Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle

VS

$100 billion or so later, we are fighting with ground-based robots. We’ve seen earlier versions of these little puppies in movies like The Hurt Locker, where Army bomb disposal units we happy to send in these little fellers into harm’s way for a little “look-see,” but like their aerial counterparts, the shootin’ and blastin’ drones, they clearly represent the way of the future for combat missions. This particular robot’s mission? To be the “first contact” between U.S. forces and “the enemy.” This is a first, and we can expect deployment into Afghanistan in the very near future.

“The SUGV was developed as part of the U.S. Army's Future Combat System, an ambitious collection of manned and unmanned systems that were supposed to be linked together through a single network. After that estimated $100 billion program was canceled last year, mainly out of cost considerations, the Defense Department opted to keep the SUGV as part of a new strategy to bolster infantry combat teams.” The November 11 Sphere.com. But with debates over numbers of troops we can afford to send into Afghanistan, they represent the next best hope for military commanders short on troops and long on mission requirements. We had one way to deploy more combatants without sending more military: the wonder and glory of “contractors” (ok, mercenaries) in Iraq, but their gleaming popularity seems to be waning, except for “outsourced” diplomatic guard duty, which continues to be a sore spot for many.

Wanna know exactly how popular they were in Iraq (before they were denied a renewed operating license by the Iraqis)? The November 10^th NY Times: “Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide [famous “contractors”] authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.” Isn’t there a law against Americans paying off foreign government officials? These days, Blackwater has a cool new name – Xe Services – guess they hope you don’t confuse them with their past. Robots seem more honorable somehow, and they can be very effective.

According to the Army, 52% of their casualties come from “first contact” with the enemy. Add a video-game-trained soldier with a joystick and you have the Army’s answer to the “walking the point” without risking death or dismemberment. Reconnaissance without pain. The future holds the same probable development sequence as the aerial technologies that have been deployed – reconnaissance, real-time-human-controlled firing of weapons, human-selected-robot-controlled firing of weapons, and arrrrghhhh! – robot-selected-robot controlled firing of weapons.

Considering that today cruise missiles can be and often are launched with an internal visual menu of potential targets (complete with strategic priorities) where the missile makes the “decision” in the field, this is nothing new. But with the ground-based systems, the robots will soon be reacting to hostile fire directed at them, making an entirely new set of “decisions” on what targets to kill – targets that have not been “pre-identified” by human decision-makers.

The moral and ethical issues are quite profound, but fortunately, we may never have to reach into that morass, since making a buck probably dictates that these capacities are all but certainties. After all, if “we don’t do this, our enemy will.” Where have I read that before? Sphere.com: “Military robots have fast grown into a multibillion-dollar business. Massachusetts company iRobot has already delivered around 2,700 robots to militaries around the world. Some of those were part of a December 2007, $300 million U.S. Defense Department contract that iRobot won after prevailing over an upstart that purloined its technology. A second Massachusetts firm, Foster-Miller, won a contract in 2008 for another $400 million to supply thousands of its TALON robots. Both iRobot's PackBot and Foster-Miller's TALON are mostly used to locate and detonate improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, which have proved to be one of the Taliban's deadliest weapons.”

Who can argue with using robot to defuse bombs? And who wants to see American soldiers die when they don’t have to. But the other kind of robots? Don’t you just hate “computer glitches”? Oh well… Jobs now; death later.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I approve this message.