Archive for December, 2009
December 19th, 2009 - Manned or Unmanned
I’ve seen several stories lately of the potential for using unmanned vehicles (ground or air) in combat. The chief argument that I keep hearing about this, is that it will safe lives and keep out soldiers out of danger.
My opinion? This is bad. Why you might ask? Why do I want people to die? Well, I don’t. While I do find almost all things military very interesting, I have no desire to see or hear about people dieing. I have family in the military, even one that was very close to death with the recent conflict going on. He lost his driver to an enemy IED. Also, I know that war can and has messed people up something horrible where they aren’t the same person as when they left. Also, horrible atrocities have been perpetuated by individuals in wartime.
With all those negative things that happen as a result of human nature in wartime, I still say we need actual boots on the ground. Flesh and blood human beings actually behind the trigger, be it of an M16 or an M1 abrams. Of course, there are remote operated craft, which still does the same thing, but removes the driver/pilot from the vehicle. To me, this is better than complete automation, but still not leaves something to be desired.
So, why do I think we need to risk the lives of good men and women in combat? Because, without it, there is no reason to try any kind of diplomacy. When war is almost literally a video game, why bother with diplomacy? You don’t have to worry about losing human lives. You’re populace isn’t going to yell at you for needlessly sacrificing the good lives of human troops. So what prevents the ‘You’re not going to give me what I want, we’re at war now’ mentality? Sure there are economic factors, but wars tend to be good for the economy. It gives people jobs building and maintaining the various forms of equipment.
Also, without the loss of life, what’s to bring a war to an end without the complete destruction of the enemy? When we can continue to churn out unmanned/automated tanks, plans, and other stuff, where does the end of the war come? When we’ve exhausted our resources? Is that really how we want a war to end? “We can’t fight anymore because we don’t have any more material.” That’s materials we could have used improving our quality of life!
Again, I don’t want it thought that I don’t value the lives of our fighting forces. Believe me I do. I just don’t think we should take the human out of the war. They play a very important role in situational awareness and critical thinking and decision making. These things can easily be missed by an automated process or even a monitor.