Read an interesting article this morning about the future of US drone policy and its parallels to the proliferation of nuclear arms after WWII. I came across it by way of Slashdot. On both sites, commenters offered some interesting insights on whether or not drones (aka “autonomous vehicles”) are comparable to nuclear weapons in any meaningful way, and whether there are any relevant “lessons learned” from the past 68 years of nuclear proliferation.
It got me thinking about my own stance on the matter. As an aerospace engineer, I recognize the importance and inevitability of progress in this particular field. From my perspective, the best inventions are the ones that generate a profit while benefiting humanity; free markets allow these to be imitated, improved and deployed in ways that makes the world a better place. True, it’s generally “greed” that drives this, but leveraging greed to improve people’s quality of life is an enduring quality of capitalism.
Unfortunately, thanks to global politics and the military-industrial complex, this cuts both ways. Governments looking to secure their interests (domestic, international, wartime activities, etc) will spend exorbitant sums of money to develop bigger and better weapons. Large corporations with defense divisions can generally profit most from contracting with a government to do this kind of work. This makes war more profitable than peace, and the end result is that same greed drives the development of technologies which make it easier to kill or oppress other people.
Granted, when a government essentially finances the R&D on newer technologies for military use, occasionally these get repurposed and deployed to the civilian market. GPS and the Internet are good examples. I don’t necessarily see this as a saving grace, but rather as an unintended consequence. The guy who killed Bruce Wayne’s parents isn’t a good guy for creating Batman, and a capitalist military-industrial complex doesn’t gain legitimacy for giving us the ability to post cat pictures for all the world to see. Personally I have a very low opinion of this system; it’s one of the reasons why I left the field. I don’t want to dedicate my talents towards new technologies that hurt other people.
But I digress. Like it or not, that’s the state of the world right now. Much like how nuclear weapons co-developed with clean, reliable nuclear power, I imagine that the future will see similar co-development between Predator-like drones and autonomous vehicles that perform essential and life-saving missions without risking emergency personnel. The real issue is whether we as a global society are willing to accept the existence of war machines to get the benefit of peaceful ones. What are the risks of developing drones for war, and are they outweighed by the benefits of peaceful applications? What constitutes acceptable risk?
There was a time in my life when I would have said that question is flawed; that the existence of bigger, badder weapons ensures peace. Si vis pacem, para bellum, as it were. Now, I view the world in a more nuanced way: concentration of power. Stability (peace) is possible only when power is balanced among all actors. Where asymmetrical balances of power exist, there will be conflict. For example, bigger and more powerful nuclear weapons did not prevent the Cold War from becoming a nuclear war. Rather, peace existed between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. because of mutually assured destruction. When both sides had enough nukes to destroy each other several times over, the power was effectively balanced. Of course, during the period of the Cold War, non-nuclear nations like Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, Cuba, Panama, and so on, couldn’t similarly assure the U.S.’ destruction and there was conflict between the parties involved. Sure, there were proxy conflicts between America and the Soviets, but this was more about attempts to tip the scales of power rather than engage in direct warfare.
I mention this because it seems to me like the largest danger posed by drones is how these devices consolidate power among a handful of individuals in a way that nuclear weapons never really could. Tactically, nuclear weapons pose a great deterrent between nations, but not necessarily between a government and the people. For instance, if a leader is facing an uprising, he is unlikely to deploy a nuclear weapon against the dissidents due to the resulting collateral damage to the population, infrastructure, and environment. Instead, such a leader would be more likely to send in troops. Or at worst, deploy smaller scale WMD’s like chemical or incendiary weapons (think Assad).
With drones, this is a much more efficient task. Theoretically, a drone could posses capabilities exceeding or unmatched by that of a human: the ability to see through walls and in total darkness, the ability to move at high speed in 3 dimensions, imperviousness to small arms fire, pinpoint auditory triangulation (to accurately locate someone shooting at it), lack of mercy or remorse to cloud judgment, etc. Imagine how surgical and deadly a team of such devices could be against an insurrection. A government could deploy a legion of these against protesters, target participants, and execute them in short order, minimizing collateral damage and demonstrating to the populace its response to dissent. With sufficient AI, these machines could be controlled by a single person, and maintained by a small team.
in short, drones can be used as effectively against a government’s enemies at home as well as abroad, whereas nuclear weapons are only really effective against other nations. Expect revolutions of the future to be countered with drone strikes rather than tear gas.
I worry about this because I see no rational solution. To avoid an asymmetrical balance of power between a people and the government, citizens would need to have leverage of their own. But how is that accomplished here? Do we allow citizens to manufacture and maintain their own drones? Do we let citizens build EMP devices to be used against government drones? These options are unrealistic and impractical; we can’t prevent a lunatic from shooting up a school, so would we really expect anything less than some nut doing the same with a drone? Or using an EMP to take down a plane?
I also worry about the proliferation of these machines. Nuclear weapons have several key disadvantages: they are heavy, prohibitively expensive to produce, difficult to deploy, and give off radiation that can be easily detected. True, they can be miniaturized; however, D.C. and other sensitive areas are covered with sensors that can detect radiation given off by a “briefcase nuke,” so even the miniaturized versions are difficult to get in place and detonate without being caught (unless you plan to detonate one in an area the government doesn’t care about - but then, what is the point?). That said, it’s virtually impossible for a terrorist cell - let alone a single nutjob - to acquire and detonate a nuclear weapon.
Drones on the other hand are not that complex. With the rise of the Internet and 3D printing, a time will come when someone will be able to download plans and print out parts to assemble their own drone. Motors, circuit boards, ICs, etc, can all be ordered online, and software can be downloaded as well. So basically homemade drones will eventually be something that can be assembled in a garage. With a modicum of machining tools and a bit of Googling, any enterprising nut will be able to adapt the plans to include armaments. Think a guy with an AR15 storming a building is bad? What about someone who adds TNT and fly-by-wire to some drones and deploys them against a crowd in Times Square? He could cause death and destruction from the comfort of his couch.
Finally, I worry about the future of America’s drone policy. The federal government has asserted its authority to use drones against terrorists abroad, regardless of their location. This has led to several disturbing applications. First and foremost, they have asserted (and acted upon) their authority to use drones to execute American citizens accused of terrorism without so much as a trial in open court. Second, they have conducted campaigns against terrorists in countries we are not formally at war with. This involves dropping missiles and bombs on places that are ostensibly our allies. Often times, this results in the deaths of innocent bystanders.
Can you imagine the uproar if China fired a missile at a crowded cafe in, say, Portland, claiming it had identified a known dissident and was asserting its authority to execute that person on our soil? And that any innocent bystanders were just an acceptable consequence of their War on Dissidents? People would go apeshit, and rightfully so. It’s a bad policy.
Furthermore, it’s a policy that seems poised to “evolve.” Given enough time and complacency, the interpretation of that authority can easily shift to include American soil, and the definition of “terrorist” can be interpreted as necessary to affect any outcome leadership wants. For example, what if the President claimed some group of protesters were actually terrorists (“because I want what’s best for America, and they oppose me, so they hate America and are therefore terrorists”). It sounds spurious, but when one considers the myriad of other spurious arguments our government has pressed in its time, it’s actually not inconceivable. The threat to free expression is only a corrupt administration away.
I suppose in summary, I would say my opinion about this subject is dominated by apprehension. I’m not a Luddite by any stretch, but I worry about the direction this technology is headed. I think where the similarities between drones and nuclear weapons diverge marks a point where nukes are actually less dangerous to democratic societies. Drones can be easily abused by those who control them, and thus pose numerous threats to democracy and freedom worldwide.