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Tommy Ledford
Professor Wisdom
Professor Beem
CST 300L
December 4, 2012
Ethical Argument
With new technology like remotely controlled robotics becoming more reliable, a
relatively new type of weapon is appearing in warfare: Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles.
Drones, as they are more popularly referred to, are armed planes with a pilot who
remotely controls it from the ground. They stream a live video feed back to a pilot who
can be on the other side of the world. At first look, the concept of a drone makes it sound
like it’s at the top of every country’s military wish list; to remove soldiers from the
warzone and still be able to fight the war. The main benefit of doing this is for the safety
of jet fighter pilots who would otherwise have to fly over enemy territory. This allows for
many new outcomes, such as prolonged soldier lifespan and an increase in military
enlisting’s from talented civilians who previously did not want to fight in hand-to-hand
combat. But, behind the scenes there are underlying costs involved with this robotic
warfare tactic. Since drone pilots are stationed close to home, it can be stressful to
separate personal life and work life, whereas traditional military pilots spend a large
amount of time at work and then spend personal time on leave from work. Another issue
with the current state of drone technology is the difficulty in differentiating between a
harmless civilian and a combatant on a drone pilot’s computer screen. Although drones
have a definitive purpose in war today, they are not fully debugged and ready for battle
and must be developed further in order to save innocent civilian life.
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The use of drones affects a few major entities: the pilots, governments, militaries,
and the victims. They enable militaries to survey foreign soil to gain intelligence for their
governments without the risk of soldiers losing their lives (Cole, 2010). Unlike traditional
reconnaissance missions, a military can save money on fuel and fighter jets by using
drones. The United States has "57 Predators up, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, looking
at different target points around the world," says Air Force Maj. Gen. James Poss (NPR
Staff, 2011). The ability to reduce fuel consumption and save soldier’s lives has made
drones a viable intelligence option. According to Rachel Martin of the LA Times, “The
Air Force is going to cap the number at 57 for the next 12 months” (Martin, 2011). This
threshold was implemented in order to allow Air Force leaders to reflect on the usage of
drone pilots and the effects that remotely flying drones has on them (Martin, 2011).
Drones used for combat by the United States Air Force are not completely
autonomous. This is so a human has to order a drone weapon attack, not a machine
(Lazarski, 2001). “The FAA requires that all UAVs operating outside of special restricted
areas have certified pilots at the controls and that the UAVs be under semi-autonomous to
full ground control” (Lazarski, 2001). Peter Singer, a technological warfare expert says,
“And I certainly always see a human making that final call on whether or not to release a
weapon on that target.” (NPR Staff, 2011)
Although unmanned aerial vehicles are designed for use in a country’s defense
mechanism, they have farther-reaching implications that affect civilians in warzones.
Since pilots must rely solely on the video feed from the drone, it can be a difficult task
determining the validity of a target. A study by The Brookings Institute has shown that
“for every militant leader killed, 10 civilians also have died” (Cole, 2012). In Pakistan,
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the amount of civilians killed varies “from fewer than 30 since 2008 to more than 700
just last year” because “victims are buried quickly, according to Islamic tradition”
(Rodriguez & Zucchino, 2010). Stanford University conducted a nine month study and
concluded that, “from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate
that drone strikes killed 2,562 - 3,325 people in Pakistan” (CNN Wire Staff, 2012). As a
result, "[the Pakistani] way of life is collapsing: kids are too terrified to go to school,
adults are afraid to attend weddings, funerals, business meetings, or anything that
involves gathering in groups” (CNN Wire Staff, 2012). Another study says that, “highlevel targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low -- about 2%”
(CNN Wire Staff, 2012). The wide variation in these figures may be related to the
information released by the United States government, or because of what is reported in
the media overseas.
Among the numerous benefits that drones possess, such as 82 hours of nonstop
flight (Cole, 2010), there are two major concerns with them: loss of civilian life and the
stress it places on the pilots, both of equal importance. In reference to the introduction,
drone pilots can be stationed on friendly soil, and since the drones are remotely
controlled, they are usually stationed in the US. This allows for military families to still
live together while one member is serving in the military. A USAF Lieutenant says, “the
Air Force now recruits more pilots for unmanned aircraft than fighter and bomber pilots
combined.” (NPR Staff, 2011). The ability for a soldier to not have to be shipped
overseas into battle comes with a large consequence. Soldiers who serve their term
fighting in another country rarely get to see family, and when they do, it is usually for a
few weeks to months at a time. This allows them to put the combat part of their life in the
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back of their minds for the time being. On the contrary, drone pilots are stationed in the
US and travel to and from work every day, similar to an average working American. A
pilot may have to use lethal weapons against a target half way across the world, without
any repercussions to them, and then return home that night just to repeat it the next
morning. “Physically they may be thousands of miles from Iraq or Afghanistan.
Psychologically, they're on the ground with troops. The disconnect, and the sense of
helplessness, take a toll” (Zucchino, 2012). There is no escape for drone pilots; their
home and work lives are so closely related that they become intertwined. A study
conducted in 2011 concluded, “17 percent of active duty drone pilots surveyed are
thought to be clinically distressed” (Martin, 2011). This is a small percentage, but the
stress is still prevalent and needs to be addressed with revised drone pilot work shifts.
According to the National Center for PSTD, “by comparison, between 11% and 20% of
troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, including some Air Force crew members who fly
conventional warplanes, have been diagnosed with PTSD” (Zucchino, 2012). These two
statistics show that there may not be any psychological advantage to drone pilots over
troops stationed overseas. If militaries actively monitored the psychological well being of
its drone pilots, they would be able to accommodate the levels of stress felt by the pilots.
Another piece that adds to the stress is the inability of a pilot to distinguish
between civilian and combatant on their flight screen, which can lead to an unplanned
loss of life. A personal account from James Jeffery shows how real this issue is, “I
remember cuing up a US Predator strike before deciding the computer screen wasn't
depicting a Taliban insurgent burying an improvised explosive device in the road; rather,
a child playing in the dirt” (Jeffery, 2012). This problem is easily brought to life by
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realizing that the drone is videotaping from up in the sky and relaying that video via
satellite to a command station. This can produce a video that is suitable to assess a
situation without endangering soldiers, but it is not sufficient enough to facilitate the
decision making process of deciding when to fire a weapon and when not to. Before
drones are used for this type of combat, the video streaming quality must be improved to
a standard that allows pilots to accurately determine the validity of a target.
Given the facts previously stated, a conclusion can be made that any rationalthinking human would make. That is that drones, while an excellent advancement in
wartime technology, are not ready for the battlefield because of a big flaw. Even though
drones “keep a remote pilot out of harm's way” (NPR Staff, 2011), the loss of innocent
civilian life is unnecessary if it can be avoided, and it can be avoided. Soldiers enlist in
the military by accepting the immediate danger that a battlefield presents. The purpose of
drones in combat is to minimize soldier death rates while still disabling targets, which is a
good thing, but when saving one’s life is prioritized above a helpless civilian’s life, a line
must be drawn. There is a need for a country to target and take down a known threat, but
there is no need to sacrifice the lives of innocents in the process. As stated in the
Declaration of Independence, “all men are to be created equal”, so there is no reason
innocent people in war-stricken countries must pay the ultimate price because they
happen to be in proximity to or bear a striking similarity to the planned target. Granted,
the Constitution does not apply to international regulations, making the previous
statement invalid, but the idea of the statement is the main focus. Men and women who
fight for their country should by all means be entitled to protection by allowing a robot to
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do their “dirty work”, but there should be no unplanned loss of life if this is the chosen
method.
There are a few assumptions being made in the previous paragraph that need to be
addressed. The main point of pitting one’s life against another is assuming both
individuals are equal and both are innocent by the laws of war. If either of these is
fallacious, then the argument of “innocent civilian” falls apart and cannot be used to
argue an ethics topic. Another, possibly even more fallacious assumption, is that all of the
evidence discussed earlier about the number of civilians killed is true. This is because it is
almost equally as fallacious to assume that any one study can accurately count the
amount of unplanned casualties because of the secrecy of country and military leaders.
One would have to now precisely of each drone attack and how many people were killed,
if any, in order to calculate death tolls. But herein lies the current problem of drone
technology - there may not be any witnesses or evidence to quantify the complete
aftermath of a drone strike, since it is all done remotely. This viewpoint aligns well with
the civilian view on drone usage in warfare.
Another fallacy in the aforementioned view is the assumption that drones are
solely for the purpose of keeping soldiers safe while still eliminating targets. This is a
driving motive in the advancement of unmanned aerial vehicles, but cost savings is
another big part of it. The lack of an onboard pilot and all his/her safety gear yields a
substantial decrease in weight, and less weight means burning less fuel.
The basic idea of a combat drone is theoretically perfect, but it is unsafe for
humanity in its current state. Therefore, drones should be removed from combat
operations and developed further in order to save lives. They do save soldier’s lives, but
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at the potential cost of losing other lives, such as non-combatants in a warzone. Higher
resolution screens and cameras that can produce and stream a better video signal is a
good starting point so that drone pilots can better distinguish between friend and foe.
Another check and balance that can be implemented is facial recognition. This would
allow computers to decipher if a target has been located. This is not a complete solution
however because it does not address the levels of stress that pilot’s are put through. Strict
flight hour standards must be put in place to limit the amount of time a pilot can spend
staring at a screen. Without this standardization, if a pilot is on the tail of a known target,
he/she may be requested to finish the mission that could span multiple days. Together
these two broad solutions must be implemented at a low level in order to be attainable.
The solutions will decrease and hopefully eliminate any mistaken loss of life and also
help to lower the trauma and stress felt by the pilots.
The issues and topics related to combat drones that have been discussed in this
essay are not the only ones. For example, there are many legal repercussions for flying an
aerial vehicle over restricted airspace, and drones have been seized by other countries
because of this mistake. In addition to this, drones have less-than-perfect vision when it
comes to the quality of the video streaming capabilities, which creates a danger when a
pilot is deciding whether or not to attack a person on the screen with lethal force. Another
issue drones present is the amount of stress that pilots are prone to while behind the
controls of a UAV. Although the pilots are not in a cockpit flying over enemy territory,
they still suffer the same ramifications that battle brings, such as taking the lives of others.
For these reasons, drones should be solely used for reconnaissance at this point, until
technology is advanced enough to present the pilots with clear images, possibly even
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facial recognition software. Drone pilots should also be limited in the amount of hours
they can spend controlling a drone in a work shift to alleviate some of the stress. Once
these problems have been answered, drones can be used for eliminating targets if the
pilots have full certainty that no unplanned deaths will occur.
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References
CNN Wire Staff. (September, 25, 2012). Drone strikes kill, maim and traumatize too
many civilians, U.S. study says. CNN. [Retrieved] November 26, 2012, [from]
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/25/world/asia/pakistan-us-drone-strikes/index.html
Cole, C. (January 2010). What Are Drones? Wordpress. [Retrieved] November 26, 2012
[from] http://dronewarsuk.wordpress.com/aboutdrone/
Jeffery, J. (September 19, 2012). Drone warfare's deadly civilian toll: a very personal
view. The Guardian. [Retrieved] November 26, 2012 [from]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/19/drone-warfare-deadlycivilian-toll
Lazarski, J. (March, 27, 2001). Legal Implications of the Uninhabited Combat Aerial
Vehicle. Air and Space Power Journal. [Retrieved] November 26, 2012, [from]
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/lazarski.html
Martin, R. (December 19, 2011). Report: High Levels of ‘Burnout’ in U.S. Drone Pilots.
NPR. [Retrieved] November 26, 2011 [from]
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/19/143926857/report-high-levels-of-burnout-in-u-sdrone-pilots
NPR Staff. (Novermber 26, 2011). War by Remote control: Drones Make it Easy. NPR.
[Retrieved] November 26, 2012 [from]
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/26/142781012/war-by-remote-control-drones-makeit-easy
Rodriguez, A. & Zucchino, D. (May 2, 2010). US Drone Attacks in Pakistan get Mixed
Response. Los Angeles Times. [Retrieved] November 26, 2012 [from]
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-drones-civilians20100502,0,5865041.story?page=1
Zucchino, D. (March 18, 2012). Stress of Combat Reaches Drone Crews. Los Angeles
Times. [Retrieved] November 26, 2012 [from]
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/18/nation/la-na-drone-stress-20120318/2