Veil of secrecy lifted on Pentagon office planning micro-drone swarms
washingtonpost.com
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I remember reading, many years ago, a very short SF story about a robot built specificially to kill targeted people and leave false traces. I think even now it would not be too difficult to built a small bug-like (or wasp-like) robot with a poisonous sting that could autonomously navigate a few hundred meters to reach a bed of a politician (or activist) - how are you going to protect your leaders against an attack like this?
Looks like it was not that easy - even for a superpower like the USA. Now imagine that they had miniature bots that could follow the target (and then kill him).
Whilst this is simply common sense, it's actually pretty radical thinking for the military. The big military contractors will be worried about this idea gaining widespread acceptance.
1. Power source - battery, or something else? 2. Clean-up - do the drones self-destruct, or do they (literally) fall into enemy hands? 3. Range 4. Payload - HE? Are these flying mines/grenades? 5. Security - EMP, jamming, comm-layer hacks.
The defensive applications are probably stronger than the offensive ones.
If the US isn't developing them, then others will. The thing that is quite scary is that this technology is available and here today with all the components necessary shipped from China.
It plays these ideas (cheap, autonomous) out for some quite interesting reading, only it is the bad guys who are in control.
As a simple illustration, if you were a holocaust victim at Auschwitz, the Nazi regime is your enemy, even if you're passive in your resistance, as many were. The Nazis are also the bad guys. Even though you are the Nazis' enemy, you are not the bad guy. The bad guys are the ones murdering millions.
Often in conflicts, both sides are bad guys (for example, warring criminal gangs). The term "bad guys" doesn't necessarily mean there are "good guys" opposing them.
The Nazi perspective was that Jews were destroying their race and stealing their birthright.
From our perspective, that is, of course, idiotic. But idiots don't see it that way.
When you consider how malleable the human mind is it's hard to take terms like "good guys" and "bad guys" seriously. Everyone grows up in their own environment, with their own perspective and traumatizing experiences. There are many people around the world who see the US as the bad guys, even though I think our intentions are noble and we obviously don't go around systematically murdering millions of people as efficiently as possible because of what they look like.
If you just mean "bad guys" to describe a group of people doing unethical things, then I agree with you but I disagree with the phrase. It just makes me think of little boys playing cowboys and indians. It's not a very thoughtful phrase.
Why are criminal gangs assumed to be the bad guys here? Do you know the varied history of different gangs in the US? You might be surprised at what you find.
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/10/05/44538223...
Thanks for your thoughtful replies. Notice though, that you've both affirmed that the Nazis did in fact do (really) bad things. You've also affirmed that the bad things they did comported with their general ideology. It was not the case that they were characteristically decent folks with a few bad apples in the bunch. It is for these reasons that I described them as "bad guys".
I think you've both missed a subtle distinction, however, and that is that there are bad things regardless of what I think about them. For example, if I were a rapist (I'm not), and if I thought rape was wonderful (I don't), what would you say to someone who said, "well he likes rape and that's just his perspective"? My guess is you would (correctly) say something akin to "yes, that is his perspective. But his perspective is wrong. Rape is wrong, he's wrong for doing it, he's wrong for liking it, and his belief that it's fine is incorrect, like believing in a flat earth." And like a belief in a flat earth, simply believing the wrong thing doesn't tell us that there is no correct view. It only tells us the person is wrong in the view he holds.
If there is no real standard of right and wrong as a distinct, discoverable feature of reality, we can never be opposed to anything on moral grounds. The most we could ever say about slavery, racism, rape, the holocaust, and anything else we know to be bad is "I don't like it, but that's just my perspective". Taken to its logical conclusion, this only leaves us with a might-makes-right world but not a moral one.
artursapek, I completely agree that "bad guys" is a term that is often used carelessly. Maybe this is even a good reason to avoid it conversationally. But when discussed in a thoughtful, precise manner I do think it stands on its own merit.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_EMB_314_Super_Tucano
Honestly, for just about every modern warfare scenario the US gets engaged in I have a tough time not envisioning a multi-rotor being the soldier of choice when it comes to fighting. It's also interesting to consider that if you are a nation who's thinking about entering the military game to fight terrorism, this is the way to go. It's fairly inexpensive and as a bonus would be highly demoralizing to your enemy.
I'm sorry but you're just kinda off the deep end here. Multicopters are great and all as an aid, but they are not a replacement. There is _no_ way they can do the vast majority of missions people do. You can't talk with locals build relationships to gather intelligence with copters, but you can with a couple soldiers walking on patrol. There 1000's of other examples.
"soldier of choice when it comes to fighting."
Once you've got your intel, know where your target generally resides and are going to strike, instead of cluster bombing, send in some multi-rotors.
You are right, predator drones are so much better at these things than hexacopters could ever be!
Email in profile if you ever want to chat about building, flying or racing.
And nothing is inexpensive when its for military use, some of the drones they currently use are basically foamie RC planes with some smart features, and the unit cost is still well into tens of thousands of dollars[0]!
Also, the reason I mentioned delivery is because you said "Why spend billions on the F-35" - evidently the multirotor idea requires a solid aerial platform that keeps the pilot safe just as much as the guided bombs currently do. Although in the future I could imagine this being done from larger drones similar to the Predator/Reaper.
Countries willing to report can maintain a tonne of VX and a drone swarm 100-million devices strong. If you can swarm 100,000 drones at a force and they can only stop 99%, it still kills a thousand people--but in reality, once a swarm attack begins, you're going to see the enemy flail uselessly against these drones in defense.
War has now fundamentally changed and standing armies don't even realize it yet. Activism is now even more dangerous. If you thought political opposition was dangerous now, imagine the ease of a State aiming a single drone at an a singularly unpopular voice leading the the crowd. Holy shit--that person just dropped dead on the stage! What happened? Drone.
If you attended Obama's last inauguration on the steps of the Capitol on the National Mall, hold fast to that memory. The next, and all future, presidential inaugurations may just be indoor affairs. Or perhaps... under a giant lexan rotunda.
If I wanted to assassinate someone with poison, I'd use a higher dose than the LD50.
But no, you're right, when you pay attention, it's mostly a totally off-topic rant on chemical weapons.
[1] http://www.gizmag.com/anti-uav-defense-system-radio-beam-dro...
Since that is currently the high-water mark in 2nd amendment rights on the pro-side, I assume you can point us to reversals since then, apparently occurring on a daily basis?
Please, share your sources with the group.
That being said, it would probably be better to use lasers to burn them out of the sky. It probably doesn't take much energy to damage their wings.
I'm probably ok with saying I'm not producing whether I am or not...
They didn't need a drone to kill a political opponent.
You don't need swarms to release vaporized agents. Just one low flying crop duster. That's the whole point of gas, it spreads everywhere so that you don't need to target.
HN has gone off the deep end with defense articles. Can't wait for the next headline to just say IT'S HAPPENING.
A mosquito-sized drone carrying a neurotoxin certainly would be used to carry out assassinations, crowd control, etc... And certainly would be a scary prospect.
Seriously? I don't know how this comment is at the top of my list. I have never seen a citation more needed. A single bullet fired at close range from one of these drones would be much more effective than dropping some nerve agent. If you can aim effectively and have 20 of these - only one of which needs to get within 10 feet then the target is much more surely dead than an LD50 nerve bomb. If you are going to do that and not give a crap about collateral then just fire a missile from the plane or a big drone. Mini drones are much more likely to be used for recon than attack.
There are other problems; for instance, you need a delivery platform because small drones can't carry enough energy to transport themselves long distances. Always the real world interferes with the dream (nightmare or otherwise). But what you potentially end up with is another phase transition in warfare, such as occurred in the industrial era, where there were militaries that were industrial, and there were the militaries that would have saved a lot of time and lives if they just surrendered immediately, because they never stood a chance.
Another 100,000 drones carrying rare earth magnets on strings :D
this is where those laser systems come into play. US Navy has already deployed some and Israel has Iron Beam.
And let me say again, I'm not utopian or starry-eyed about these systems. Lasers have their own problems, too. But the sum total of all the techs currently coming down the pike are dripping with potential, and one need not study much history to notice that multiple such phase changes have happened before so it's not like it's a far-out idea.
If the evil, cackling villains running the US government (did you vote for the ruling party last election, by the way? Are you planning on voting to re-elect the same party this November?) are willing to have a drone float down out of the sky and spray a political opposition figure with nerve gas in front of a thousand people, why wouldn't they be willing to just have some thugs kick in their door in the middle of the night?
I don't know what's worse about this attitude, the paranoia or the inconsistency. The only reason the government hasn't given in completely to its evil impulses is because they're waiting to develop and deploy some fancy bleeding-edge cyberpunk technology that's going to be less effective, less cheap, and less deniable than a couple of dudes with lead pipes... that viewpoint baffles me.
What are you going to do, fly the drone down the guy's throat?
Or just make sure to do it on a windy day?
So ... you're probably not going to beat ~billions of years of evolution, in terms of power to weight ratio and efficiency, right ?
So let's use the mosquito as a baseline and stipulate that what you gain by stripping away the reproductive and digestive systems, you lose back by adding an offensive payload, so that's a wash.
And you end up with something that has a range of ~2 miles and can fly about 1 mph. And also we're already evolved to hear and see objects of this size (and smaller).
If you make them larger, to carry more payload, not only do you start down this vicious cycle of greater size to support more payload (see: adding more battery weight to an electric car to increase the range, but diminishing returns because you added more weight...) but you also end up with a larger "bug" that's even easier to notice.
Or you could make them smaller, but now your range/speed drops even further.
This is not to mention the issue of predators - albeit confused ones that probably just spit the drone out.
But I am glad you contributed this comment; I agree that objects that small are more vulnerable to gusts of wind and predators.
These drones might be useful for some EW/Cyber warfare and maybe as advanced counter measures but assassinations? pffttt the US and many other countries have[0] loitering munitions that could be much more effective at those tasks than a drone that wont survive a collision with a house fly from the look of it.
The whole swarm thing is also overblown, the USAF is looking into swarm configuration for manned and unmanned aircraft mostly to counter contested airspaces due to the proliferation of advanced AA platforms, the whole idea is to send a swarm of low cost UAV's that could either saturate the airspace and either make the AA tracking systems ineffective or actually use EW or act like anti-radiation platforms them selves and just ram the radar arrays of the enemy missile systems.
The delivery method reported for this particular one is also quite ineffective dumping 100's of those out of the back of a transport aircraft seems to me a much more effective method which also has been tested by the US many time before to deliver loitering munitions mostly Anti-Radiation platforms.
[0]http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2013/08/uk-complex-weapons-par... [0]http://defense-update.com/features/du-1-07/armedUAVs_8.htm
With the massed deployment model of dropping a whole container of these things, the nominal cost woult probably be measured in money per tonne, not money per airframe...
Political Sanctions?
Similarly for tank armor - modern tanks' armor are only effective against weapons that aren't otherwise designed for the purpose of penetrating them. Anti-tank weapons easily destroy tanks today.
Also if you like at history, you'd know typically the few control the many and use a gained advantage to be fairly brutal to anyone else.
I'm not so confident this will work well out if people simply let the natural evolution of events happen without putting in altruistic controls and agreements within and between nations.
Like a swarm of wasps that can be targeted and controlled.
It will be much cheaper to send in 100 tiny drones to kill one enemy soldier than to send in an American soldier. And it will be safe for Americans.
Once you have enough of the drones and they are small enough, you can launch swarms of them inside, outside, over ground, under ground, in daylight and at night. The enemy might be able to shoot down 99 percent of them, but you only need one drone to take out the enemy. You can chase down the enemy soldiers, one by one. You can even avoid civilian casualties by spending enough time to establish who's enemy soldiers and then take them out with precision. Even - to a high degree - if the enemy hides among civilians. Once the target is eliminated (or has surrendered), you can return any surviving drones or have them destroy themselves.
Once war becomes safe and clean for Americans, there will probably be less objections against war. Another Afghanistan will take a few weeks or months, not 15 years. Americans will actually be able to win the peace, not just the wars like today.
When the enemy realises that there is no-where to hide, they will surrender. Americans can basically engage anyone, anywhere, at all time and in no time, with no apparent risk at at little cost.
Of course, the threat of a nuclear retaliation would be the most effective defense against such drone based wars, so I would expect more of the dictatorships to attempt to acquire nuclear weapons.
Sincerely hope you are being sarcastic here.
Current counter-air technologies can be scaled down (eg: Iron Dome, S-400, etc) and the preferred method of interception will more than likely be laser-based.
Do we put video cameras outside of every person's home? No.
Security is needs-based. If there is a high risk of attack then yes, otherwise no.
Not yet. And in some countries there are already plenty of street CCTV cameras.
Unlike the Americans, who have the planes, helicopters, rockets, tanks, carriers etc to launch these drones from a safe distance, it would be hard for terrorists to use it against Americans.
Americans would try to keep the technology to themselves for a while with usual non-proliferation laws and by using encryption on the deployed drones.
"Finds"? More like goes out of its way to engage in wars, thousands upon thousands of miles away from its borders, for BS pretextes ("democracy", "WMDs") or for the cynical because-we-want-control-and-resources excuse ("strategic interests").
As the last decade's worth of field experience shows, worry-free assassination doesn't reduce civilian casualties - it increases them... Most casualties from drone strikes were weakly qualified targets and most of them were not the opponents the USA sought to kill... But who cares - no risk to USA soldiers !
I see what you did there...
New anti-air defense systems defending against drone swarms will be developed.
The 21st century of that would be a van releasing bomb-carrying small drones that would then fly to their target at street level. This presents a serious problem for attempting to intercept them, as any detonation along the way would also have civilian casualties.
Until such a swarm targets something like a Presidential inauguration, or a busy shopping mall at Christmas, or the Super Bowl.
> Americans will actually be able to win the peace, not just the wars like today.
I suspect that statement was said in the mid-to-late 1940s about nuclear weapons.
EX: [Has gun] is not enough.
EX: [Someone says is a terrorist] is not enough.
If we start tracking people 24/7 with drones we can make a lot of terrorists. But, we don't have enough people to have large numbers of people watched 24/7. So, sure we can kill a lot of people with a new weapon, but we often just classify people as insurgents after we bombed them.
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A real soldier would be making this decision while being afraid for his life and life of his comrades. A drone operator or AI would be making this decision while being afraid for a cheap (especially by military standards) machine.
Guess which decision process produces more false positives?
The problem with false positives is if you increase accuracy, but dramatically increase testing you end up with more false positives. So, we can trade 1 snap second judgment by a person, with 100 rapid judgments from an overworked person. A 10% chance of killing one person is better than a 1% chance of killing 100 people.
It's only true if you forget about the original objective: killing bad guys. This objective is in place not because of some sports, but because bad guys actually kill other innocent people.
So if you calculate how many innocent lives you save in the second option, it still looks quite better.
A drone operator may be better, but are they really going to be 100x as good? Of course not.
Don't forget drones can't detain people, the options are observe, ignore, or kill. Drones have already been responsible for a massive increase in civilian deaths, because they make attacks seem less risky.
And then, theu will be used on US to soil keep the peace inside the country's border as well. For surveillance. Protecion. Then crowd control. Then more.
And after being the world wosrt nightmare you will taste, but too late, the biterness of this idea. And everybody will be in a sad state.
But these bullies are worst when they compete with one another or move from place to place. When these kinds of bullies get (1) stationary and (2) feel safe from competition, that's when you actually get prosperity and safety. And if you destroy the big old lazy bully, it just means that thousand of small ones start fighting over his place.
Yeah, but in Asia or Africa for example you seldom fear or are annoyed by Chile or Canada. Whereas certain bullies annoy (and worse) all over the world.
In any case, not all responses are or are meant to be "rebuttals" (valid or not). This one was meant to add some more context: that even if all government are bullies, not all bullies are equally bad.
It's astounding how strong the propaganda machine is, and how ignorant of their own whitewashed history even some of the most educated Americans are.
Though it's not unprecedented: just a century ago, the world's most brilliant minds supported (and helped) Germany in the first and second world wars (e.g: the design of chemical weapons)... only five scientists signed an anti-war petition (led by Einstein), while the rest cheered on this new, "more civilized" age of warfare.
Nobody elected the USA world police. If it wishes to aid in peacekeeping, it is free to do so within the confines of international law.
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2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...; and almost every other country in South america: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_f...
100 tiny drones... So cute. Try 100,000 or more like 10,000,000 if the military "gets serious" about these things.
If these things are effective then why not make large drones with the sole purpose of deploying as many as possible? 10,000 large drones carrying a payload of 1,000 tiny drones. They come back, pick up 1,000 more, and fly again. After a few weeks or months you've got hundreds of thousands covering an area.
It won't be long before tiny drones like this can be powered by photovoltaic panels indefinitely (we have medium sized ones that can do that already). It could be quite a while though before that capability is available for drones that can actually kill people (assuming they don't have enough mass to be used as single-target missiles).
"Another Afghanistan".. by "win the peace" you do mean, "everyone alive is on our side", right? (I'm not implying you support pro-war politics, just clarifying for the viewers)
Nukes only work if they are asymmetrical (suitcase) style. If Country X decides to "Nuke the USA".. guess what, USA will Nuke X right back. Pretty useless, unless X is launching because Y forced or tricked them to..
Definitely already there in terms of counterinsurgency wars. The biggest objection to war in America is the cost-benefit, not necessarily the safety of our troops. I say this because historically casualty rates have never been lower for war, ever.
Interesting to think how this attitude will play out in large scale conflicts. What will be the red line for WMD? You'd hope some international law would spell out those red lines, removing any ambiguity before introduction of this technology.
To me this sounds very naive. After all they killed 3-4 million Vietnamese during that war.
The only way to win a war on such a scale is to commit genocide, since an enemy willing to keep fighting after losing many millions will not stop fighting unless you kill them all.
But yes, technically you are right, you would "win the peace" if you exterminate the enemy population.
Americans will not be able to win guerilla warfare because they do not understand it. Partly due to trying to operate an empire while refusing to realise they are doing so.
America has by some metrics not even won its own civil war - or at least not brought its ethnic conflict to a conclusion. There is still the occasional church burning http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/20/charleston-shoo... or mass shooting.
It is not a matter of how many people you can kill. The Belgians killed 18 million people in the Congo and eventually gave up on it as a colony.
The end game of US occupations is alleged to be "democracy". This involves not just elections and parties but a whole stack of legal and political rights. One of those rights is the right to justice: i.e. not arbitrary execution from the sky. You can kill the martyr, but what do you do with the crowd of demonstrators carrying pictures of him? Open fire on them too?
The risk to the US from drone murder warfare is not that it is too hard but that it is too easy. It has the potential to be a morally corrosive weapon like the One Ring: used more and more often in more situations with higher and higher body counts. Once the first million are dead (arguably this number was passed somewhere in the Iraq war) it's much easier to kill the next ten million.
War should be hard and have a cost. If a country can wage war on the cheap we'll have a scary world.