> Why not have people on it? Simply looking at costs and complexity "on paper" from an engineering / accounting perspective doesn't really capture all the diff

> Why not have people on it? Simply looking at costs and complexity "on paper" from an engineering / accounting perspective doesn't really capture all the differences between humans and machines, especially considering civilian morale. The US military lost <2.5k in Afghanistan over two decades, and that generated enough war weariness for us to quit. The current American public and political system simply isn't willing to tolerate large numbers of casualties. So it makes a whole lot of sense to take people out of the equation.