Unmanned and Dangerous: The Future U.S. Military?

William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security

The controversy over the availability of unmanned reconnaissance and strike drones in Iraq and Afghanistan has become one of those quintessential Washington dramas that plays while Rome burns. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates is pushing for more drones to support the troops, while the self-interested Air Force is resisting. The false solution, as I have written, is as simple as more equipment and more money.

Oh, and Rome? We're still going nowhere in Iraq (read: we're losing because we aren't going to win) and any diversion -- glowing reports on the surge, the promotion of Gen. David Petraeus, Syria's nuclear program, the unmanageable bureaucracy -- supports the proposition that the "system" is at fault or imperfect. Yet the war itself remains the actual problem.

Meanwhile, the increasing reliance on unmanned attack drones, as reported in USA Today, and the increased use of airpower in general, seems the perfect military and technological solution. But the phenomenon also has a negative impact on the war effort and profound consequences for the future.

"Unmanned": That's the issue. the United States can now reliably send out drones to conduct spot surveillance, to intercept communications, to jam electronics, to remotely track over video, and even attack with precision guided weapons. From hand-held drones used by soldiers and special operations forces to long-range high-flying drones that can fly for hours over thousands of miles (Global Hawk drones fly at 65,000 feet over many hours), our military is becoming more dependent on unmanned aerial vehicles. Despite the fact that drones constitute a $55 billion business over the next decade, they are still far cheaper than satellites. They are also available to "commanders" at all levels and save lives.

But by being unmanned and remote in nature, the drones communicate an important message: that the United States is remote and heartless in the conduct of war, that it will use its technology to remain immune from the enemy's "force."

I'm not arguing that there is some chivalrous obligation on the part of the United States to fight the way the enemy fights. I am saying that we do and will pay a price for not putting our human treasure at risk.

Unmanned drones have been around for decades, but only since 2000 have they been conventional items of equipment. Now there is an insatiable demand for them. What changed? Part of the answer is that the technology matured and that the invisible pieces that were necessary to make them work (bandwidth, for instance) came together at a time when cascading wars and manpower shortages also meant that more had to be done with less. The military now operates some 5,000 drones of dozens of varieties, 25 times more than it had in 2001.

Many of the long-range drones are operated from U.S. bases by "pilots" sitting in Nevada. The entire system of firing a Hellfire missile into a house in Sadr City in Baghdad is a technological marvel, queued perhaps by an observer or soldier on the ground, but predicated on the notion that a button can be pushed in the United States and a war can be won in Iraq.

So overall, while drones may saves lives (ours and civilian's) in the short term, and may be less expensive than other means and may even be a better means to destroy a given target, they carry a long-term risk: If our military future is to be a push button video-game style of warfare, others may see us as heartless automatons bombing the world. The desire to get back at us could increase; the desire to get at the root of the technological system perpetrating the war against them would be paramount.

We rarely ponder the larger human and moral issues associated with increased reliance on the remote war-making instruments. But even with regard to the immediate, we seem blind. Do all of these Predator "kills" in Iraq spell either progress or a better military strategy? And through our increasingly remote conduct of warfare, aren't we transferring the risk from our soldiers to ourselves?