The Dronin’ Kind

It’s like a video game with the ability to kill and maim for real, taking no personal risk. The remote-controlled Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs or “drones” which are also known as Unmanned Aircraft Systems, UAS) deployed in Afghanistan, Iraq and parts of Pakistan – notably the Predator (27 feet long) and the Reaper (36 feet long) – are whole lot bigger than your standard model aircraft, but they are a whole lot smaller than their manned equivalents. They cost between $3.7 to$5 million to manufacture and can either be used for reconnaissance or attack (they can carry, for example, two Hellfire anti-tank missiles). Beats the $1 billion dollar cost of a B-2 stealth bomber or the $361 million of an F-22 or the $59 million of an F-18.

They blow stuff up big time, but what is surprising is how much a part of our air-to-surface combat role they consume in today’s ground wars against insurgents, “terrorists” and hard-to-reach and highly mobile forces of all kinds. Intelligence – from aerial surveillance and ground sources – can lead to a small drone delivering a lethal airstrike in minutes from determination of the target. All nice and neat, clinical with few risks or consequences for the forces that deploy these drones, often located thousands of miles away in safe military bases far from the theater of operations (like Nevada). They go home at night to their families. Some of the folks on the ground lose their homes and their families, especially when an airstrike goes wrong.

The July 6^th Los Angeles Times provides some basic information on how often we use these weapons in the Afghan and Iraqi theaters: “At least 38 drones are in flight over Afghanistan and Iraq at any given time… Flight hours over Afghanistan and Iraq more than tripled between 2006 and 2009. However, ground commanders in Afghanistan say only about a third of their requests for drone missions are met because of shortages of aircraft and pilots.” The aircraft were deployed almost immediately after they were developed, perhaps a bit too soon if the number s of accidents are any indication. “Thirty-eight Predator and Reaper drones have crashed during combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and nine more during training on bases in the U.S. … Altogether, the Air Force says there have been 79 drone accidents costing at least $1 million each.” The Times. And the government won’t even deal with the efforts in Pakistan, a program that is wrapped in secrecy and much denial. One study shows that 80% of the crashes involve human error.

Simple technical lapses have been covered by the modern equivalent of Scotch tape and bailing wire: “Technicians bought off-the-shelf equipment at Radio Shack and Best Buy to build a system to allow ground forces to see the drones' video feeds. At least one drone crashed because it had no fuel gauge, and the aircraft ran out of fuel. In another crash, investigators cited a design flaw: The ‘kill engine’ switch was located next to the switch to lower the landing gear, and a ground-based pilot confused the two… ‘These airplanes are flying 20,000 hours a month, OK?’ said retired Rear Adm. Thomas J. Cassidy Jr., president of the aircraft systems group at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems in San Diego, which makes Predators and Reapers… ‘That's a lot of flying,’ Cassidy said. ‘Some get shot down. Some run into bad weather. Some, people do stupid things with them. Sometimes they just run them out of gas.’” The Times.

When on-the-ground “collateral damage” casualties think of lethal robots controlled from thousands of miles away, picture the seething hatred that arises and spreads the vicious rumors in an angry Islamist rhetoric. We may save American lives in the immediate present, but how many new recruits to militant causes – dedicated to taking America down – have we created? Is this really worth the price? Think about it. Oh, and then there’s this little tidbit. The July 8^th AOLNews.com announced that the military is working on another, smaller, "reconnaissance drone" that can fly around on its own, snooping about, cleverly disguised at a bat or a pigeon: "'Ideally, it'll be a bird-sized UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle], with the current goal being a pigeon,' Dr. Leslie Perkins, the lead for micro air vehicles at the Air Force Research Laboratory, told AOL News. The 'birdlike' UAV would also be able to operate with minimal pilot intervention for up to a week at a time, she said." Should be in the air by 2015. I wonder if its droppings will be lethal?

I’m Peter Dekom, and wars between drones and robots – with real human casualties – appear to be just over the horizon.