9 ms·

Use of Drones for Killings Risks a War Without End

77 points by aet 12y ago

Shivetya 12y ago
The other is that it will cause large segments of society to not trust the beneficial uses of this type of technology. When everything flying over head is a threat what can you say of your quality of life? Similar to how the co-opting of vaccinations in very much the same countries has lead to killing of doctors who only come to help. We are teaching a whole new generation to fear technology and it may take another to fix that.
seren 12y ago
What I find really odd is how similar a drone strike is to a terrorist attack. A military convoy is being attacked by a remotely controlled IED, you can retaliate by sending a drone to blow up some pre-defined target. Maybe it is a fitting weapon for the twenty-first century, to put back some symmetry in asymmetric wars. The next logical step is the use of drones to perform terrorist attacks. It is easy to envision an eternal low intensity war with objectives being remotely destroyed by both opponents. It muddles further the blurry line, if any has ever existed, between regular and irregular warfare.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- spingsprong 12y ago
  Sure, if by similar you mean completely different. If a group did attack a military convoy with a remote controlled IED, it wouldn't be an act of terrorism. Terrorism is the indiscriminate targeting of civilians. A remote controlled IED isn't indiscriminate, and a military convoy isn't civilian.
  - markild 12y ago
    I'm really not trying to troll here, but what then of military attacks on civilian targets?
    - rimantas 12y ago
      war crime?
    - bd_at_rivenhill 12y ago
      "Civilian" targets can become valid military targets. For example, if an enemy force forms a line of resistance within an urban or suburban area, then it is legitimate to attack and destroy that area. A civilian area that is not occupied by an enemy force is not a legitimate target, and attacking it constitutes a war crime.
      - pjmlp 12y ago
        I always found that type of argumentation interesting, war is a crime.
        cmdkeen 12y ago
        The Law of Armed Conflict exists because you can't stop war from happening, especially if you aren't willing to fight a war yourself to stop it. It's also worth pointing out that war/conflict are not the same thing, the definition of who is protected during a conflict is much broader than members of the armed forces during a formal war.
        Rusky 12y ago
        Sure, but "war crime" is a phrase with a particular history and usage that means something more specific. Even opposing sides in war often agree on some boundaries.
  - rdl 12y ago
    I agree, but "we" (western media, etc.) tended to call attacks on the occupation forces terrorism, too. The pretense was the war was "over", so the occupation forces were there for law and order, not war, so attacks on them were criminal/terrorist/etc. vs. "legitimate warfare". Pressure/etc. detonated IEDs are sort of a grey area, honestly, as are military landmines, cluster munitions where you know a large fraction will become UXO, especially in civilian areas, and inaccurate area attacks like WW2 airstrikes.
- sharpneli 12y ago
  Some of them are effectively terrorist attacks. If anyone remembers that drone strike against Wedding convoy in Yemen. It's exactly the same if someone would bomb a wedding in US that had some military officers there.
- mcone 12y ago
  I think you're getting caught up in semantics here, but you're also groping towards a critical realization: Drone strikes, by all accounts, seem to fit the definition of terrorist attacks. Noam Chomsky certainly thinks so. He had this to say [1] in 2013: "Obama is running the biggest terrorist operation that exists, maybe in history: the drone assassination campaigns, which are just part of it [...] All of these operations, they are terror operations. You are generating more terrorist operations. "People have a reaction” when they lose a loved one to an American drone strike, he added. “They don’t say, ‘Fine, I don’t care if my cousin was murdered.’ They become what we call terrorists. This is completely understood from the highest level.” [1] http://www.mediaite.com/tv/noam-chomsky-obama-is-running-biggest-terrorist-operation-that-exists/ http://www.mediaite.com/tv/noam-chomsky-obama-is-running-big...
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- lukifer 12y ago
  I wish I could remember who made this comparison (I'm guessing it was Jeremy Scahill?), but I agree with the idea that the primary hallmark of terrorism is the feeling of utter powerlessness to respond or defend yourself, making drone warfare just as terrorizing as a suicide bomber. I remember when Maryland residents lived in constant fear of going outside for a few weeks in 2002, due to a pair of uncaught snipers [1]. If I lived in Yemen, I would feel that way 100% of the time. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks
  - kaybe 12y ago
    I find the official phrase 'counter-terrorism' quite fitting in this context.
  - davidf18 12y ago
    The primary hallmark of terrorism is targeting civilians (as opposed to military or infrastructure targets such as trains or refineries or factories). If a drone is used to attack a factory or a military target that is not terrorism. If a drone is intentionally used to attack a civilian, non-infrastructure target (eg, a wedding) then that is terrorism.
    - pessimizer 12y ago
      This is a very modern definition. Most historical terrorism has been committed against property, rather than civilians.
    - lukifer 12y ago
      I think "terror" can't help but be about perception, regardless of legal definitions. If only a single attack per year kills a civilian through accident, yet it is dramatic and publicized every time, it can still lead to a reaction of public terror, even if it is a less likely cause of death than slipping in the bathroom. Suicide bombers and UAVs are equally capable of creating this mass psychological effect; intent (both real and perceived) is a secondary factor.
  - pessimizer 12y ago
- JackFr 12y ago
  In particular the 2008 terrorist attack at the Taj hotel in Mumbai, wherein the attackers were directed by controllers in Pakistan via cell phone and VoIP always struck me as the horrifying equivalent of a terrorist poor man's drone.
  - rational-future 12y ago
    The drones are taking poor man jobs.
- AJ007 12y ago
  In World War II bombings targeted civilians, and were designed in such a way to inflict firestorms and terror. By body count alone drones and IEDs are quite tame. http://www.amazon.com/The-Bombers-Bombed-Allied-1940-1945/dp/0670025151/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Bombers-Bombed-Allied-1940-1945/dp...
  - seren 12y ago
    It is true that if you consider Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the situation has much improved since then.
    - vidarh 12y ago
      Note that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not even the most brutal bombing runs on Japan that summer. Two firebombing runs on Tokyo alone killed more people than the atomic bombs, and by the time of Hiroshima, almost every major city in Japan had been hit, some almost totally burned out. The firebombing of Japan was so brutal that the Japanese supreme war council didn't even bother to convene until three days after Hiroshima - when the Soviet Union entered the war. Apart from being a new type of bomb, Hiroshima did not stand out as a substantial escalation.
- davidf18 12y ago
  A terrorist attack is defined by the object of the attack, not the method of the attack. Attacking civilian targets is terrorism. Attacking military targets and infrastructure, and especially in the case of attacking infrastructure when the fewest civilians would be killed (eg, nights or Sundays) is not terrorism. Thus, the use of drones, against terrorists (those who would attack civilians) or enemy combatants (those who target military or infrastructure targets) is certainly not terrorism. OTOH, if drones were deliberately (and not accidentally) targeting civilian, non-military, non-infrastructure targets, that would be terrorism. Eliminating terrorists with drones is going to minimize the number of terrorist attacks just as eliminating terrorist with sniper rifles, or bombing. I am speaking as someone who nearly escaped a terrorist attack in Israel (Jerusalem BMW attack).
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - geezer 12y ago
    So Heroshima and Nagasaki were terrorist attacks?
    - kolinko 12y ago
      IIRC both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen because it would hurt japanese military the most. Back in those days a plenty of civilians died anyway during regular bomb raids. But yeah, to some extent is probably was a terrorist attack.
      - vidarh 12y ago
        That's the excuse that was given, but the regular bombings had been systematically doing precision raids during the day and indiscriminate firebombing during the night for months at that time. They were running out of significant cities to bomb well before Hiroshima, to the point where they'd started firebombing much smaller cities with no air defences or military presence to speak of as well - some of which were almost entirely obliterated.
    - 12y ago
- vidarh 12y ago
  One of the interesting aspects is how the mere existence of cheap drones will need to alter defence. Consider that for a terrorist group, once they've demonstrated the willingness to use drones, they can drastically increase the cost in defending against attacks by using very cheap fakes. A government targeted with drones would not dare take the risk of finding out the "wrong way" whether or not the incoming drone is loaded with explosives, or is a cheap toy. Now imagine a steady stream of hundreds of cheap toys, with one every now and again loaded with explosives. Say (just to pull random numbers) that a real "homemade" drone costs $10k/piece, and a fake one drops down to $100/piece and you can send out 101 w/one real for the cost of 2 real ones. Yet the cost of defending against the attack has gone up 100-fold.
rbanffy 12y ago
Endless war is exactly what military contractors want. On an interesting digression, "War Without End" is a two-part Babylon 5 episode that won a Hugo award.
- gvb 12y ago
  Unconditional surrender is what terrorist organizations want, and they will wage war without end until they achieve it. The problem with peace is that it is symmetrical. Everybody has to agree to peace before it will happen. War is asymmetrical. It takes only one entity (including, at the limit, one person) to make a war, even if everybody else wants peace.
  - eevilspock 12y ago
    No, it takes two. Countering violence with violence is not always the only solution. Sometimes sustained violence in response (war) is the the way to go, sometimes it just escalates the original violence into something far worse and far harder to unwind. For example, and as the OP states, we may be generating far more "terrorists" than we are killing. We humans often fail to see this because we are so myopic and vengeful. We suck at seeing the big picture and taking the long view.
- eevilspock 12y ago
  A good time to listen to or reread Eisenhower's 1961 speech warning of the Military-Industrial Complex. "Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of ploughshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions." Nice intro with video of Eisenhowr giving the speech: http://www.npr.org/2011/01/17/132942244/ikes-warning-of-military-expansion-50-years-later http://www.npr.org/2011/01/17/132942244/ikes-warning-of-mili... Full text of speech: http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html
  - rbanffy 12y ago
josefresco 12y ago
Where is the line between war and security drawn? Terrorism can't be "defeated" like an advisory in a traditional war, it's more of a mindset. Therefore one could argue that adequate security should continuously identify and address threats to the state. Does this mean we're in a continuous war? I don't think the semantics matters.
- bd_at_rivenhill 12y ago
  It might be interesting if it were possible to declare war against an organization, as opposed to a sovereign nation. The conflict between Western nations and Al Qaeda is complicated by the fact that it doesn't fit into previous models of military conflict, and there seems to be a reluctance to update those models. It would also be useful if a nation were required to control activities within its borders and not empowered to respond militarily to border violations in pursuit of combatants.
pjmlp 12y ago
One step closer to Terminator days.
sitkack 12y ago
Drone wars are a new continuous flow, always on, Kanban killing process. Probably get some sort of Office 360 interface so we can kill from home. Maybe a new version of Python called KillScript that has some Hebbian learning libraries built in. TFIDF says it is a good time to be average.
higherpurpose 12y ago
So everything is working according to plan, then?
dragonwriter 12y ago
That's a silly conclusion, since the US has been engaged in essentially non-stop war since at least WWII (with a developing national security state based on that permanent war footing), most of which didn't involve drones. Drones certainly lower the political cost of war, but they aren't something that "risks" war without end, they are something developed and deployed in an environment where "war without end" was already the established reality.
- dmix 12y ago
  There is plenty of unique things about this new type of long-term warfare: a) every operation is conducted in total secrecy b) most of it is executed remotely, or occasionally via Special Forces commandos on the ground when drones can't get the job done c) they are (apparently) based off of a 'kill-list', which is essentially an assassination list This is very different than the decades of conventional warfare the US traditionally engaged in, using troops and engagements openly talked about to the public (even if it's after the fact). It is only comparable to the CIA operations in latin america in the 1980s.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > There is plenty of unique things about this new type of long-term warfare: No, there aren't. > a) every operation is conducted in total secrecy Within the drone program, which is largely a secrete component of an overt global military anti-"terrorism" campaign, sure. But having a major secret component of an overt effort isn't new or unique since the inception of the drone program, its been a regular part of the post-WWII permanent war. > b) most of it is executed remotely, or occasionally via Special Forces commandos on the ground when drones can't get the job done Yes, the technology for precisely targetted remote attacks is new, though using whatever remote attack capability was available isn't. So, yes, technology advances. Obviously, use of Special Forces is not new. > c) they are (apparently) based off of a 'kill-list', which is essentially an assassination list Assassination as a tool of state policy by the US in the covert portion of its permanent wars isn't a new product of drones, either.
- lostInTheWoods3 12y ago
ghostwords 12y ago
Something to think about on the subject of terrorism, by David Foster Wallace: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/just-asking/306288/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/just-ask...
kalleboo 12y ago
Well we've always been at war with eastasia...
streptomycin 12y ago
The report raised warnings that other countries might adopt the same rationale as the United States has for carrying out lethal strikes outside of declared war zones. Using an example of a current crisis, it said that Russia could use armed drones in Ukraine under the justification that it was killing anti-Russian terrorists and then refuse to disclose the intelligence that served as the basis for the strike. “In such circumstances,” the report asked, “how could the United States credibly condemn Russian targeted killings?” Good question.
- davidf18 12y ago
  Well, if the Russian's are targeting terrorists (those people who attack civilians) then we should applaud their efforts for saving civilian lives.
  - Pwntastic 12y ago
    If it's an armed conflict between two groups of people who both consider themselves "citizens" of their locale and another country steps in, is it their right to decide which are the citizens and which are the terrorists?
    - davidf18 12y ago
      Terrorists are people who target civilians, regardless of which country they are in.
      - vidarh 12y ago
        So police are terrorists?
        taniraja 12y ago
        Not sure about Police but according to this the IDF would be terrorists by targeting Palestinian children.
bakhy 12y ago
"risks a war without end" -- I'm sure many in the Pentagon would gladly take that "risk" :)
tsbardella2 12y ago
War without end.. Oh really? Tell me when war has ever ended? We are getting better and this is much much better
dm2 12y ago
Drones aren't too much different than normal airplanes doing bombing runs or any mission where a general sits back while troops/drones/missiles/robots kill the target you specified.. There is definitely a sense of, "pick a target, push a button, wait until he blows up" which the world needs to evaluate before allowing. I think there is a limit to putting real robots on the battlefield, humans will always be necessary. It's always been possible to get the support of citizens and sometimes foreign government support by having real humans in the field doing humanitarian work. This cannot be replaced by dumb robots, a human face will be required to work with machines or else they will always be seen as inferior and untrustworthy. I could see the US Government eventually having ATLAS style robots with tablets / large screens for faces, kind of like robocop but the soldier would just be remote controlling the robot.
davidf18 12y ago
The Israeli's have saved many lives with drones both for reconnaissance and for targeting terrorists. I don't think they would be using drones for killing terrorists if it proved ineffective. It is hard to understand why drones are saving Israeli lives but not American ones.

77 points by aet 12y ago

The other is that it will cause large segments of society to not trust the beneficial uses of this type of technology. When everything flying over head is a threat what can you say of your quality of life? Similar to how the co-opting of vaccinations in very much the same countries has lead to killing of doctors who only come to help. We are teaching a whole new generation to fear technology and it may take another to fix that.

seren 12y ago

What I find really odd is how similar a drone strike is to a terrorist attack. A military convoy is being attacked by a remotely controlled IED, you can retaliate by sending a drone to blow up some pre-defined target. Maybe it is a fitting weapon for the twenty-first century, to put back some symmetry in asymmetric wars. The next logical step is the use of drones to perform terrorist attacks. It is easy to envision an eternal low intensity war with objectives being remotely destroyed by both opponents. It muddles further the blurry line, if any has ever existed, between regular and irregular warfare.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
spingsprong 12y ago
Sure, if by similar you mean completely different. If a group did attack a military convoy with a remote controlled IED, it wouldn't be an act of terrorism. Terrorism is the indiscriminate targeting of civilians. A remote controlled IED isn't indiscriminate, and a military convoy isn't civilian.
- markild 12y ago
  I'm really not trying to troll here, but what then of military attacks on civilian targets?
  - rimantas 12y ago
    war crime?
  - bd_at_rivenhill 12y ago
    "Civilian" targets can become valid military targets. For example, if an enemy force forms a line of resistance within an urban or suburban area, then it is legitimate to attack and destroy that area. A civilian area that is not occupied by an enemy force is not a legitimate target, and attacking it constitutes a war crime.
    - pjmlp 12y ago
      I always found that type of argumentation interesting, war is a crime.
      - cmdkeen 12y ago
        The Law of Armed Conflict exists because you can't stop war from happening, especially if you aren't willing to fight a war yourself to stop it. It's also worth pointing out that war/conflict are not the same thing, the definition of who is protected during a conflict is much broader than members of the armed forces during a formal war.
      - Rusky 12y ago
        Sure, but "war crime" is a phrase with a particular history and usage that means something more specific. Even opposing sides in war often agree on some boundaries.
- rdl 12y ago
  I agree, but "we" (western media, etc.) tended to call attacks on the occupation forces terrorism, too. The pretense was the war was "over", so the occupation forces were there for law and order, not war, so attacks on them were criminal/terrorist/etc. vs. "legitimate warfare". Pressure/etc. detonated IEDs are sort of a grey area, honestly, as are military landmines, cluster munitions where you know a large fraction will become UXO, especially in civilian areas, and inaccurate area attacks like WW2 airstrikes.
sharpneli 12y ago
Some of them are effectively terrorist attacks. If anyone remembers that drone strike against Wedding convoy in Yemen. It's exactly the same if someone would bomb a wedding in US that had some military officers there.
mcone 12y ago
I think you're getting caught up in semantics here, but you're also groping towards a critical realization: Drone strikes, by all accounts, seem to fit the definition of terrorist attacks. Noam Chomsky certainly thinks so. He had this to say [1] in 2013: "Obama is running the biggest terrorist operation that exists, maybe in history: the drone assassination campaigns, which are just part of it [...] All of these operations, they are terror operations. You are generating more terrorist operations. "People have a reaction” when they lose a loved one to an American drone strike, he added. “They don’t say, ‘Fine, I don’t care if my cousin was murdered.’ They become what we call terrorists. This is completely understood from the highest level.” [1] http://www.mediaite.com/tv/noam-chomsky-obama-is-running-biggest-terrorist-operation-that-exists/ http://www.mediaite.com/tv/noam-chomsky-obama-is-running-big...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
lukifer 12y ago
I wish I could remember who made this comparison (I'm guessing it was Jeremy Scahill?), but I agree with the idea that the primary hallmark of terrorism is the feeling of utter powerlessness to respond or defend yourself, making drone warfare just as terrorizing as a suicide bomber. I remember when Maryland residents lived in constant fear of going outside for a few weeks in 2002, due to a pair of uncaught snipers [1]. If I lived in Yemen, I would feel that way 100% of the time. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks
- kaybe 12y ago
  I find the official phrase 'counter-terrorism' quite fitting in this context.
- davidf18 12y ago
  The primary hallmark of terrorism is targeting civilians (as opposed to military or infrastructure targets such as trains or refineries or factories). If a drone is used to attack a factory or a military target that is not terrorism. If a drone is intentionally used to attack a civilian, non-infrastructure target (eg, a wedding) then that is terrorism.
  - pessimizer 12y ago
    This is a very modern definition. Most historical terrorism has been committed against property, rather than civilians.
  - lukifer 12y ago
    I think "terror" can't help but be about perception, regardless of legal definitions. If only a single attack per year kills a civilian through accident, yet it is dramatic and publicized every time, it can still lead to a reaction of public terror, even if it is a less likely cause of death than slipping in the bathroom. Suicide bombers and UAVs are equally capable of creating this mass psychological effect; intent (both real and perceived) is a secondary factor.
- pessimizer 12y ago
JackFr 12y ago
In particular the 2008 terrorist attack at the Taj hotel in Mumbai, wherein the attackers were directed by controllers in Pakistan via cell phone and VoIP always struck me as the horrifying equivalent of a terrorist poor man's drone.
- rational-future 12y ago
  The drones are taking poor man jobs.
AJ007 12y ago
In World War II bombings targeted civilians, and were designed in such a way to inflict firestorms and terror. By body count alone drones and IEDs are quite tame. http://www.amazon.com/The-Bombers-Bombed-Allied-1940-1945/dp/0670025151/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Bombers-Bombed-Allied-1940-1945/dp...
- seren 12y ago
  It is true that if you consider Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the situation has much improved since then.
  - vidarh 12y ago
    Note that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not even the most brutal bombing runs on Japan that summer. Two firebombing runs on Tokyo alone killed more people than the atomic bombs, and by the time of Hiroshima, almost every major city in Japan had been hit, some almost totally burned out. The firebombing of Japan was so brutal that the Japanese supreme war council didn't even bother to convene until three days after Hiroshima - when the Soviet Union entered the war. Apart from being a new type of bomb, Hiroshima did not stand out as a substantial escalation.
davidf18 12y ago
A terrorist attack is defined by the object of the attack, not the method of the attack. Attacking civilian targets is terrorism. Attacking military targets and infrastructure, and especially in the case of attacking infrastructure when the fewest civilians would be killed (eg, nights or Sundays) is not terrorism. Thus, the use of drones, against terrorists (those who would attack civilians) or enemy combatants (those who target military or infrastructure targets) is certainly not terrorism. OTOH, if drones were deliberately (and not accidentally) targeting civilian, non-military, non-infrastructure targets, that would be terrorism. Eliminating terrorists with drones is going to minimize the number of terrorist attacks just as eliminating terrorist with sniper rifles, or bombing. I am speaking as someone who nearly escaped a terrorist attack in Israel (Jerusalem BMW attack).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- geezer 12y ago
  So Heroshima and Nagasaki were terrorist attacks?
  - kolinko 12y ago
    IIRC both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen because it would hurt japanese military the most. Back in those days a plenty of civilians died anyway during regular bomb raids. But yeah, to some extent is probably was a terrorist attack.
    - vidarh 12y ago
      That's the excuse that was given, but the regular bombings had been systematically doing precision raids during the day and indiscriminate firebombing during the night for months at that time. They were running out of significant cities to bomb well before Hiroshima, to the point where they'd started firebombing much smaller cities with no air defences or military presence to speak of as well - some of which were almost entirely obliterated.
  - 12y ago
vidarh 12y ago
One of the interesting aspects is how the mere existence of cheap drones will need to alter defence. Consider that for a terrorist group, once they've demonstrated the willingness to use drones, they can drastically increase the cost in defending against attacks by using very cheap fakes. A government targeted with drones would not dare take the risk of finding out the "wrong way" whether or not the incoming drone is loaded with explosives, or is a cheap toy. Now imagine a steady stream of hundreds of cheap toys, with one every now and again loaded with explosives. Say (just to pull random numbers) that a real "homemade" drone costs $10k/piece, and a fake one drops down to $100/piece and you can send out 101 w/one real for the cost of 2 real ones. Yet the cost of defending against the attack has gone up 100-fold.

rbanffy 12y ago

Endless war is exactly what military contractors want. On an interesting digression, "War Without End" is a two-part Babylon 5 episode that won a Hugo award.

gvb 12y ago
Unconditional surrender is what terrorist organizations want, and they will wage war without end until they achieve it. The problem with peace is that it is symmetrical. Everybody has to agree to peace before it will happen. War is asymmetrical. It takes only one entity (including, at the limit, one person) to make a war, even if everybody else wants peace.
- eevilspock 12y ago
  No, it takes two. Countering violence with violence is not always the only solution. Sometimes sustained violence in response (war) is the the way to go, sometimes it just escalates the original violence into something far worse and far harder to unwind. For example, and as the OP states, we may be generating far more "terrorists" than we are killing. We humans often fail to see this because we are so myopic and vengeful. We suck at seeing the big picture and taking the long view.
eevilspock 12y ago
A good time to listen to or reread Eisenhower's 1961 speech warning of the Military-Industrial Complex. "Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of ploughshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions." Nice intro with video of Eisenhowr giving the speech: http://www.npr.org/2011/01/17/132942244/ikes-warning-of-military-expansion-50-years-later http://www.npr.org/2011/01/17/132942244/ikes-warning-of-mili... Full text of speech: http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html
- rbanffy 12y ago

josefresco 12y ago

Where is the line between war and security drawn? Terrorism can't be "defeated" like an advisory in a traditional war, it's more of a mindset. Therefore one could argue that adequate security should continuously identify and address threats to the state. Does this mean we're in a continuous war? I don't think the semantics matters.

bd_at_rivenhill 12y ago
It might be interesting if it were possible to declare war against an organization, as opposed to a sovereign nation. The conflict between Western nations and Al Qaeda is complicated by the fact that it doesn't fit into previous models of military conflict, and there seems to be a reluctance to update those models. It would also be useful if a nation were required to control activities within its borders and not empowered to respond militarily to border violations in pursuit of combatants.

pjmlp 12y ago

One step closer to Terminator days.

sitkack 12y ago

Drone wars are a new continuous flow, always on, Kanban killing process. Probably get some sort of Office 360 interface so we can kill from home. Maybe a new version of Python called KillScript that has some Hebbian learning libraries built in. TFIDF says it is a good time to be average.

higherpurpose 12y ago

So everything is working according to plan, then?

dragonwriter 12y ago

That's a silly conclusion, since the US has been engaged in essentially non-stop war since at least WWII (with a developing national security state based on that permanent war footing), most of which didn't involve drones. Drones certainly lower the political cost of war, but they aren't something that "risks" war without end, they are something developed and deployed in an environment where "war without end" was already the established reality.

dmix 12y ago
There is plenty of unique things about this new type of long-term warfare: a) every operation is conducted in total secrecy b) most of it is executed remotely, or occasionally via Special Forces commandos on the ground when drones can't get the job done c) they are (apparently) based off of a 'kill-list', which is essentially an assassination list This is very different than the decades of conventional warfare the US traditionally engaged in, using troops and engagements openly talked about to the public (even if it's after the fact). It is only comparable to the CIA operations in latin america in the 1980s.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > There is plenty of unique things about this new type of long-term warfare: No, there aren't. > a) every operation is conducted in total secrecy Within the drone program, which is largely a secrete component of an overt global military anti-"terrorism" campaign, sure. But having a major secret component of an overt effort isn't new or unique since the inception of the drone program, its been a regular part of the post-WWII permanent war. > b) most of it is executed remotely, or occasionally via Special Forces commandos on the ground when drones can't get the job done Yes, the technology for precisely targetted remote attacks is new, though using whatever remote attack capability was available isn't. So, yes, technology advances. Obviously, use of Special Forces is not new. > c) they are (apparently) based off of a 'kill-list', which is essentially an assassination list Assassination as a tool of state policy by the US in the covert portion of its permanent wars isn't a new product of drones, either.
lostInTheWoods3 12y ago

ghostwords 12y ago

Something to think about on the subject of terrorism, by David Foster Wallace: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/just-asking/306288/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/just-ask...

kalleboo 12y ago

Well we've always been at war with eastasia...

streptomycin 12y ago

The report raised warnings that other countries might adopt the same rationale as the United States has for carrying out lethal strikes outside of declared war zones. Using an example of a current crisis, it said that Russia could use armed drones in Ukraine under the justification that it was killing anti-Russian terrorists and then refuse to disclose the intelligence that served as the basis for the strike. “In such circumstances,” the report asked, “how could the United States credibly condemn Russian targeted killings?” Good question.

davidf18 12y ago
Well, if the Russian's are targeting terrorists (those people who attack civilians) then we should applaud their efforts for saving civilian lives.
- Pwntastic 12y ago
  If it's an armed conflict between two groups of people who both consider themselves "citizens" of their locale and another country steps in, is it their right to decide which are the citizens and which are the terrorists?
  - davidf18 12y ago
    Terrorists are people who target civilians, regardless of which country they are in.
    - vidarh 12y ago
      So police are terrorists?
      - taniraja 12y ago
        Not sure about Police but according to this the IDF would be terrorists by targeting Palestinian children.

bakhy 12y ago

"risks a war without end" -- I'm sure many in the Pentagon would gladly take that "risk" :)

tsbardella2 12y ago

War without end.. Oh really? Tell me when war has ever ended? We are getting better and this is much much better

dm2 12y ago

Drones aren't too much different than normal airplanes doing bombing runs or any mission where a general sits back while troops/drones/missiles/robots kill the target you specified.. There is definitely a sense of, "pick a target, push a button, wait until he blows up" which the world needs to evaluate before allowing. I think there is a limit to putting real robots on the battlefield, humans will always be necessary. It's always been possible to get the support of citizens and sometimes foreign government support by having real humans in the field doing humanitarian work. This cannot be replaced by dumb robots, a human face will be required to work with machines or else they will always be seen as inferior and untrustworthy. I could see the US Government eventually having ATLAS style robots with tablets / large screens for faces, kind of like robocop but the soldier would just be remote controlling the robot.

davidf18 12y ago

The Israeli's have saved many lives with drones both for reconnaissance and for targeting terrorists. I don't think they would be using drones for killing terrorists if it proved ineffective. It is hard to understand why drones are saving Israeli lives but not American ones.