Automating warfare through the usage of drones
From time immemorial, man has always felt the need to defend themselves against any form of oppression either individually or as a community.
At the same time, it also happens sometimes that the subject party(man) is usually the aggressor.
As a matter of fact, whenever and wherever there's war there are always two parties consistently and mainly involved, that is the oppressed party and the aggressive/attacking party.
The distinction between the oppressed or attacking side is usually extracted from the narrative that describes the causative factors of the war, but all of that is beside the point in this post.
It can be deduced easily from human history that the presence of man is almost always a guarantee of the presence of conflict. If the conflict does not occur now, it is bound to occur at some point in the future.
The frequency and rate at which violence escalates during wartime has created a steady and unending demand for tools that will be used as a means of defense in that situation or even to use for striking back if the need arises.
Over time in history, man has employed a range of techniques, strategies, tactics and tools to ensure the protection of their folk is assured during wartime.
From the most subtle disinformation campaigns, to the building of walls and most importantly the application of technology for offensive and defensive purposes.
Since its birth, the adoption of technology in warfare just like every other facet of life has grown to be more popular than other approaches to warfare.
Technologies, gave birth to cannons, gunpowder and the likes. This technology has since evolved into something that is not as material as it is abstract.
Nowadays, we have security systems run as sophisticated software with the sole purpose of surveillance and vigilante.
Advanced security systems of today at some point have been pre-equipped not only with preventive and intelligence gathering procedures, we now have systems that are now being proactive on behalf of their controllers in warding off attacks and striking back in an automated fashion.
All of these are products of technology.
A very notable and ideal example of automated warfare is the usage of drones by governments and armed groups around the world to handle reconnaissance, intelligence gathering and unmanned attacks.
Very recently, drones have come to be a key part of waging war for the most tech driven armies and armed groups around the world.
What then is drone warfare?
In military speak, drones are known and referred to as unmanned aerial combat vehicles and are used among other things for the transport of bombs to be used for airstrikes and cameras to be use for surveillance.
All drones have the capacity to be controlled remotely by anyone who has access to the dashboard from any corner of the world.
Drones have helped to eliminate the need for the physical presence of a human pilot in order to execute air missions.
There are still human pilots though, but this time, the human pilots are usually working from home(of sorts, 99.9% of the time they are working from the army base of the military they represent).
The use of drones for warfare was pioneered and mostly popularized by the Israeli armed forces after their first demonstration in the Yom Kippur war which allowed them to swiftly and tactically take over the Egyptian defenses without losing a single pilot as collateral damage.
There has been many serving models of drones or UAVs as they can be alternatively called. A popular one from the past is the Ryan Firebee target drone used by the Israelis in the aforementioned situation above.
In the future, we have a tendency to see improved versions of drones used for warfare purposes, these new versions include the following but are not limited to
- BAE Taranis
- Elbit Hermes 450
- USAF Hunter Killer among others.
What is your opinion on using drones to wage war and as a defense system. Kindly share your opinion in the comments. Thank you.
I think that war is always wrong, but since man has always existed war we hope that one day we evolve as a species
I agree with you, it would be a good thing if we can evolve as a species to the point where we stop waging war on ourselves, but in my opinion, naturally humans are poised to oppose each other when there is no common interest.