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Demand For Unmanned Aircraft Outstripping Their Capabilities
coondoggie writes "Has the highly successful but disparate unmanned aircraft strategy deployed by the military outstripped the Department of Defense's ability to handle its growth? The Air Force, Army, and Navy have requested approximately $6.1 billion in fiscal year 2010 for new systems and expanded capabilities. The Pentagon's fiscal year 2010 budget request wants to increase the Air Force's Predator and Reaper unmanned aircraft programs to 50 combat air patrols by fiscal year 2011 — an increase of nearly 300% since fiscal year 2007. In 2000, the DoD had fewer than 50 unmanned aircraft in its inventory; as of October 2009, this number had grown to more than 6,800. The program's success, however, is causing some big cracks in the system. According to a report issued this week by congressional watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office. The military is facing a number of challenges — including training, accessing national air space, and improving aircraft communications systems — that must be overcome if unmanned aircraft are to take their place as a central piece of the military's future, the GAO stated."
Seems like this works so well they want more of it... but in order for it to do all that they want it to do they'll have to divert resources from the manned flights that exist now. Some programs win, some programs lose. Typical Washington debate about to come up...
And yet they still try to convince you that playing video games all day doesn't teach you any marketable skills!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I think you should have to send in meat soldiers if you want a war, get verification of who your killing, this is making it to easy to unclear to dangerous morally
Please explain the morality of war to me.
Deleted
Who's there?
I kill you.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
The difference between dropping a bomb from a UAV while you are driving it from in a trailer, and dropping a bomb while you are sitting at 25,000 feet and 15 miles away is not that much different. You still have no real 'connection' and you are still relying on intel from elsewhere.
Specifically, a laser guided bomb (LGB) may be relying on a laser designator from someone else, not in your aircraft. This works for a regular A/C or a UAV. Drop within the basket, and someone else guides it in.
And that intel/targeting may be from a competing warlord, wishing to take out his competition.
It's like covering your sensors when you play lasertag. It's not a game if only one team can get hit. Unfortunately, this is not lasertag, and life isn't fair
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Please explain the morality of war to me.
Sometimes going to war is the best of several bad options. It can never be any better than that, but it can indeed be a moral decision.
Note that I'm not saying this applies to our current wars, just that it does happen from time to time. And when it does, it is also a moral decision to try to reduce the attendant horror as much as possible.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
My capabilities are far outstripped by my wife's demands.
These thing remove the human element to much
People have been saying that since roughly the invention of the thrown rock. Do you honestly think that the bombardier looking out a glass window miles over the battlefield has any human connection with the targets below or "verification" of who he kills?
If anything, being physically separated from the battlefield makes it harder to indiscriminately kill, as you have all the self-doubt and remorse but none of the adrenaline and self-preservation instincts. Killing becomes a lot easier—and you become a lot less discriminate—when you know somebody is actively trying to kill you.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
The morality of war is that the winners write the history books. And all wars are moral from the victor's viewpoint.
Azural - instrumentals
They said that when spears beat rocks. They said that when guns won against swords, spears, and bows. They said it when machine guns decimated rifle ranks. They said it when airplanes and tanks rolled or flew over the trenches. They said it when V1s and V2s were raining on London. They said it when the US nuked Hiroshima. They said it when the US adopted stealth, night vision and GPS, and on and on. Face it, technology wins wars and ensures safety for the side that has the better tech. War is as much a technological battle as it is a physical one.
Can you point one out? A moral war that is.
Obviously, WWII comes to mind. From the viewpoint of the Allies, there was no real choice. We did not choose it..it was thrust upon us. and we couldn't negotiate our way out of it. Not fighting that war, i.e. succumbing to the wishes of Germany and Japan, would have resulted in a far different world that what we have now.
Should the Allies not have fought back?
Parent:
That's only a fallacy on GP's part if you think the west won the war in Vietnam.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I'd argue that there is far less likely for mishap in the UAV situation. You can afford to take your time a bit more before dropping the bomb, for one thing. With a manned bombing mission in a dangerous theater they will tend to fly in, reach their drop point, drop the bombs, and head out of there. Every second you linger in the target area is a chance to be killed - if the target is worth hitting chances are that it is worth defending, so the area right around the target is often the most dangerous area in the whole mission.
On the other hand, with a UAV you can have one guy flying the thing (or it can be on autopilot), and you can have as many people as you like staring at the video feed making sure that everything looks ok before dropping the bomb. If in doubt you can just wait a little - ok, so maybe they get a missile or two off but you will probably still hit the target even if you don't make it out of there, and the loss of a UAV isn't a horrible thing.
Plus you don't have nearly as much adrenaline pumping, which makes for more level-headed decisions.
I think UAVs have a great deal of potential to cut down on battlefield errors.
We did not choose it? You might want to do a little studying about the "peace" conditions imposed on Germany after World War 1.
No, I'm not EVEN going to try to justify Hitler, and the Nazi party, but raping Germany of her coal and other mining capabilities certainly didn't endear the French to the Germans. There was a lot of stuff the allies imposed on Germany that only tended to feed German nationalism. Remember, the entire world was experiencing the Great Depression, and German workers endured more than a lot of other workers because of those oppressive peace conditions.
No, maybe we didn't "choose" to have World War 2 - but we certainly contributed to German greviances against us.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Can you point one out? A moral war that is.
Aha! This is a trick question. You ask an objective question, pretending it might be subjective, and when someone gives a subjective answer (even if the answer would be agreed upon by 99% of the world) you will get to play devil's advocate and claim the answer is subjective. The end result: a damaged definition of "moral" and a smug slashdot poster.
If that's NOT your aim, and your question is a serious one, then I submit that it's harder to name a war that ISN'T fought for a moral cause. Whether you're providing freedom for the oppressed, resources for your starving people, or a more peaceful planet for our grandchildren -- there are few wars fought for war's sake. The morals may be egocentric, delusional, misguided, or just contrary to your own, but they are the fuel for the engine that keeps a war running.
As an exercise for your philosophical side, generalize the motives to the point that all wars are fought for a more perfect peace, and you quickly realize the unfortunate flipside: For most humans, Peace can only truly defined as a combination of "everyone who is not like me is dead" and "everyone gives me what I need before taking what they need"
Yes, wars are fought for Peace, and therefore wars are moral. It's just not the Peace that everyone else wants. That's what makes it a war, and that's what makes it immoral.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Ahh well. On subject. The morality of these unmanned killing machine? They don't appeal to me very much. Somehow, it seems a bit cowardly.
Comments like this (and yours is better thought out than many others in this thread) make me wonder if anyone gets how your average UAV actually works.
You've got a spotter (human) on the ground. He lights up a target to destroy. You've got a Reaper overhead, armed with Hellfire missiles. The pilot of the Reaper (also human) is on the ground somewhere, controlling it remotely. The pilot sees the target illuminated by the spotter, locks on, and fires a missile. Boom.
Take the UAV and replace it with a manned aircraft and what changes? Nothing. Same spotter, same pilot, same missile. You might argue that the pilot isn't at risk in this instance, but hell, most US pilots are only put at risk when someone on their side screws up. Nobody the US is currently at war with has a hope in hell of threatening their aircraft.
Just so we're clear, with or without the UAV, you've still got the same human decision makers. We're not at the stage yet where we can trust an armed and autonomous war machine not to screw up. This isn't Skynet, and the spotter on the ground is the one at the greatest risk, and the one deciding what gets cratered.
If you wanted to argue that using any air support is cowardly, then I'd remind you that war has far less to do with bravery than it does with practicality.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
You got it exactly right. War isn't a game. The less fair we can make it, the better.
The problem with this argument is that Germany was not a child, and was not really any more "at fault" for World War 1 than anyone else. It started just like any of the other land-grab wars before it, but because of the interwoven politics (and a lot of personal ambitions by a lot of people), kept spiraling upward untill we got so much bigger than anything that had come before it.
And Germany was/is not some child, and the US was not some adult. They are, and were, full countries. Full of adults capable of feeling wounded pride. The only reason you can cast them in the role of a naughty child is because they lost the armed conflict. If they had won then the US/France/England led aliance would assume the role of the child. Neither idea holds any water, nor are they useful in preventing the same sort fo problem in the future (one of the most practical reasons to study history).
The de-industrialization of Germany was an atrocious idea, and was the biggest cause of World War 2. Without the horrendus finantial oppresion caused by it Hitler and the Brown-Shirts would never have had the fertile grounds to grow their movement in, and would never have been elected to power in Germany. Eventually there probably would have been a war, but that is only because human nature seems to push us to that eventually.
Afghanistan has vast mineral resources. But you’re partially right. The real reason is, that Afghanistan lies in one of the strategically most important areas of the world.
It is the only country in the world with borders to the ex Soviet Union, China, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq. The meaning of this should be obvious. It shouldn’t even be called a country at all, with its diverse tribes and influences. Imagine all those countries had borders to each other, and you would put a blender right in the 5-country border in the middle. The result would be Afghanistan.
In practice, this meant, that during the cold war, the Soviet Union of course wanted that area. But the US didn’t want it. So the cold war got very hot. But the USA were wise back then. They knew that you can’t win a war in that area. Ever. That’s why the tribes still battled themselves to this day. So they sent ammunition and weapons to the Afghans. Who of course happily accepted. It was a “win-win”. Except that the only ones dying were the Afghans. (Two of my uncles died in it, and probably 3 were tortured, so I know very well what I’m talking about.)
Of course the Soviets failed to conquer the country. And Kharzai was pro-US, while the Soviet Union broke apart. All was good for the USA.
Except that now, the Afghans hat shitloads of weapons and a population of which all the young had not ever seen anything else, except war. You can guess what that resulted in. The mental psychological fallout turned some to religious extremism. An easy thing to exploit. Some used it, and gained political power over Afghanistan, by opposing the cruel dictatory pro-US Kharzai. Back then, the Taliban were seen as the less bad choice in the face of his crimes.
Now something had to be done, to gain back power. So the USA used their own man, Bin Laden, and the attack of 9/11 as an excuse (no idea how much of it was planned, so I don’t judge here), as a reason to go to Afghanistan. Completely forgetting, that you can not ever win there. (As they said themselves, some decades earlier.)
And now they struggle in the same way as the Soviet Union did. I would’n be surprised at all, if the SU would fuel the Taliban, just so they could see the US fail in the same way, for shits and giggles. ;)
Fact is that the US will also walk out of Afghanistan without winning. That’s no shame. That’s just how it always was, is, and always will be, I guess.
We should just declare it a uninhabited wasteland, and let the people move away. That would be better for everyone.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I can tell you the answer to that. They are facing stresses that a normal soldier isn't facing. A Predator pilot in Las Vegas has to fight a war for 10 hours a day and deal with all the stress that comes with that, AND THEN go home and deal with all the stress of family life. When deployed you 'turn off' after you fly and recover. Flying from home means you have to constantly deal with much more stress than normal. And you have to separate your military life from your family life even more. You can't talk about the problems you deal with at work with your wife because missions are classified. And you can't talk about your kid failing a math test because you are busy tracking a high priority target. No down time means no recovery. And add all to that this problems mentioned in the article above. Then to top it all off, good luck getting out of an unmanned plane. Without enough training, assignments are lasting much longer than normal. Pilots are getting called back from manned planes to fly drones. It's a no win situation for those who need a break.I did it for a while, and life is rough,
I was a Predator pilot in the AF for 5 years, and I can tell you it's not a pretty picture.
Seems like this works so well they want more of it... but in order for it to do all that they want it to do they'll have to divert resources from the manned flights that exist now. Some programs win, some programs lose. Typical Washington debate about to come up...
No, more than that, UAV's are such a contentious issue because of the tremendous culture clash it's causing in the Air Force. In the Army, Navy, and Marines, UAV's are just another military tech tool to use in battle. But in the Air Force, which bases its entire identity on the old Knights of the Air thing, UAV's aren't seen as a valuable tool so much as they're seen as a threat to the very existence of the Air Force itself.
Think about it. If the day is coming when you can train young, non pilot computer geeks to do what current pilots do.... at less cost and less training time, too.... then why have an independent Air Force at all? Because sooner or later, we'll be able to make UAV fighters that can maneuver better, fly farther, and hit harder than any manned craft of today. It's just a matter of time
I think the dawn of the UAV era may well herald the end of the independent Air Force, and I think the current crop of pilots know it too. And it begs the question, did a seperate Air Force ever really make that much sense? It was a branch based on a particular technology.... akin to the Army splitting Tanks off into their own separate service, or the Navy doing the same with submarines. Airpower really isn't a doctrine so much as it's just one more weapon in your arsenal.
I think by our children or grandchildren's lifetimes, the Air Force may be long gone, and looked at the same way jousting knights in armor are looked at... a glamorous, romantic period that was relatively brief, and brought to an end by technology that made it obsolete.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
We did not choose it? You might want to do a little studying about the "peace" conditions imposed on Germany after World War 1.
By the same logic, women deserve to get raped because they wear skimpy clothing.
I think that's a bad analogy in this case. I'm pretty patriotic, and pro-military. I'm a vet as well. And as I've read more about WWI over the years, I've become more and more convinced that WWII didn't have to happen, and that we in the west... including the United States... bear some responsibility for WWII. How? First off, it's becoming harder and harder to convince me that the US had to fight in Europe, that we had any real interest there. The Germans didn't start it, and looking back, was an ascendent Germany really a threat to the US? No, I don't think so. When you get right down to it, I thinking more and more that WWI was just another European Great-Power pissing match.
Further, the absolute draconian position that we put Germany in after the war created an atmosphere perfect for the rise of Adolf Hitler. Had we not tipped the balance in favor of the UK and France... had Germany fared better after the war.... I think there's a good chance Hitler never rises to power. He wasn't inevitable. He took advantage of the utter desperation Germans were feeling.
Woodrow Wilson should have never agreed to the draconian demands of our fellow allies. Despite his best intentions, all he helped accomplish was the implosion of one empire in favor of two others in Europe.
So I think the analogy is more along the lines of a combatant being raped by the victors... and then becoming so twisted by the experience that they embrace total evil to have the satisfaction of their revenge.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Mod this +1e100 insightful. I'm away from home right now (in Tampa, no less. building a data center) so when I'm stressed because some piece of gear is borked I can just go back to the hotel and zone in the hot tub, quick call home, all is good, cool.
But, if I was at home I'd have all the honey-do's and familial interactions (step-daughter in treatment, African Grey parrot, four cats, oh, and the wife, need to stack that firewood, the toilet downstairs is making a funny sound...) needing to be taken care of, and I couldn't get in the space I need to solve the problem, nor could I talk to my wife about the intricacies of the setup (like talking about classified.)
It may be better to just put these pilots on some other base away from their families, a nice TDY, to let them deal with their job and give them the excuse to slack off on the family front for a while. Kind of a toss up. Give them the option, just don't let the spouse know whow asked for the TDY.
What these remote pilots have to deal is so much more REAL and INTENSE than what you or I deal with, unless you are in combat, it is NOTHING, FUCKING NOTHING compared what these Airmen have to deal with.
Sirs. My most humble thanks for your service! (this from an ex-USAF desk jockey, circa '79)
-Joe
-- I have a private email server in my basement.