Comment Paper 2

In the book “Wired for War” by P.W. Singer he discusses the development of the first AI machines to the modern UAV war machines used by our military today. In this chapter he mentions that there has been a growing intolerance for human casualties. He talks about the World War 2 having half a million casualties and Vietnam having another 50,000 killed. I have noticed as a casual observer that the backlash over casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan is far more than would be expected with the relatively low casualty figures in comparison with the two previous conflicts. Even though every soldiers life is something to be grieved we are at war and casualties are a part of that decision to go to war. This could be because citizens are more fine with casualties in a war that they seen as pursuing moral goals (World War 2) and that people see little to no strategic or moral reason for being in Afghanistan or Iraq. I would make the argument that our casualty figures have been incredibly low and could have been dramatically higher considering the weapons of today and their destructive potential.

So I think the issue became, for politicians and the military, how to wage effective wars while placating a populace that was becoming increasingly opposed to even marginal troop losses. To quote Singer our citizens think “Hey! If our soldiers want to go to war, so be it. But don’t let any of them get hurt.” I think this provided the real catalyst for immense cutting of troop numbers while vastly increasing UAV numbers. The number one goal of politicians is to get re-elected, regardless of party, and dead American soldiers being showed on the evening news is one way to ensure that won’t. Few people have ever seen a blown up drone on the television and nobody has ever lost sleep over that image. I can see most if not all politicians being on every bill to get more appropriations for UAV development to replace human soldiers and subsequently lives. The 113^th Congress may even rush to be bi-partisan on that kind of bill. With the U.S. military’s budget suddenly behind UAV production and research the advancements must have been astounding.

After reading Singer, at least the chapters assigned, I think incorporating robots into the dirty and dangerous assignments is probably the best way to go. However, even if it means having higher human casualties, I still support having the vast majority of fighting being done by humans or machines with humans in them. The basic moral judgment calls for robots do not exist yet and seem a very far way off.