How To Better Understand Drone Warfare

When it comes to national and international defense, drone warfare has placed itself firmly as one of the prime options these days. To understand the challenge at hand, let’s first take a step back, and look at defense as a whole in general.

The development of technologies such as artificial intelligence and advanced computing have made defense only more complicated. These complications have made military divisions more potent. But all this progress comes with a catch: this has largely evened-up the playing field as far as lower-mid-tier weaponry is concerned. The top-tier weapons such as the nuclear-powered ones are so dangerous, that even the parties that have the option fear them.

Defense in general is split into three elements of operation: air, water, and land. The element that involves by far the highest speeds and the most spectacular manoeuvres is air. And when it comes to air-combat, a lot depended on the technology and the skill of the pilot behind the technology in the past. But more recently, with the advancement of computing, automation, and artificial intelligence, pilot-less aircrafts have become a reality. “Drones”, as they are called, can be remote-controlled, or be fully artificially intelligent, or work on a combination of both. Now that the human element is taken out of the picture, G-forces (gravitational loads at high speeds) and speed-limitations are out of the equation. This makes drone warfare far more lethal in terms of efficiency and potency. But there’s a catch here as well: the knowledge of how to build and operate such technology is available openly, so the field here is evened-out (on paper) as well.

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Questions Arise

So, if everyone who wishes to defend their land / agenda starts building drone technology, and anti-drone technology to defend themselves from the same technology, a few questions arise. Where does this stop? And is drone warfare a good idea? Let’s try to tackle these questions.

Pandora’s Box

Let’s say that a party builds a fleet of drone aircrafts, and starts using them for defensive purposes. The aggressor party could be provoked by this move, and retaliate with a fleet of its own. And once a fleet is built, what stops the aggressor from building another fleet? The answer is: nothing. And this is where it all goes downhill. As far as offensive weapons go, there are checks and balances in place. But as far as defensive weapons go, there isn’t such a thing. This is because no one wants to be on the receiving end of such technology. For instance, if you know that your enemy has an arsenal of drones, you can bet that you’ll start building anti-drone technology. But if your enemy knows that you’re building anti-drone technology, they’ll build anti-anti-drone technology. And so on and so forth.

The only way to stop this chain reaction is to build defensive weapons that do not lead to further escalation. This would require some very clever thinking, and some very clever technology as well. The only such technology that comes to mind is the kind that can be used as both an offensive and defensive weapon at the same time without escalating the situation further. But this would also require an enormous amount of funding and research – something which not many nations have access to. So, we could say that drone warfare is good and bad at the same time – good because it makes it easier for parties to defend themselves against bigger and stronger armies; bad because it opens up a Pandora’s Box of further escalation due to the lack of checks and balances in place.

Alternative to Drone Warfare

With drone warfare, a party gains more efficiency and control over operations. At the same time, we have the risk of opening a chain of events residing within the Pandora’s box. Is there any other alternative, that would help ease the situation? The answer is: yes. In fact, it’s been around for a while now. We call it “battlespace management”, and it’s an umbrella term for a number of technologies that help a party to have a better overview of the battlefield at hand – be it land, air, or sea.

The first thing to do here is to have a clear understanding of the term “battlespace”. Battlespace is simply an area where two or more parties are fighting for supremacy. It can be as small as a football pitch, or as large as the whole planet. So, battlespace management is an umbrella term that describes technologies that help a party gain a better understanding of the battleground as well as manage resources that it deploys in such battlespaces.

With this in mind, we can say that drone warfare and battlespace management are two sides of the same coin. Drone warfare helps a party enter and operate in battlespaces; battlespace management helps it make sense of these battlespaces and manage resources accordingly.

Drone Warfare and Battlespace Management: The Future

Drone warfare and battlespace management can be considered as a complimentary unit – one cannot do without the other. The more advanced the drone warfare technology is, the less advanced the battlespace management technology needs to be. And vice versa – if the battlespace management technology is advanced enough, then the drone warfare technology doesn’t need to be very advanced at all. This means that we could eventually see a situation where drone warfare and battlespace management technologies converge – and this would mean an enormous leap forward in terms of efficiency and control over resources on the part of defense agencies and military divisions worldwide.

Is This Future a Good Idea?

By complimenting drone warfare with battlespace management, the situation seems to have been made more complicated. Is it worth it? Does this combination make it a good idea? Let’s consider the cost factor first. Battlespace management and drone warfare work well in tandem, and thus, by reducing the scope of drone warfare technology development, one could also reduce the cost factor. This is because one could work on a platform that is already in existence and well-developed, and all one would need to do is upgrade the technology behind it. At the same time, this would also result in a reduction in research costs as well. Secondly, drone warfare and battlespace management are both technologies that are meant to help a party operate better in battlespaces. So, by combining them, one could get more efficiency on the part of the party using it. And finally, if these two technologies can be forced to converge into one, then it means that there might be a possibility of no further escalation of the situation – something which is good for all parties involved in the conflict.

If we manage to build this technology with enough safeguards in place, then it can be used for defensive purposes without resulting in further escalation. But if we fail to do so, then future wars might just become too devastating to handle for anyone involved in them. The big question is whether every potential party wants to play ball with the “we”.

The Trojan Horse

While the discussion here is focused on drone warfare, the trojan horse lurking could be the further development of artificial intelligence. We could solve the problem of drone warfare, and still end up on the receiving end, if artificial intelligence is not kept in check. This is because artificial intelligence represents an over-arching umbrella of technology that has the potential to take control of drone technology altogether. If it interests you, I’ve already covered the topic of “How to bear responsibility for Artificial Intelligence” in this article.

Conclusion

Drone warfare appears to be here to stay. Whether it is a good idea or a bad one depends on how we approach it, and design checks and balances around it. At the very least, this kind of a situation is not new to human beings. Nuclear weapons, for example, present a far more dangerous situation, and humanity has managed to build checks and balances around that technology (at least on paper). So, it gives us hope that drone warfare can also be responsibly handled by humans. Time will tell.

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Further reading that might interest you: AI writes an Essay on Simulation.