AUTONOMOUS ARMED DRONES, THE FUTURE OF WAR ?

On 1 November 1911, during the Italo-Turkish War, Giulio Gavotti flew his Etrich Taube monoplane on a bombing raid against Ottoman military positions in Libya.  He took four grenades, each of a size of grapefruit and weighing about four pounds, and, while flying at an altitude of 600 feet, dropped three onto the Tagiura oasis outside modern Tripoli, and one more onto a nearby military camp at Ain Zara. Gavotti’s attack injured no one.

It is reported that on the night of the 6 January 2018, the Russian airbase at Khmeimim was attacked by more than a dozen drones. As yet unnamed militants used 10 armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to target the Hmeymim air base located near the Syrian city of Latakia and three more against the naval facility in Tartus. The aircraft were reportedly defeated before inflicting any casualties or damage

Commenting on the attack Major General Aleksandr Novikov, said that it showed the “emergence of a real threat of the UAV use for terrorist purposes anywhere in the world.”  The assessment of the drones also revealed that any jamming countermeasures would be ineffective. “The research showed that the avionics equipment mounted on the drones facilitated their fully automated pre programmed flight and bombing, ruling out any jamming,” Novikov said.

War, it has been said, does not change but warfare does. The way in which wars are waged changes constantly under the influences of technology and cultural forces.

Colonel (PhD) Gjert Lage Dyndal writing in NATO Review describes autonomous drones as” drones that can act based on their own choice of options” Such drones, he points out are programmed with a large number of alternative responses to the different challenges they may meet in performing their mission.

It is reported that the US and Chinese militaries are starting to test swarming drones – distributed collaborative systems made up of many small, cheap, unmanned aircraft. This new subset of independently operating or “autonomous” weapons is giving rise to new strategic, ethical, and legal questions.

The programming of these drones may, oddly enough, be based on the swarming strategies employed by some insects. Mathematical representations of ant behavior are widely used in private enterprise to optimize complex logistics problems, like delivery truck routing, computer network routing, and market analysis. Swarming intelligence is all about data exchange. As well as the direct exchange of information such systems can employ stigmergy, which is where individual parts of a system communicate indirectly by modifying the local environment. (What a submariner or his hunter might refer to as “flaming datum points”.)

While it might seem odd to program weapon systems based on the behaviors of insects it is important to remember that the insects that use these swarming strategies most successfully are considered to be, like humans, an extirpator species-meaning they deliberately seek out and destroy rival organisms (including their own species) to maintain absolute control of their territory.

Ants that utilize these stratagems are among the most successful organisms on the planet. Some analysts even suggest that such swarming strategies, when used by humans, have historically won sixty-one percent of all battles-and an even greater percentage in urban terrain. Examples would include Grozny, Stalingrad and Mogadishu of ‘Black Hawk Down’ fame.

Discussing what they refer to as Pervasive Semi-autonomous Systems in the 2009 publication Projecting power - Canada's Air Force 2035 the RCAF suggested that such “ systems will become increasingly interconnected and multi-tiered.”  They also noted that “Semi-autonomy or, in certain cases, complete autonomy will be a feature of all future platforms and systems.”  They also believe that “. Since semi-autonomous and autonomous sensors and equipment are at the heart of systems that collect data and assist in its fusion, human agency will continue to be a part of the controlling process of those systems.” It is not clear if they believe that putting the word “will” in italics insures that the future will unfold as they would like it to.

 Gavotti’s 1910 attack caused little damage but is seen by historians as the first example of what became the strategic bombing campaigns which have characterized warfare since that time.  A direct line can be drawn from his raid to the dirigible bombing raids on London during WW1 to the thousand plane raids on Berlin and Dresden of WW2 and on to the pervasive use of airpower in our own century.

In the same way the attack by what appear to be armed autonomous drones against Russian positions in Syria, for all their lack of effect, may in the future be seen as the beginnings of a new kind of warfare.

As with the dropping of bombs from heavier-then-air aircraft it would appear that the use of autonomous drones is limited not by the technology but rather the political will to develop and use politically sensitive technology. In fact the technology which would allow lethal machines to operate without being under the direct control of humans is widely available. It awaits only its first successful use.

After Gavotti’s mission, as well as further Italian bombing raids, the Ottoman Empire issued a protest. The dropping of bombs from balloons had been outlawed by the Hague Convention of 1899, but Italy argued that this ban did not extend to heavier-than-air craft. Needless to say, these protests had no effect.

Giulio Gavotti

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giulio_Gavotti

Russian army repels attack by 13 militant drones on its Syrian compounds

https://www.rt.com/news/415276-syria-russian-military-repelled-attacks/

Threat of terrorist drone attacks is real, says Russian military after assault on base in Syria

https://www.rt.com/news/415591-threat-of-terrorist-drone-attacks/

Autonomous military drones: no longer science fiction

https://www.nato.int/docu/review/2017/Also-in-2017/autonomous-military-drones-no-longer-science-fiction/EN/index.htm

The upside and downside of swarming drones

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00963402.2017.1290879

 Swarming on the Battlefield-Past, Present, and Future

https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1100.html

Projecting power - Canada's Air Force 2035

http://airforceapp.forces.gc.ca/CFAWC/eLibrary/pubs/Projecting_Power-Canadas_Air_Force_2035_e.pdf

AVRO ARROW REDUX

The news that a company known as Bourdeau Industries has proposed reviving the Avro Arrow as a replacement for the CF-18 in place of the F-35 has come as a surprise to everyone.

As suggested by LewisMackenzie the concept of a “Mark 3”Arrow using updated technology seems at first almost like a joke, even Mackenzie had to make it clear that he was serious when he backed the proposal.

It’s easy to say that this idea is crazy. It’s not hard to think of half a dozen good reasons why this bird will never fly. But let’s be a little crazy ourselves. Instead of coming up with reasons why it couldn’t possibly work, why not think of a few reasons it could work.

Canada does need interceptors. Both to fulfill our NORAD obligations and to maintain sovereignty Canada needs long range interceptors. Air policing, by a variety of names, has become a new priority for Air Forces since 9/11. The need to be able to control the airspace over ones urban centers and to patrol the continental borders is in some ways even more important then it was during the cold war when Mutually Assured Destruction made the air defence role at least partially redundant. F-35’s will not make particularly good interceptors.

Canada is planning to buy F-35’s to fulfill our various Alliance obligations, but F-35s are not the only way to gain the leverage Canadians traditionally try to maintain by joining alliances. As well as armed drones, Canada could offer electronic warfare capabilities, air-to-air refueling or even airborne early warning aircraft in the place of a handful of F-35’s. All these capabilities are much sought after by our allies in coalition warfare and many of them could be useful to Canada.

The original Arrow foundered on the rocks of pure economics. All conspiracy theories aside, and there is no question that there was industrial and political pressure from the U.S., the numbers just didn’t add up. The Avro Arrow was too expensive and although it’s a bitter pill to swallow the government of the day was probably right to cancel the project when they did.

If a new Arrow project were to succeed it would have to make sure it did not make the same mistakes as its predecessor. Trying to invent, design and build the airframe, the engines, the weapons system and the electronics was too great a stretch. The key to

building a successful Canadian 21^st century interceptor is to integrate as much proven technology as possible. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel when there are any number of perfectly good wheels around.

As just one example, the characteristics of the Pratt & Whitney F100-200 jet engine as currently used in the F-16 and F-15 aircraft are broadly similar to those of the Orenda Iroquois engines proposed for the original Arrow. Those engines are in widespread use, spares and support will be available for decades to come.

The original Arrow had a detachable nose section, an escape capsule, to allow crew survival when ejecting at high speed and altitude. Ejection seat technology has come a long way and it would be easier, and cheaper to modify a two seat cockpit from an aircraft like the F-15E or even the F18F. This would allow even easier use of the accompanying radar and weapons systems.

A Canadian built interceptor doesn’t have to be “the best fighter in the world”. In fact in the real world those aircraft don’t always have the longest operational lives. A big, fast, high flying, long ranged jet built to military specifications will always have uses.

One final thought, better and best are the biggest enemies of good enough. The Avro Arrow was a better aircraft then the Cf-101 Voodoo which was eventually used instead. It turned out that the Voodoo was good enough. This time around, even if there are better aircraft, a Canadian made long ranged, supersonic interceptor called the Arrow might be good enough.

DRONES AND ASSASSINATIONS

 

 It was announced that the Department of National Defence has been considering the purchase of armed drones. This has raised some questions and concerns in some quarters.

Roland Paris in Postmedia News writes;

“Before Ottawa decides to buy armed drone systems, however, a critical question needs to be debated and resolved: How exactly will Canada use the weapons carried by these drones?

For several years, the United States has employed a growing fleet of armed drones to kill people it deems a threat to the U.S., including in countries where the U.S. is not currently at war, such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. The administrations of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama have claimed that such assassinations are legal. These claims are not convincing. Rather, they encourage other countries to acquire drone technology and perhaps eventually to use this technology in their own assassination campaigns.

Canada should have nothing to do with such activities. Before acquiring lethal drones, therefore, the Canadian government should clearly indicate that it will not participate in or facilitate “targeted killing,” either overtly or covertly. Indeed, Ottawa should be doing what previous Canadian governments, regardless of party, have traditionally done very well: leading an international effort to develop new multilateral rules in an area of international concern — in this case, rules to limit the misuse of robotic weapons.”

And in The Chronicle Herald Peter McKenna writes:

“More to the point, if Canada’s program does mimic the American one, and thus involves the assassination of high-value targets or individuals like Gadhafi in distant places, who will give the green light for doing so?

In Washington, it’s pretty clear that President Barack Obama — who has presided over an extraordinary number of lethal UAV missions against supposed terrorists — has the final authority. Would that mean that Prime Minister Stephen Harper would have similar political responsibility here in Canada? Or would the ultimate decision on who and what to target rest in the hands of Canadian generals?

Of course, this raises the thorny question of whether Canada really wants to be in the nasty business of singling out individuals in foreign countries for UAV strikes. It is even conceivable, as happened last year in the case of a U.S. national and suspected al-Qaeda operative who was eliminated in Yemen (there have been others, too), that Canadian citizens could be killed by a PM-approved drone attack.

How far does Canada want to go down this path of targeted assassinations? Under what criteria these would these decisions be made? Who is ensuring accountability and proper monitoring of these decision-makers? And, finally, what are the legal and legislative parameters for conducting UAV military operations abroad?

Until we get answers to some of these questions, the Canadian government should put any suggestion of a new fleet of drones on ice.”

These questions show a fundamental lack of understanding of weapon systems in general and of drones specifically.

 It is true that the U.S. policy of Targeted Assassinations (I’m not really sure what other kind there are) is associated in the public mind with the use of armed drones, but drones are not the problem. There is little that drones do, including killing specific individuals that could not be done by some other kind of weapon.

There is nothing that drones do in Pakistan that could not be done by CF-18’s albeit with a much higher profile more difficult for the Pakistani government to ignore. You seldom see this kind of concern when a new sniper rifle is fielded but in point of fact Targeted Assassinations have in the past been largely the province of Special Forces using weapons like sniper rifles.

While it is true that some weapons lend themselves more readily for technical or psychological reasons to some kind of operations then others it is the use to which weapons are put, not the weapons themselves, which matter.

 It is the apparently unmanned nature of drones that gives them their sinister reputation. The reality is that a drone, tasked and piloted by a human controller, is under more positive control then an artillery shell programmed and launched at an unseen target by Army personal.

Drones, including armed drones, are part of the new face of Air Power. To the extent that Canada needs Air Power to realize its domestic and foreign policy objectives then Canada needs the appropriate drones. There is always a danger that weapons will drive policy instead of policy dictating weapons but there is no reason to believe that drones are any more likely to cause this dilemma then any other weapons system. 

(For a more detailed view check out  “What's Not Wrong WithDrones? The wildly overblown case against remote-controlled war. “ Written by Rosa Brooks in the September 5, 2012 issue of “Foreign Policy, The global magazine of politics, economics, and ideas”)

LEVERAGE AND DRONES

 

I have written before about the concept of Leverage. It would appear that there is more then one way of regaining some control over negotiations for a future fighter.

On August 6 it was reported in the Ottawa Citizen that:

“The Conservative government approved last month the issuing of a request to aerospace firms to provide details about the types of drones now available. Companies have until Sept. 28 to provide the information.

Senior Canadian defence leaders pitched the idea of spending up to $600 million for armed drones to take part in the Libyan war shortly before the conflict ended, according to documents obtained by the Citizen.

And while the death of Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi effectively ended the war and scuttled the Defence Department’s plans, the military has now re-launched its program to purchase unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can be outfitted with missiles and other bombs. According to DND documents the military intends to spend around $1 billion on the project.

The Conservative government approved last month the issuing of a request to aerospace firms to provide details about the types of drones now available. Companies have until Sept. 28 to provide the information.

In its request to the industry, the government pointed out the need for the unmanned aircraft to operate in the Arctic. The aircraft should also be able to carry precision-guided munitions, the government said.

“This capability will allow the CF (Canadian Forces) to fill critical deficiencies,” industry officials were told in the request for information sent to them July 23.

The Canadian Forces has used unarmed UAVs at various stages during the Afghan war. But it has been trying to purchase a new fleet of armed drones for years.

In 2007, the Citizen reported the Defence Department had asked the Conservative government for approval to buy the American-built Predator drones for the Afghanistan mission. That request was denied because of concerns in cabinet and the federal bureaucracy that the deal would be non-competitive.

The government eventually approved the lease of Israeli-built UAVs from MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates in Richmond, B.C. Those unarmed Heron aircraft operated out of Kandahar Airfield.

The DND started its project to purchase armed UAVs in 2008 but that stalled because funding had to be diverted to other equipment programs.

Documents obtained by the Citizen show that military leaders saw the Libyan war as a possible way to move its stalled UAV program forward. According to a briefing presented Aug. 16, 2011 to Defence Minister Peter MacKay, they pointed out that the purchase of such aircraft for the Libyan conflict could kick start their larger project to buy UAVs for both domestic and international missions.

Responding to high-level government discussions on ways to address future operational needs for the war, Canadian Forces planners detailed a proposal to purchase a fleet of armed unmanned aerial vehicles at a cost of roughly $600 million.

While that was expected to take up to a year, they also outlined a concurrent proposal to obtain on loan a fleet of such aircraft that could be sent into battle almost immediately.

“Using loaned assets and personnel, a UAV capability with the ability to start operations within the next (censored) is feasible,” according to the briefing. “However, this would require complete government commitment and support from (name of country censored).”

It is something of a surprise to find out that there is a constituency within the DND for drones with this degree of sophistication. It may be that whatever the institutional biases of the individual services, armed drones hold a powerful appeal for the politicians. The ability to be seen, by both our allies and the electorate, to be making a meaningful contribution to coalition efforts without having to hazard Canadian lives would be hard for an elected government to ignore. (Or not abuse, but that’s a story for another day)

Also of interest are these excerpts from a piece by Jonathan Jeckell at Information Dissemination:

“Consider the US Air Force’s position with the F-35A. The F-15 Silent Eagle program continues to quietly reach new milestones and spawned from one of the most successful aircraft in US Air Force history.  The F-15 Silent Eagle seems to provide highly advanced and competitive features at a reasonable price.  It might seem that the F-15 Silent Eagle would be just the leverage they are looking for to provide a credible alternative to the F-35 and the limited quantity of F-22s.  Theoretically, the US Air Force could threaten to abandon the project and go with a safer, more evolutionary pathway, like the US Navy did with their F/A-18E/F “upgrades” rather than suffer a risky transition to a whole new platform.

So could the US Air Force credibly use the F-15 Silent Eagle, either as a negotiating tactic, or as a gap-filling purchase to lower risk while waiting for the F-35A?  No.  The US Air Force is caught in conflicts with two negotiating partners, not just one.  The US Air Force is counting on the capabilities promised by the F-35A, to them, the F-15 Silent Eagle would be a disappointing replacement if Congress took their threat seriously.  Moreover, allied buyers and the US Air Force have had their purchases cut as costs soar and budgets plummet. All the F-35 buyers are locked into a high-stakes game of Prisoner’s Dilemma.  Each cut in the number of aircraft purchased increases the cost per aircraft each remaining F-35 buyer must pay to amortize fixed costs, such as research and development. Any defector for another platform or reduction in purchases could trigger a stampede.  The US Air Force, as the single biggest buyer, could trigger such a stampede merely by acknowledging the possibility alternatives.  Unlike the US Air Force, many value minded F-35 buyers find other aircraft, such as the Eurofighter Typhoon, Rafael, used F-16s, Su-30, or the Saab JAS 39 Gripen, just to name a few, quite competitive alternatives.  Early defectors would beat the crowd to get these alternatives early, while laggards either get stuck footing the bill, or get put on the waiting list.

The US Navy alone has the leverage to sit on the sidelines and watch the show with the satisfaction of being able to walk away.  The Chief of Naval Operations clearly signaled as much in an article recently at Proceedings.  His post downplayed the importance of stealth and the advantages brought by this technology over a range of other options available to the US Navy, including the electronic warfare capabilities of the EA-18G Growler in support of various aircraft as “trucks” for payloads. The Super Hornet is also a large aircraft with lots of internal capacity for modular upgrades and modifications to facilitate rapid adaptation against emerging threats, balancing the best qualities of standardization and variety. But is a modular, adaptable aircraft good enough to compete with integrated high-end fighters like the F-22?  I don’t know. But the US Navy has the breathing room to make that decision deliberately and calmly.  The US Navy alone has avoided painting itself into a corner and now has the intellectual bandwidth free to focus on new ways to use its payloads and platforms in new ways by focusing on the interaction among its systems and doctrine, rather than fixating on making a particular technology work.”

What is also interesting here is to consider the implications this has for the F-35 in Canadian service. Canadian involvement in the bombing of Libya has been considered a possible template for and a justification of the use of F-35’s. Their much vaunted “stealth” giving the pilots near invulnerability from the degraded anti-aircraft assets of a state such as Libya. Now we discover that Drones were contemplated for the campaign.

In fact a force of Drones, unarmed for use as national patrol assets or armed for use in coalition operations like those over Kosovo or Libya, would undercut many of the arguments in favour of purchasing F-35’s. They would not be cheap (see drones) but coupled to a purchase of F-18 Super Hornets for domestic use they would meet our needs. Just having the option would give us much needed leverage in our negotiations with Lockheed Martin for F-35’s.