Demand For Unmanned Aircraft Outstripping Their Capabilities 325
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."
Boom and bust... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bad news (Score:3, Insightful)
These thing remove the human element to much, from dropping missiles onto weddings and random cars they target from "intel" received.
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
Conventional wisdom (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
How about (Score:2, Insightful)
They could develop a computer system which combines sensor input and calculates optimal control output. For resilience it should be distributed and connected through a network. A network for the sky controlling machines which terminate enemy combatants.
Re:Bad news (Score:2, Insightful)
Kill him or he'll kill you.
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
The morality of war is that the winners write the history books. And all wars are moral from the victor's viewpoint.
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent:
That's only a fallacy on GP's part if you think the west won the war in Vietnam.
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Bad news (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bad news (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Charge of the Light Brigade is actually an example of why our technology is a good thing morally speaking. The charge was a disaster because of poor information and communication. If our technology can give us better information and help us communicate, we'll attack the wrong target less often and fewer people near the target will die.
Re:Bad news (Score:3, Insightful)
omg, stfu. the vast energy resources of Afghanistan?
this is the most ridiculous and unsubstantiated claim I've heard on the topic. if you are going to suggest that some natural gas pipeline is the reason then you are doubly retarded.
Even Iraq was never about oil, but at least that would make sense.
Iraq was about spreading western influence, creating a semi-moderate, western-aligned country on Irans border with access to the Arabian Gulf. It was part of the balance-of-power-2.0 game. Was it a bad idea? Yeah, I'll go for that. In principle though, if we were playing Risk, it would be fine.
While we are on the topic, what exactly is wrong with a war for oil? I know your going to cry-ass in your usual leftist fashion about big corporations and stuff....but is energy not A NECESSITY for a modern nation? If the US had NO resources, and the Soviets had them all, what would become of the US, for example? Resources like this are as important as oxygen to a nation. Would you find a "war for oxygen" to be so distasteful?
Re:Bad news (Score:2, Insightful)
What was the alternative? (Consider the context of several years of all out war all over the globe)
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
You got it exactly right. War isn't a game. The less fair we can make it, the better.
Re:Bad news (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Bad news (Score:3, Insightful)
I would say getting your asses kicked out of Vietnam, and the south being overrun is a loss.
It didn't destroy the US, but there's no way you could construe it as a victory.
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Pay Through The Frontal Lobe (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Bad news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bad news (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok... Let's choose some wars not fought for morals:
- War for oil: Iraq
- War for revenge: Afghanistan
- War for money/resources: Pick your local conflict in Africa
I even am under the impression that WWII was not fought for noble goals either by the "allies"..
More than the usual debate... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Bad Analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Bad news (Score:4, Insightful)
You know that pilots, on the whole, don't bother landing their planes at ground zero and examining the carnage first hand, right? They scoot on back to their aircraft carrier or their air force base in the next country and have a cold beer. They rarely even set foot in the land they're fighting. War has been impersonal for a lot longer than UAVs have been around.
And it hasn't been a bad thing. In the days of swords and spears, massacres were the rule and not the exception. Warriors filled with the rage of battle would avenge comrades they'd seen cut down around them by razing entire towns and slaughtering every inhabitant they could find. Besiegers would happily watch entire cities perish from starvation and disease, and would often speed up the matter by flinging flaming objects and infected corpses over the walls. Fighters simply became numb to any notions of decency or morality; it was the only way to survive, both physically and mentally. If you truly think that wars were somehow more compassionate in days gone by, consider the Gesta Francorum [fordham.edu], which chronicles another time the west decided to involve themselves in the affairs of the middle east. Indeed, read any direct account of war from any past era. Don't let yourself be fooled by later romanticizations.
The advance of military technology has slowly moved armies further and further from each other, and in the process, given them more and more opportunities to plan and consider their actions. Advances in communication have allowed everyone to witness wars being fought, and even to catch glimpses of life behind enemy lines. We've begun to notice that our enemies are people who live like us, think like us, and dream like us, and not just foes rushing at us with swords unsheathed. Not long ago, murdering or driving out an entire nation would have been hailed as a glorious victory and proof of divine providence. If the nation was not Catholic even the Pope would have praised it. Now, killing every tenth man in a country would guarantee denouncement and ostracism from the world stage, and would very likely end in a war crimes tribunal. "Civilized" countries are expected to hold back the majority of their raw strength and refrain from using the most effective elements of their arsenals. While war is still a bloody business, it is handled with a delicacy today that our ancestors never imagined.
Re:Pay Through The Frontal Lobe (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Coverage will be different (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? Citation, please? This idea gets thrown around a lot, but I have yet to see evidence.
One can argue that unless the articles of incorporation suggest otherwise the fiduciary duty of the management is to maximize shareholder value (NOT to be confused with instantaneous profit) and that shareholders could sue the management in civil court over perceived failures to do so. It'd be a pretty hard suit to win, I bet.
But in general, the purpose of a corporation will be outlined in its articles of incorporation. It might have nothing whatsoever to do with shareholder value, much less profit; plenty of non-profit incorporated entities out there.
Re:Bad news (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
That sounds a lot like the objections people had to aerial bombing. Or automatic guns. Or guns in general. And probably originally to catapults, swords and sharp sticks when they were first put into use in warfare. But as it turns out the goal of warfare is to control the actions of your opponent through force, and to that end new technology (including tactics) is always likely to improve your ability to project force or your ability to resist force, or both.
The technology in use does not affect the morality of the underlying attack any more than the color of a car affects the morality of drunk driving. And of course you're ignoring the moral benefit of having clear-minded attackers and reducing the total number of lives at risk not only by protecting our own forces but also by making the battle so one-sided that our opponents are unwilling to fight. I'm pretty sure our noble and courageous spear-bearing soldiers of times past would be reluctant to engage a force armed with automatic guns; if they were sufficiently committed to their cause they might still fight, but they'd at least think twice about it, and it would raise the bar from "worth fighting about" to "would rather be dead than lose this argument".
Finally, while improvements in military technology may reduce the courage required to undertake a particular act it does not reduce the courage available from a given attacker, thus allowing for a more efficient use of the limited amount of courage available. This also has moral benefits, because that additional courage not required for basic attacks is available for things like restraint — an attacker who feels safer is much more likely to take risks like allowing remaining opponents to retreat or capturing prisoners instead of killing everyone, or taking the time to more carefully select a target or for innocents to clear the area.
Re:Pay Through The Frontal Lobe (Score:1, Insightful)
Perhaps they chose to serve their country, and upon finding out the job they chose to do was worse than expected, didn't abandon it and beg for something easier?
Military people are crazy, they do things like that. I hear some of them even get shot at and go back out to get shot at again!
Re:Bad news (Score:3, Insightful)
If the war in Iraq was a war for oil, the term 'war for oil' is an abbreviation of 'war for low oil prices'. See, the supply of oil to the states was never endangered, however the price of the oil is constantly under upward pressure making the American lifestyle, which is obviously very energy intensive, too expensive for a large portion of the citizens with all the civic unrest etc. as a result.
There was never any binary outcome; win the war, get oil, lose the war, do not get oil. Basically, it's all about Americans being used to an abundant lifestyle at the expense of other nations. Same goes for Europe and Australia, it's just that these continents do not have the military power or will to force issues so for them the apparant answer is to change the fuel sources providing in their energy needs _and_ in the case of Europe, a more moderate level of consumption as Europeans, on a average, consume about half of the energy of your average American or Australian.
Re:Bad news (Score:3, Insightful)
Purely for survival.
Re:More than the usual debate... (Score:4, Insightful)
One word "Jamming".
Remote controlled drones work against low-technology enemies that cannot blanket the radio spectrum with high-power white noise or shoot down your high-altitude relays (if you use line-of-sight comms technologies such as lasers). The drones can only go autonomous for simple tasks and are (not yet) capable of wining a dogfight with a human-controlled fighter.
Going fully dependent on remote controlled drones is a form of "Preparing for the last war".
Military industrial complex (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, ye of little faith in this country's military-industrial complex. It is the engine that drives our economy. We spend more on military junk than the rest of the world combined. We have, almost constantly, for the past 50 years, been invading some country or another for no particular reason. The day we see our military shrink one red cent will be the day we see Duke Nuke'Em Forever released.