Flying Robots and the New World
Few technologies have affected warfare as much as unmanned aerial vehicles during the past 20 years. Even fewer are the number of technological advancements responsible for as much turbulence in international diplomacy. And despite the long way UAV technology has come, it is still just the beginning.
Though the past 20 years has seen the most innovation and expansion of UAV technology, the concept of unmanned aircraft has been utilized for a long time. Unmanned aircraft were first employed during World War 2 when radio-controlled B-52’s were flown into German airspace on bombing missions. The United States also used unmanned, remotely controlled aircrafts during the Vietnam War to take still surveillance images. The technology to remotely control aircraft is nothing new, but in the late 1980s everything changed when General Atomics developed the Gnat, the first UAV equipped with a video camera.
The Gnat was renamed the Predator and became the United States’ favorite surveillance tool during the subsequent decade. Then on Feb. 16, 2001, the Predator #3034 became the first to fire a Hellfire missile during a test flight. Only six and a half months later, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and a new kind of war began.
When the United States declared a War on Terror, government and military officials understood that terrorist groups did not confine themselves to a single army, government or even country. The Taliban, Al-Qaida and eventually the Islamic State proved to be an elusive enemy, with forces scattered amongst small militias throughout Africa and Southwest Asia. Government and military officials felt the scattered and murky nature of the War on Terror made the MQ-1 Predator drone the perfect weapon for such a conflict. UAVs are more precise and cause less collateral damage than fighter jets, and can be flown into hostile territory without risking the life of a pilot.
Since 2002, the United States and its allies have launched thousands of UAV missions, with well over a thousand confirmed missile strikes. The exact numbers are undisclosed, as many drone strikes are carried out by the CIA and considered covert operations. Sen. Lindsey Graham from South Carolina claims drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia have killed 4,700 people, significantly higher than most estimates, which typically hover around the 3,500 range.
The Pakistani government have openly denounced drone strikes in their country, though many reports suggest tentative government cooperation in the strikes. There is a rising concern, too, that the prominent use of drone strikes in foreign countries is encouraging people to unite against the United States and its allies. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has compiled datasets from reports on drone strikes, and their data claims the number of civilians killed by drone strikes in Pakistan is somewhere between 416 and 959, including between 168 and 204 children killed.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Mar. 16, 2015 through a federal court to try and force the release of detailed reports and statistics on drone strikes. The lawsuit comes on the heels of an 18-month long stonewalled response to a Freedom of Information Act request made by the ACLU. Among the requests made by the ACLU is the criteria used to place targets on the military’s “kill list,” and the number and identities of people killed by drone strikes. Legal experts expect the lawsuit to be an uphill battle that will take a long time.
There are, however, constructive and promising uses for UAVs that are rapidly gaining popularity. The FAA recently approved Amazon.com to begin testing UAVs for a new, sophisticated aerial package delivery system. Yamaha has been producing UAVs since the early 1990's for spraying crops with pesticide, to the point that Japan currently uses very few manned aircrafts for the task, favoring UAVs instead.
The FAA has also granted authorization to many Universities across the U.S. for research purposes, including Northern Arizona University’s School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability. Dr. Temuulen “Teki” Sankey, an associate Professor for NAU, has already procured a Sensefly Ebee, a small lightweight Styrofoam plane equipped with a high-resolution camera and GPS navigation. She and her team use the Sensefly to obtain three-dimensional topographical images to study forest canopies, snow accumulation and the effects of restoration treatments on groundwater recharge. “In my particular field of science, the UAV technology has entirely changed what you are able to do,” Dr. Sankey said.
