While I think the use of robots to clear minefields is a good idea–and the more the better; let’s get rid of all those land mines–this new development of placing robot warriors in Iraq is truly hair-raising. Supposedly they are “guided” by a human being studying images from the robot’s cameras; this person could be a half mile away. These one-meter-high machines are called SWORDS: Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems. I have an image now of all sides in a conflict fighting with SWORDS, and as long as human beings were not in the way, that might be worth the cost of the hardware ($200,000 per unit). Machines versus machines; skill in interpreting images; metal bashing metal, scraping sand, exploding wheels. But when people on their way to market, gathering for a wedding, walking to school, or running for their lives are put in the “picture” with these machines: who is accountable? what are the rules of the war? These robots take aim electronically and are more “accurate” than a human soldier because they are on a stable platform.
Piotr Adamczyk sent out a message a few weeks back about the Human Terrain System, another military-speak phrase meant to address cultural divides:
..."To help address these shortcomings in cultural knowledge and
capabilities, the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO), a U.S. Army
Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) organization that supports
the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is overseeing
the creation of the Human Terrain System (HTS). This system is being
specifically designed to address cultural awareness shortcomings at
the operational and tactical levels by giving brigade commanders an
organic capability to help understand and deal with 'human terrain'
the social, ethnographic, cultural, economic, and political elements
of the people among whom a force is operating."
What have we wrought?