid if that previous bill hadn't come up. Of interest we also have two bills up basically offering to pay any bounty hunters that want to go kill Osama bin Laden for us.
Here is what passed:
S.J.Res.23
One Hundred Seventh Congress
of the
United States of America
AT THE FIRST SESSION
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Wednesday, the third day of January, two thousand and one
Joint Resolution
To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.
Whereas, on September 11, 2001, acts of treacherous violence were committed against the United States and its citizens; and
Whereas, such acts render it both necessary and appropriate that the United States exercise its rights to self-defense and to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad; and
Whereas, in light of the threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by these grave acts of violence; and
Whereas, such acts continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States; and
Whereas, the President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This joint resolution may be cited as the `Authorization for Use of Military Force'.
SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
(b) War Powers Resolution Requirements-
(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.
(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS- Nothing in this resolution supercedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Vice President of the United States and
President of the Senate.
There are two more bills that seems to be stuck in committee:
H.R. 3074 --Air Piracy Reprisal and Capture Act of 2001 will update federal statutes to recognize acts of piracy beyond the high seas by including the skies; update punishment for piracy to allow death penalty.
H.R. 3076 -- September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001 will grant President Bush the authority to issue letters of marque and reprisal to capture, alive or dead, Osama bin Laden and the others responsible for the September 11 attacks.
It will give President Bush the option, if he chooses, but does not require the use of this weapon of war.
I agree, but here are the two key points I would like to take from both your and the previous post:
1) Our country is -not- better than these non-democratic countries. While we, the citizens, may have more freedoms than others, at the same time the actions of our government have been as despicable as many. In fact that only derisive you heap upon China that couldn't be said of us is undemocratic.
2) Just because other governments do crappy things doesn't excuse our own government when it does crappy things. The gov may be quick to critisize governments we aren't fond of for their human rights abuses, but we will stand to the end behind our own actions or those of our friends (such as Israel).
You're right we are not living in a utopia, but similarly we cannot afford to act like we hold the moral high ground. In order to actually claim that ground, the first step would be an honest look at ourselves and holding ourselves accountable for what we have done before we begin pointing fingers at others. Enlightenment begins within, they say.
By that token, I'd ask you to take the post you replied to as just such a wakeup call. We could talk all day about China and Russia and what they've done... But first lets talk about us.
P.S. I find it ironic that someone who would be preaching how we are in Real Earth not Star Trek would talk about "democratic countries and elected governments", as if we could vote the CIA out of existance. I think you need to face reality as well.
The enemies of Democracy are