Here Come China's Drones
thediplomat.com
thediplomat.com
"China considered using a drone strike in a mountainous region of Southeast Asia to kill a Myanmar drug lord wanted in the murders of 13 Chinese sailors, but decided instead to capture him alive, according to an influential state-run newspaper."
They eventually caught the guy and he was tried, found guilty, and executed yesterday[2].
"A notorious drug lord told how he longed for his mother in a chilling final interview - before being marched to his death live on Chinese television. Burmese gangster Naw Kham was one of four death row prisoners paraded before news cameras in China today as they were escorted to an execution chamber in Yunnan province."
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/world/asia/chinese-plan-to...;
[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2286460/China-broadc...
Seeing as no trial and nothing official of the sort has been taken place in drone attacks, judicially and morally it amounts to killing an arbitrary citizen of a sovereign nation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Posada_Carriles
I am sure US Dept of State will understand if South American drones fly around Miami for a while and blast some terrorists.
Anyway my point is assassination with drones is hard and always has collateral - but if the target is in an area that is not actively protecting him then the traditional methods of walking up and shooting him is much more viable. America has no such areas protecting terrorists (unless maybe some areas with the KKK but hardly. Oh and actual members of go ernment but that's playing with the definition of terrorist too much)
I suspect it happens more than we hear about (Litveneko and the polonium being the obvious case)
I was thinking about this and I wonder if "no such thing as bad PR" applies here as well. Think about it, this is done by people who get paid to blast away "terrorists". It involves both government contractors who build drones working with those who operate them (presumably pretty close relationship). Declaring that "all terrorists are done and we are closing up shop" is like firing themselves. I know Africa is hot now and L3 is hiring linguists for it, but why not milk the ME cow for all it's worth right. If one strike at wedding produces 10 more terrorist leaders -- that is like investing in future growth. They would be silly not to do it.
> suspect it happens more than we hear about (Litveneko and the polonium being the obvious case)
Except that in that case the goal seems to be exactly for as many as possible to hear about it. These people are not stupid, they know to "suicide" and accidenta-kill people. Using something as exotic as Po-210 is not stupidity, the point was to send a strong warning to any would be defectors. It is a message saying you betray us, we'll find you and assassinate you.
So the "assassination" part doesn't annoy you much?
Much more that the target can be anybody some dumbness in high offices in a single country declared "guilty".
Firstly the easy answer: I would certainly prefer assassination over war.
Secondly the comeback: Assassination is simply the extra-territorial equivalent of the death penalty - how you feel about the death penalty will influence how you feel about assassination
Lastly - well the confusion - the above kind of says assassination is a Good Thing. But the Litvenunko affair shows just how hard this is as a problem - Russian government killed a man under the protection of the UK government and we could do little more than protest. In a world of assassination as an accepted action we would now be on our forth Prime Minister and Russia would be looking for their next president.
I cannot say if that's a good or a bad thing. Certainly it would favour Saddam over Bush.
In short, assassinating people is Wrong ! But assassinating the wrong people is more Wrong and usually counter-productive. As the old saw goes, "you want directions to Dublin? Well I wouldn't start from here if I are you"
Air power has been a decisive advantage in recent wars (e.g. Desert Storm).
Seems possible/probable that the victor of future wars will be determined by who has the better drone air-force.
Since it is already insanely expensive to run wars like the one in Afghanistan, if you can bump the cost up over the tipping point then you "win" by your opponent being unable to afford the cost. This was how the Afghans "beat" the Soviets, and how the US "won" the cold war. (scare quotes because in neither case did the Soviets surrender to an opposing force, they just stopped participating in the war effort.
So if the US has to spend a couple billion dollars a month to make war against an enemy that is spending 100 million dollars a month, eventually the US loses.
Anyway, line of sight medium range lasers are really here, and long distance (hundreds of KM) feasible.
Stick one of these every 100km round your borders and try flying an aircraft overhead.
Air power may soon be just another casualty of the march of progress - and the billions it costs to run an aircraft carrier may seem a little expensive.
But line of sight lasers are bound by terrain. Swarms of very low flying, very small drones would defeat such a system.
Or drones inserted directly inside the country via spaceplane, avoiding the border lasers.
This kind of thing isn't limited to aircraft. Once ground vehicles/drones have an automated turret that will immediately return fire, (or fire first depending on the kind of war) humans in front line combat might not work so well.
First, you figure out how long it takes a laser installation to lock onto and destroy a drone. Let's say it take five minutes. You then build a bunch of cheap, $100 decoy drones that have no payload or remote control capability. You send decoys through at a rate of ten per minute, overwhelming the laser system. Amongst the decoys, you send a real drone or two. You adjust the decoy rate and number of drones until you've calculated that you have a 99% chance that a real drone gets through.
Granted, your costs have gone up an order of magnitude, since you need to spend so much money on decoys. On the other hand, drones are just going to keep getting cheaper and the decoys even more. Besides, if you use your first couple of drones to destroy the laser, you don't even have to worry about decoys after that point.
Airplanes do more than keep away other airplanes. They're also useful to blow up the enemy ashore, close air support for the grunts, deep tactical missions to isolate the battlefield.
You're still going to need flying machines. Need some way to get them close to the battlefield. This might not Ford class super carrier but it's going to be _some_ kind of carrier.
Let's say you wanted to protect the west coast of the U.S. You'd deploy 80 or 90 of these things (underwater, of course) along the shore. Every so often, one would surface, illuminate the skies with powerful radar, take out several targets, then disappear. Maybe it all happens inside of ten minutes. Then it relocates. Now picture that happening over a wide area with scores of ships.
My numbers might be off, but you could get total coverage and not really present a target for counter-attack. And maintain that coverage for months or years without having to worry about refueling, port calls, a logistics train, or personnel issues.
Lasers will change things in a big way, including creating completely new types of ships.
The gun won't see incoming until they pop over horizon which is .. what five miles away?
Now I am armchair warrior-ing - but I at least spent a few years as an enlisted guy, a long time ago.
This is purely educated guess, but my guess is that lasers make the problem much much easier and hence much more effective.
Instead of needing to calculate a trajectory of the inbound aircraft, predict its future location (i.e. where the puck is going to be), and correctly calculate a trajectory for the intercept missile, you can probably just assume all that away because lasers travel at the speed of light. As long as you can get a fix on where the aircraft is right now, point the laser, pull the trigger.
1. Distance Chemical lasers are proven at hundreds of miles 2. Time Speed of light. Dodge, counter measures, evasion. Pah! 3. Reusability Missiles run out quick, electricity from a generator less so
Shoot a stealth drone the same way you shoot stealth planes - visually
Along the lines of your analysis, I wonder if we won't start seeing low-observable drone ground forces.
http://singularityhub.com/2010/07/25/armed-robots-deployed-b...
But at the end of the day, everything loses against a single nuclear bomb.
But death comes from above.
Consider, how USSR and US were before 90's, yes, things were more delicate than today, at a time when communication was not that rampant, but it occasionally did put in check each one of them.
Like USSR interfered towards the end of Veitnam War, no offence against US, but when you have power, the road becomes tough, and you need the occasional wake up call to see what is wrong and what is right.
Russia holds that baton even today, but somehow people are only seeing the world being Bipolar between US-China, even though the current balance is something like Russia + China = US in terms of power.
Power does not mean, any of them have to flaunt it, I will say it again, don't look at who is building which weapon, because all you gonna do is get anxious and build a better one.
We as PEOPLE, must not give power to these war symbols, we should be anxious about ground realities. The growing unemployment in US, the need of reform of education in US, the need for liberty and freedom of speech in China, and much more.
going into Space age, we the people should be concerned, and should push to make space free of boundaries, so the problem of today, stay on the earth only.