BruceR. at Flit engages in an excellent analysis of the use of long range weapons in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations (equipment links added):

More on killer UAVs

There’s been a couple good pieces on the ethics of using UAVs recently, better than that Ron Rosenbaum failure I wrote about earlier. Dominic Tierney’s is the one that most merits additional comment.

The reliance on robots can make the United States appear both overbearing and vulnerable–just the combination to inspire resistance. Goliath bullies David with advanced technology. But Goliath’s strength belies a fatal weakness–his craven fear of death.

He goes on to quote Rami Khouri on how the very impersonality of Israeli weapons was a rallying cry for Lebanese. And I have no doubt this is so.

I do think it’s worth pointing out, however, that this is in no way an indictment of UAVs like the Predator alone. We work hard to strike our enemies before they can strike us; long-distance death is the forte of every Western military; but the fact there’s a UAV in the loop is really irrelevant, and probably undetectable to the recipient.

Generally, insurgents and the civilians around them don’t know what hit them. The actions of a Predator firing a Hellfire missile or an Apache helicopter gunship firing the same missile from beyond human visual range, or at night, are not just indistinguishable to the target: ordnance delivered by fighters or bombers, or artillery from the FOB down the road, or an AC-130 gunship are all pretty much the same. Loud explosions, out of nowhere. I read Afghan reports in theatre of air strikes that I knew were actually artillery shells. Even insurgent IEDs, if they detonated accidentally, or weren’t clearly directed at a likely insurgent target, were filed away by the locals as more air strikes. For that matter, I recall a Canadian tank [more here] killing some people at well over a mile with a 120mm main gun round. I’m sure they never saw their killers or knew anything about the specific type of weapon.

The point here being is that the indictment that long-range attacks are unseemly in a counterinsurgent fight doesn’t just apply to UAVs, but to every single other alternative we have to UAVs as well, pretty much. In this regard, UAVs are neither better nor worse than the other options.

It’s a minor point, but this also extends to the “Predator porn” that so excised Rosenbaum…

Read on.

Mark
Ottawa