The Limits of Armchair Warfare
By JACOB WOOD and KEN HARBAUGH, NYT, MAY 20, 2014
BOTH of us have a deep appreciation for the work of drone pilots. Whether patrolling the Helmand Valley with a sniper team or relying on drone-driven intelligence to plan manned aerial missions, we often prayed that the drone operators supporting us were cool, calm and collected.
But neither of us ever imagined that drones would do anything more than augment the manned systems that provide aerial reconnaissance and close air support for troops on the ground. We took for granted that humans on the front lines would always play the lead role.
That is why a series of proposed measures over the last year and a half by the Pentagon have us concerned. It is increasingly clear that our military leadership has become so enamored of the technological mystique of drones that they have lost touch with the realities of the modern battlefield.
Perhaps the most glaring example, especially for former snipers and pilots like us, is the Pentagon’s recent decision to scrap the A-10, a heavily armed close-air support plane officially nicknamed the Warthog but known to troops as the Flying Gun. This battlefield workhorse flies slow and low, giving pilots a close-up of what troops on the ground need. Those pilots are an aerial extension of the units below them, working in a closer relationship than a drone and its operator ever could. But the A-10 is not sleek and sexy, and it doesn’t feed the brass’s appetite for battlefield footage delivered to screens thousands of miles away, the way a swarm of drones can.
(More here.)
BOTH of us have a deep appreciation for the work of drone pilots. Whether patrolling the Helmand Valley with a sniper team or relying on drone-driven intelligence to plan manned aerial missions, we often prayed that the drone operators supporting us were cool, calm and collected.
But neither of us ever imagined that drones would do anything more than augment the manned systems that provide aerial reconnaissance and close air support for troops on the ground. We took for granted that humans on the front lines would always play the lead role.
That is why a series of proposed measures over the last year and a half by the Pentagon have us concerned. It is increasingly clear that our military leadership has become so enamored of the technological mystique of drones that they have lost touch with the realities of the modern battlefield.
Perhaps the most glaring example, especially for former snipers and pilots like us, is the Pentagon’s recent decision to scrap the A-10, a heavily armed close-air support plane officially nicknamed the Warthog but known to troops as the Flying Gun. This battlefield workhorse flies slow and low, giving pilots a close-up of what troops on the ground need. Those pilots are an aerial extension of the units below them, working in a closer relationship than a drone and its operator ever could. But the A-10 is not sleek and sexy, and it doesn’t feed the brass’s appetite for battlefield footage delivered to screens thousands of miles away, the way a swarm of drones can.
(More here.)
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