Warfare by Remote Control

Remote warfare has been the desire of armies for centuries.  This was sought out and achieved by weapons of ever increasing range.  When your force’s effective range exceeds that of the enemy you can attack the enemy without putting your own forces at risk.  This was true during Napoleon’s time and continues to be true today.  Lt. Col. John Janiszewski, chief of experimentation and analysis directorate for the Army's Unit of Action Maneuver Battle Lab said, "it's important that our Soldiers become capable of using unmanned vehicles efficiently because their use means fewer Soldiers being exposed to dangers of the battlefield” (FIND, 2006).  It may seem to some that holding the enemy at risk without placing your own troops in harm’s way is unfair, but the nature of war is to gain an advantage over the enemy.  Some will question whether unmanned, remote warfare represents a just war.

The philosopher Augustine is credited with developing Just War Theory in Western tradition (Augustine: Just War, 2002).  He identified “two aspects of war that required moral justification and guidelines: the right to go to war (Jus Ad Bellum) and the right sorts of conduct in war (Jus In Bello)” (2002).  For the most part the United States (US) Department of Defense (DoD) is using remote warfare to support their conflicts within the Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC).  As the DoD is utilizing remote warfare in many of the same roles as manned aircraft the Jus Ad Bellum is satisfied, however, some will argue the means of remote warfare is unjust.  The supporters of this theory will cite the just war principles that state,

 “The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants and civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target”  (Ferraro, 2010).

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) actually can better discriminate between combatants and non‑combatants since they can conduct a long loiter and surveillance of the target before weapons release.  The operator of the unmanned aircraft (UA) has a better knowledge of a situation than an attack or bomber aircraft which only has ingress, release, and egress and has not built the pattern of life for themselves like the UAS crew will.  Others still will argue it is preferable to put your own troops in danger or even death rather than cause noncombatant deaths.  However, there are exceptions made when non-combatant death is unavoidable in order to attack a legitimate target.  In unmanned systems the executor of the war is comfortably located thousands of miles away from the conflict.  This is the ultimate high ground with regards to range as it was discussed at the beginning of this research.  In general UAS employed by the US DoD are executing the same missions as manned aircraft; however, they are employing their capabilities differently than manned aircraft whether it is sortie duration or weapons tactics, techniques, and procedures.

References

Augustine: Just War. (2002). Retrieved from Great Philosophers: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/modules/Philosophers/Augustine/augustine_justwar.html

Ferraro, V. (2010, February 1). Principles of Just War. Retrieved from Mt Holyoke: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pol116/justwar.htm

FIND. (2006, August 16). Army Tests Remote Warfare, Soldier Performance. US Department of Defense Information.