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A View to a Kill

By lex, on August 24th, 2009

Interesting article in Popular Science on the USAFs mad scramble to reinvent itself in the UAV domain. Embedded Predator video with voice over on a war fought half the world away.

Ecce, 0ur brave new world.

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August 24th, 2009 | Tags: , | Category: Military

10 comments to A View to a Kill

  • aeroeng
    August 24, 2009 at 3:13 pm

    Point. Click. Kill. Great. Let’s make the public think that there’s absolutely no consequence of going to war.

    On another note, I can safely say that I’m happier every day that I didn’t “cross into the blue.” My counterparts who are going through the USAF jet pipeline right now are sweating a sometimes 50% selection rate to UAVs out of T-38s.

    • JoeC
      August 24, 2009 at 6:37 pm

      We in the U.S. have a sterilized view of all tragedy. I don’t know where our over emphasized aversion to blood and gore came from, but whatever the tragedy, all the action has been edited away. I think that is why shock and horror films do so well, the visuals are just not that familiar. In my partial world travels, I can say that other nation’s newsrags edit less of the visual side of the story than does the U.S. That sanitizing the picture in censorship leaves all without critical information, leaves us with less sensitivity to the reality (after all, people don’t bleed on T.V. like that. It can’t be real!)

      A sudden thought. I wonder if it (this sanitizing of information) is another symptom of the closed professional society? Oh, you’re not a member of (insert profession here) so obviously you have no ‘need to know’ that bit of data. You’re not a member of the undertakers society so you have no need to watch that film on embalming. You’re not a CSI, so you have no need to see the investigation. You’re not a surgeon so you have no need to see that training video. Since you are obviously not a paid up member or member in training, there is absolutely no need for you to see what happens when a suicide vest goes off. Move along. Move along. There is nothing for you here.

  • STEVEC
    August 24, 2009 at 3:36 pm

    Aeroeng has expressed a point that is valid but which I think is misdirected or maybe mis-prioritized. I don’t think that the primary danger to the US is or was having the public think that war is painless (i.e., “yeah, war!”) because that just isn’t where people are at – It’s tough to get the public behind the overt bigtime use of American military force. I believe that the primary danger to our ability to use military force is and has been that the public has demanded since Vietnam that war be far less costly in terms of US lives and innocent civilian lives – and that demand has generated the need for UAV’s and other technological advances to keep US troops out of harm’s way not just ‘when possible,’ but all the time.

    But I liked this video and others like it. Bad guys setting IED’s and getting whacked. It might not be a ‘fair fight’ but as the saying goes: “If you find yourself in a fair fight, you screwed up.” Let the bad guys worry about our advantages – let’s not give them away.

  • Mike M.
    August 24, 2009 at 5:53 pm

    Steve, I disagree. The public has always been willing too soak up losses – but for no more than three years.

    The overemphasis on unmanned aviation is a function of the undoubted utility of UAVs, a low threat environment, marketing, and the American fondness for gadgets. It is disturbingly reminiscent of the missile-mania of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

    Unmanned aviation is part of the future – but not all of it.

    • taxi1
      August 25, 2009 at 7:10 am

      The overemphasis on unmanned aviation is a function of the undoubted utility of UAVs, a low threat environment, marketing, and the American fondness for gadgets. It is disturbingly reminiscent of the missile-mania of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

      Big difference between this and missile-mania. The UAV revolution is based on hard results of success in combat, the ultimate arbiter of what works and what doesn’t. Missile emphasis came out of Ops Researchers crunching numbers, and did not survive combat intact.

      The desire for UAVs primarily comes from the guys on the ground. They love the ISR, and really love it when they can control it.

  • STEVEC
    August 24, 2009 at 6:29 pm

    Mike M.: I agree that there is also a time component and I did not mention it. Nonetheless, it’s the casualties that matter most as that gets the press slobbering for photo ops and the storyline is: “another XX people killed today in…. Ok, is anyone today saying anything about whatever is happening in Bosnia? Does anyone go to the streets if a soldier or two are hurt/killed in Korea? Answer: No, and we’ve been in Korea over 50 years and the other over 10. However, had we actually had the numbers of killed in the Gulf War that were projected by some do you think we could have mounted what we did after 9/11 – I say it would have been even more difficult than it was. The emphasis is “low or no casualties,” which ain’t a bad thing, particularly for those at risk. But doesn’t it also make mission accomplishment less likely at times?

    I agree that UAV’s should be just a part of the force mix. Still, it’s awfully tough to hold a “captured” UAV hostage with photos on the nightly news. But I don’t see that it’s an all or nothing deal yet. Do you foresee all or nothing?

  • Mike M.
    August 24, 2009 at 7:07 pm

    Right now? Not quite…but there are senior leaders who are buying the UAV Kool-Aid by the 55 gallon barrel. History is no longer studied – I guess everybody is busy with the latest management fad.

    • taxi1
      August 25, 2009 at 7:14 am

      …the latest management fad.

      Unmanned aviation WORKS in combat. It has been proven, and the drive for more of it comes from its success in the field of battle. If the latest management fad is to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t, maybe that’s not such a bad idea.

  • virgil xenophon
    August 24, 2009 at 7:37 pm

    Mike M/

    You’re not far wrong, careers have been made based on fads–and others broken.
    Back in the 50s the Army couldn’t get Congress to appropriate a dime for a damn thing–not bullets, bombs, boots, blankets, barracks, guns, tanks, tents, you name it–unless it had teh word “ATOMIC” attached to it. Which is why you saw idiotic things like the nuclear bazooka-like (really more “Javalin”-like) “Davy Crockett” that could be shoulder fired by Corporals–and flavor-of-the month organizational structures like the “Pentomic” Division floated about.

    Never underestimate the power of bad ideas or the tendency to twist even good ideas inside out to ultimately illogical conclusions,

  • Mike M.
    August 25, 2009 at 6:10 am

    Yup. It’s why I’m such an advocate of teaching programmatic histories. You can learn an awful lot about how not to do things.

    And, once in a while, how things ought to be done.
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