Comment Paper 2 - The Future of Drones on the Battlefield

Drones are becoming a weapon of choice in the war on terror.  They operate with conditional approval from Pakistani and Yemeni governments and are not as much of a visible encroachment on sovereignty as other forms of military action.  While unmanned vehicles have been an efficient way to fight the kinds of wars that the U.S. has fought over recent decades, they will not be able to fully remove humans from the threats of war.

            The use of drones significantly reduces the dangers that operators face.  A remotely piloted weapons system prevents the operator from facing physical dangers.  However, Bruntstetter addresses that those responsible for maintaining and deploying the aircraft at forward-operating bases are still at risk and even the pilots are at risk of symptoms similar to PTSD.  While these factors are still dangers that drone operations incur, the total risk of drone operations decreases due to the removal of the pilot from the cockpit.  If the aircraft malfunctions or if it shot down, the pilot is totally removed from the theater of conflict and out of harm’s way.

            Many arguments have been made that there will be a significant increase in the usage of robots in future armed conflicts.  However, it is more convincing that robot usage will develop at a much slower pace or even level out.  Current aerial drone usage requires air superiority.  Therefore, using aerial drones in a combat scenario where the enemy has a sufficient anti-aircraft capacity is unlikely because drones are an easier target to hit compared to more conventional weapons platforms.  Additionally, the research and development required for the usage of unmanned weapons can be extremely costly.   For example, Singer discusses the Army’s $340 billion Future Combat Systems program that began in 2003.  The plan ambitiously sought to have more unmanned vehicles in the Army’s brigades than unmanned ones (Singer, 113).  However, development and employment of these systems stalled due to unforeseen costs.  Overall, the program was cut because the benefits of further development did not outweigh the costs.   

            Robots will not likely replace humans in war, but may compliment an overall conventional military’s arsenal.  Robots will likely continue to perform tasks such as explosive ordinance disposal or drone strikes, but until robots can fully match the capabilities of conventional weapons while not incurring excessive costs, unmanned weapons will not likely evolve to dominate the battlefield.