Research Blog-A Measure of Success of Armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

 

 

Successful Unmanned System

            Welcome back to Unmanned Adventures Blog.  Today’s post is about successful Armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).  I am watching the movie Good Kill with Ethan Hawke to get in proper mood for this blog. 

    This movie takes place in 2010 when Reapers and Predators were being used extensively in the War on Terror.  During the course of this blog I will discuss the issues of Privacy, Ethics, Safety, and Lost Link/Loss of System Control associated with Armed UAVs. Feel free to comment at the end, and thanks for visiting!

Privacy

            Armed UAVs are normally deployed overseas near hostile territory and not in the US, so I would imagine the issue of Privacy is not considered much, if at all. The privacy provisions that would normally be consider in the States during a mission, should also apply to communities around hostile battle zones.  The extensive sensor coverage that the UAV could easily invade people’s privacy on the way in and out of their mission areas.  Often times we are trying to protect the communities that are in and around the areas were terrorist or hostile actors are operating, so we should try to respect their privacy like our citizens, especially if the targets are imbedded within a city or town with civilians.   

Ethics

            The ethical aspects of armed UAVs start to bring in an entirely new layer of important questioning, especially, when it comes to the rules of warfare.  The rules of engagement can be more difficult to apply when weapons are employed off of a new way to go after targets from a UAV.  Legitimate targets and enemies can easily blend in with civilians and visual confirmation/identification cannot always be 100%, so there is a risk of injuring or even killing innocents as a potential consequence. This is true of manned vehicles as well, but since Armed UAVs are the newest military evolution in weapons employment, they get more attention about their ethical use.  This amazing technology, since it doesn’t endanger US service member actually flying, can be extra enticing to use and perhaps abuse.  The advances in sensor and loiter times to use them, may provide a false sense of 100% situational awareness, combined with a mentality that all strikes are surgical, can be a substantial risk to civilians. Another aspect is that these advanced UAVs are so asymmetrical to the threats that they are going against, that more targets can easily get “serviced” and therefore make a campaign un-proportional to its overall mission and strategy and seem to be employed unethically.   

Safety

            The safety of using UAVs clearly puts the operator in a safer environment, and especially so by not having to deploy to the theater if they can operate out of Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. This safety aspect is one of the many benefits to the use of UAVs. The psychological safety of the operator is more at risk, however.  The Good Kill showed, what I believe, to be a probable outcome of an operator that goes to work everyday to strap on a UAV, with multiple kills of unsuspecting human beings that they have watched die in real time, perhaps even seen unintended civilian casualties or deaths.  Operating combat missions against terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan, when you go home every night in Las Vegas and have to re-integrate right away into the civilian world could make someone a bit schizophrenic.  If you are actually deployed to the theater of operations, you can actually focus on the mission and not worry about the real-world back home. The vans where the UAV missions took place in the Good Kill even had stickers on the outside of the door, “You are now leaving the USA.”     

Lost Link/Loss of System Control

The safety of the UAV will be at much higher level of risk than the operator, especially operating in hostile theater.  Jamming of data link signals, GPS receivers, and communication links by the enemy increases the potential for Lost Link/Loss System Control.  The loss of link or system control can occur just from the vast distances and numerous communication hops from Nevada to the Theater and then back again without any intended jamming present.  The latency between of the operator input to the UAV, although not specially a loss, is still provides a delay that needs to be incorporated in operations.  If there is a true loss of signal, I understand there might be an automatic orbit that begins for the UAV where signal re-establishment is attempted, and after a certain amount of time, if it can’t re-establish a signal, will automatically return to base. Unintended release of the armament would be particularly important to prevent if there was a loss of signal/control.    

Overall there is a break in period for advances in technology, especially if warfare is involved. This blog is mainly from my perspective, however I did check into the the journal articles listed in the References below.  Please feel free to add your perspectives, thanks and see you on the next Unmanned Adventure!

 

References

Byrne, E. F. (2018). Making Drones to Kill Civilians: Is it Ethical?: JBE. Journal of Business

Ethics, 147(1), 81-93. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/10.1007/s10551-015-2950-4

Hijazi, A., Ferguson, C. J., Ferraro, F. R., Hall, H., Hovee, M., & Wilcox, S. (2019).

Psychological Dimensions of Drone Warfare: Research and Reviews. Current

Psychology, 38(5), 1285-1296.

Huntington, T. J. (2016). Exposing the Clandestine: Silence and Voice in America's Drone War

(Order No. 10162992). Available from ProQuest One Academic. (1830471435).

http://ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-

com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/1830471435?accountid=27203

http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/10.1007/s12144-017-9684-7

Sauer, F., & Schörnig, N. (2012). Killer drones: The ‘silver bullet’ of democratic warfare?

Security Dialogue, 43(4), 363–380. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010612450207