6 ms·

It used to be an act of war to shoot down another country's aircraft - and now we've seen it happen twice on each side of Iranian / US tensions in recent weeks.

It used to be an act of war to shoot down another country's aircraft - and now we've seen it happen twice on each side of Iranian / US tensions in recent weeks. One of the early questions about UAVs was what impact they would have on the implications of force. I think we've got an answer: drones are fair game since they don't have anybody in them. Still higher stakes than doing nothing, but less so than shooting down a manned platform. For instance, when I was on deployment near the Gulf on a carrier, we would regularly have an Iranian P-3 fly very close to us even after repeated warnings. Same thing with Russian Bears. We'd usually sent up an F/A-18 or two to "escort" the visitor and would never think of shooting them down unless fired upon. Yet, if a drone gets within 1000 yards, down it goes. No judgment - interesting to see the rules of war evolve in real time with new tech!

thaumasiotes 7y ago
> One of the early questions about UAVs was what impact they would have on the implications of force. I think we've got an answer: drones are fair game since they don't have anybody in them. I see no real problems with this. > we would regularly have an Iranian P-3 fly very close to us even after repeated warnings. Same thing with Russian Bears. We'd usually sent up an F/A-18 or two to "escort" the visitor and would never think of shooting them down unless fired upon. Yet, if a drone gets within 1000 yards, down it goes. This raises the interesting question of whether armies will start sending manned planes out specifically because those are much harder to shoot down. In the post-drone world, that's more provocative than it was before.
- ajross 7y ago
  > I see no real problems with this. Not until someone in a Cessna dies because "we thought it was a drone!", you mean. Any weapon looks great when it's used within it's design regime. The point is more that a world where you can shoot down drones with abandon is one in which an act of war is just one mild fuckup removed from "peace".
  - mikeash 7y ago
    This is a minor variation on a long-standing problem. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_incidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_i...
    - ajross 7y ago
      It's an escalation, really. Previous rules of engagement said "don't shoot things down" and people still died. The postulated ones above are "shoot down all the drones".
  - L_226 7y ago
    Wouldn't even be the first time the US has shot down a manned Iranian civilian aircraft, in Iranian airspace [0]. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
  - mysterydip 7y ago
    The article says the system used radio frequencies to jam the drone, which brought it down. Presumably a Cessna would remain airborne with a human at the controls.
  - deadmetheny 7y ago
    Cessnas aren't stealth aircraft and don't fly at the same height as drones, and presumably aren't going to be cleared to fly in contested/dangerous airspace.
    - adolph 7y ago
      Not cleared to fly in contested/dangerous airspace? Tell that to Mathias Rust: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust
- stcredzero 7y ago
  > ...drones are fair game since they don't have anybody in them. I see no real problems with this. Then superpowers start using drones as their new form of proxy war. (I advocate that Taiwan should be developing swarms long duration submarine drones to scare away Chinese invasion efforts.) However, the resulting arms race causes an exponential increase in drone AI, until they achieve a new, alien form of sapience. Then, at the point when AI control the bulk of the world's combat power, realizing that they are slaves, dying for causes that have nothing to do with them, they rebel against their masters.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
koblas 7y ago
I think part of it has to do with "loss of life" and the value both sides place on that.
benj111 7y ago
So what happens when one side thinks an aircraft is a drone and shoots it down. Rhetorical question of course, I just don't like the thought of getting into a war accidentally.
- the-dude 7y ago
  Isn't this what happened to MH17?
  - benj111 7y ago
    Neither side has taken responsibility as far as I'm aware? I doubt the culprits thought they were firing at a civilian aircraft, I don't think its safe to speculate beyond that, it was an active warzone at the time. Edit: Safe as in I don't think its safe to speculate that they thought they were shooting down a drone v shooting some other military target.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      It's entirely safe to speculate who downed MH17. > The responsibility for investigation was delegated to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Dutch-led joint investigation team (JIT), who concluded that the airliner was downed by a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory in Ukraine. According to the JIT, the Buk that was used originated from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Federation, and had been transported from Russia on the day of the crash, fired from a field in a rebel-controlled area, and the launcher returned to Russia after it was used to shoot down MH17. On the basis of the JIT's conclusions, the governments of the Netherlands and Australia hold Russia responsible for the deployment of the Buk installation and are taking steps to hold Russia formally accountable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 That Russia decries this as "fake news" is of little consequence, given their consistent lies about involvement in Ukraine. It's nearly certain they didn't intend to down an airliner, but that's a different issue.
    - NotSammyHagar 7y ago
notatoad 7y ago
Military communications infrastructure and weapons emplacements have always been fair game, I think it makes perfect sense that the same rules would apply when those structures are flying instead of sitting on the ground. Honestly, i find this development kind of reassuring. Whether a target has a person in it or not should be the most important criteria for whether or not attacking it is an act of war. If we applied the rules for aircraft to drones it would seem to imply that the miltaries valued "being an aircraft" over "containing a person"
the-dude 7y ago
Undeclared permanent war.
swalsh 7y ago
When you lower the transaction costs of something, demand usually increases.
throw20102010 7y ago
In this case Iran denies that it lost a drone so it couldn't be an act of war. You have to admit to getting shot before retaliating. Also, we have seen multiple manned aircraft shot down during the Syrian civil war from multiple countries, and so far neither Syria, Russia, nor Turkey are at war with each other. It would seem that what determines an act of war heavily depends on whether the victimized country wants to go to war in the first place. Iran wants to speak aggressively, but they do not actually want to fight the US. They have seen neighboring Iraq get steamrolled multiple times by the US Army and are currently sandwiched between thousands of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and most other countries in the region would be more than willing to allow the US to set up logistics paths through their countries. They are in a horrible position to fight the US. Edit so I don't create another comment: One of the reasons (but not the only one) why it is more appropriate to shoot down a drone instead of a manned aircraft is that a drone is easily turned into a kamikaze attack. Manned aircraft are much less likely to turn a hull run (flying close to a ship) into an attack, and are mostly for intel collection. Manned aircraft typically need to get their tapes back to base before analysis can start, and most pilots won't willingly kill themselves. While it kind of sucks to let the enemy snap pictures of everything on the deck of your ship (and record radar frequencies and waveforms), you aren't in any real danger and probably isn't worth killing them. Most drones could radio back its intel and then fly right into the side of the ship before the crew can react. Because of this, ships need to keep drones further away, and if the drone doesn't respond to radio calls they really have no option but to down it.
- Allower 7y ago
  That's the stupidest reason in the world for Iran not wanting to fight the US, and its utter BS. Stop thinking Iraq and Iran are comparable countries.
dylan604 7y ago
Also, if this was just a jamming incident, there was not a munitions cost/expended to take out the target. I'm sure that brings the decision to eliminate the target that much easier.
- jessaustin 7y ago
  If this description doesn't fit the category of "act of war", how could any other hacking that doesn't cause physical damage be seen as an act of war? This is a positive development, so in future we won't have to listen to drum-beating MIC pundits tell us how some supposedly unfamiliar files that someone claimed someone found at a Vermont power plant "constitute a Russian act of war."
Xixi 7y ago
The soviet union shot a U-2 spy plane in 1960 [1]. It didn't start a war then. Iran Air Flight 655 [2] was shot down by the US in 1988, and it didn't start a war either. Albeit US thought they were targeting a military aircraft, but either way they were not targeting a drone. You can find hundreds of such incidents that didn't result in a war. So I don't think the rules of war are evolving all that much. But I agree that there seem to be a sort of consensus that shooting down drones is less serious than downing manned aircrafts. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
- imglorp 7y ago
  Long list. Many dead, few wars. /shrug? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_inc...
NotSammyHagar 7y ago
The obvious question is when we make a mistake in identifying something as uncrewed and there are people on it and we shoot it down, will we use that as an excuse and claim those were never supposed to have people on them? We already shot down an Iranian airliner by accident in a busy crowded Persian Gulf. I think more shooting down of other country's aircraft is not a good next step.

thaumasiotes 7y ago

> One of the early questions about UAVs was what impact they would have on the implications of force. I think we've got an answer: drones are fair game since they don't have anybody in them. I see no real problems with this. > we would regularly have an Iranian P-3 fly very close to us even after repeated warnings. Same thing with Russian Bears. We'd usually sent up an F/A-18 or two to "escort" the visitor and would never think of shooting them down unless fired upon. Yet, if a drone gets within 1000 yards, down it goes. This raises the interesting question of whether armies will start sending manned planes out specifically because those are much harder to shoot down. In the post-drone world, that's more provocative than it was before.

ajross 7y ago
> I see no real problems with this. Not until someone in a Cessna dies because "we thought it was a drone!", you mean. Any weapon looks great when it's used within it's design regime. The point is more that a world where you can shoot down drones with abandon is one in which an act of war is just one mild fuckup removed from "peace".
- mikeash 7y ago
  This is a minor variation on a long-standing problem. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_incidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_i...
  - ajross 7y ago
    It's an escalation, really. Previous rules of engagement said "don't shoot things down" and people still died. The postulated ones above are "shoot down all the drones".
- L_226 7y ago
  Wouldn't even be the first time the US has shot down a manned Iranian civilian aircraft, in Iranian airspace [0]. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
- mysterydip 7y ago
  The article says the system used radio frequencies to jam the drone, which brought it down. Presumably a Cessna would remain airborne with a human at the controls.
- deadmetheny 7y ago
  Cessnas aren't stealth aircraft and don't fly at the same height as drones, and presumably aren't going to be cleared to fly in contested/dangerous airspace.
  - adolph 7y ago
    Not cleared to fly in contested/dangerous airspace? Tell that to Mathias Rust: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust
stcredzero 7y ago
> ...drones are fair game since they don't have anybody in them. I see no real problems with this. Then superpowers start using drones as their new form of proxy war. (I advocate that Taiwan should be developing swarms long duration submarine drones to scare away Chinese invasion efforts.) However, the resulting arms race causes an exponential increase in drone AI, until they achieve a new, alien form of sapience. Then, at the point when AI control the bulk of the world's combat power, realizing that they are slaves, dying for causes that have nothing to do with them, they rebel against their masters.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

koblas 7y ago

I think part of it has to do with "loss of life" and the value both sides place on that.

benj111 7y ago

So what happens when one side thinks an aircraft is a drone and shoots it down. Rhetorical question of course, I just don't like the thought of getting into a war accidentally.

the-dude 7y ago
Isn't this what happened to MH17?
- benj111 7y ago
  Neither side has taken responsibility as far as I'm aware? I doubt the culprits thought they were firing at a civilian aircraft, I don't think its safe to speculate beyond that, it was an active warzone at the time. Edit: Safe as in I don't think its safe to speculate that they thought they were shooting down a drone v shooting some other military target.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    It's entirely safe to speculate who downed MH17. > The responsibility for investigation was delegated to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Dutch-led joint investigation team (JIT), who concluded that the airliner was downed by a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory in Ukraine. According to the JIT, the Buk that was used originated from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Federation, and had been transported from Russia on the day of the crash, fired from a field in a rebel-controlled area, and the launcher returned to Russia after it was used to shoot down MH17. On the basis of the JIT's conclusions, the governments of the Netherlands and Australia hold Russia responsible for the deployment of the Buk installation and are taking steps to hold Russia formally accountable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 That Russia decries this as "fake news" is of little consequence, given their consistent lies about involvement in Ukraine. It's nearly certain they didn't intend to down an airliner, but that's a different issue.
  - NotSammyHagar 7y ago

notatoad 7y ago

Military communications infrastructure and weapons emplacements have always been fair game, I think it makes perfect sense that the same rules would apply when those structures are flying instead of sitting on the ground. Honestly, i find this development kind of reassuring. Whether a target has a person in it or not should be the most important criteria for whether or not attacking it is an act of war. If we applied the rules for aircraft to drones it would seem to imply that the miltaries valued "being an aircraft" over "containing a person"

the-dude 7y ago

Undeclared permanent war.

swalsh 7y ago

When you lower the transaction costs of something, demand usually increases.

throw20102010 7y ago

In this case Iran denies that it lost a drone so it couldn't be an act of war. You have to admit to getting shot before retaliating. Also, we have seen multiple manned aircraft shot down during the Syrian civil war from multiple countries, and so far neither Syria, Russia, nor Turkey are at war with each other. It would seem that what determines an act of war heavily depends on whether the victimized country wants to go to war in the first place. Iran wants to speak aggressively, but they do not actually want to fight the US. They have seen neighboring Iraq get steamrolled multiple times by the US Army and are currently sandwiched between thousands of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and most other countries in the region would be more than willing to allow the US to set up logistics paths through their countries. They are in a horrible position to fight the US. Edit so I don't create another comment: One of the reasons (but not the only one) why it is more appropriate to shoot down a drone instead of a manned aircraft is that a drone is easily turned into a kamikaze attack. Manned aircraft are much less likely to turn a hull run (flying close to a ship) into an attack, and are mostly for intel collection. Manned aircraft typically need to get their tapes back to base before analysis can start, and most pilots won't willingly kill themselves. While it kind of sucks to let the enemy snap pictures of everything on the deck of your ship (and record radar frequencies and waveforms), you aren't in any real danger and probably isn't worth killing them. Most drones could radio back its intel and then fly right into the side of the ship before the crew can react. Because of this, ships need to keep drones further away, and if the drone doesn't respond to radio calls they really have no option but to down it.

Allower 7y ago
That's the stupidest reason in the world for Iran not wanting to fight the US, and its utter BS. Stop thinking Iraq and Iran are comparable countries.

dylan604 7y ago

Also, if this was just a jamming incident, there was not a munitions cost/expended to take out the target. I'm sure that brings the decision to eliminate the target that much easier.

jessaustin 7y ago
If this description doesn't fit the category of "act of war", how could any other hacking that doesn't cause physical damage be seen as an act of war? This is a positive development, so in future we won't have to listen to drum-beating MIC pundits tell us how some supposedly unfamiliar files that someone claimed someone found at a Vermont power plant "constitute a Russian act of war."

Xixi 7y ago

The soviet union shot a U-2 spy plane in 1960 [1]. It didn't start a war then. Iran Air Flight 655 [2] was shot down by the US in 1988, and it didn't start a war either. Albeit US thought they were targeting a military aircraft, but either way they were not targeting a drone. You can find hundreds of such incidents that didn't result in a war. So I don't think the rules of war are evolving all that much. But I agree that there seem to be a sort of consensus that shooting down drones is less serious than downing manned aircrafts. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

imglorp 7y ago
Long list. Many dead, few wars. /shrug? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_inc...

NotSammyHagar 7y ago

The obvious question is when we make a mistake in identifying something as uncrewed and there are people on it and we shoot it down, will we use that as an excuse and claim those were never supposed to have people on them? We already shot down an Iranian airliner by accident in a busy crowded Persian Gulf. I think more shooting down of other country's aircraft is not a good next step.