[Igor Antunov]

This is basically a short summary/reflection of a discussion I had to lead with a class regarding the multi-pronged question below:

“Will new IT, sensor and robot technology mean that warfare can be more humane and with less civilian casualties? Will it mean governments may be more inclined to be involved in wars?
Will it save lives by preventing infantry being injured? Will it shift power into the hands of the United States that has dominated this technology?”

During this discussion I led a foray into the issues and aspects concerning new information technologies (and high technological contributions in general) to the realm of the military, and areas relevant to the military, both today and in the coming future.

Taking directly from the discussion question provided, we split the question up into parts and addressed its various elements.
To begin with, we took into consideration the human factor, which was a pervasive theme throughout.

Civilian casualties are always a concern when it comes to limited warfare or ‘policing’ actions, where ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ is as much dependent on the public’s perception of the conflict, and the oft-independent media which paints those views, as it is on the situation on the ground.

There was a general consensus that due to the advent of new information, sensor and robotics technologies, there was less need to go in guns blazing. Surgical strikes, precision warfare, and identification of bogeys in usually complex combat zones were all benefiting from improvements in such technologies; therefore fewer civilian casualties were being produced, as opposed to past conflicts. One particular example brought up was that of the Thanh Hoa Bridge during the Vietnam War. A test pilot for laser guided precision munitions, the bridge was finally destroyed after 873 failed attempts and 11 aircraft lost, and that final blow came in the form of the laser guided bomb.

Subsequent conflicts would go on to show the potent efficiency of precision airpower and improved Intel gathering techniques, with war planners no longer having to crater an entire village or town to hit a single structure. Or send troops into harm’s way unprepared to take out high value targets with minimal attrition rates.

That last point brought us to another area of the discussion. A significant side of the casualty spectrum are the combatants themselves. Minimizing the deaths of one’s forces also plays into the wars image and of course saves lives on the side that is seeking to lose troops sparingly. Remote controlled drone Technologies such as the pocket bot, now in wide deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq, is seeing broad use as a reconnaissance vehicle in internal structures on the ground where air reconnaissance cannot reach, improving intel gathering for troops on the ground.

Another example is the automated sentry drone, now in wide use on the DMZ between north and South Korea. The system is capable of tracking, targeting and engaging multiple targets in range, automatically, within a certain set of boundaries and conditions provided to it by the human operator, negating the need for human sentries on the front line.

We then moved onto a more sobering question. Would this new form of high technology warfare mean that governments would engage in war more readily? Simultaneously, one has increased the potency of one’s weaponry, while at the same time decreased the loss of human lives. Would this tempt more governments to forsake diplomacy and move straight onto the next step?

The responses were mixed. This question is very broad and can be partly answered by combining it with the very last discussion point, the case of the United States and its apparent willingness to utilize these new technologies in conflicts worldwide. The US has many international interests and has been willing to play a role in a great number of conflicts. These new technologies are allowing it to conduct undeclared wars on technologically inferior opponents, one such example being that of the drone campaign in Pakistan against various tribal groups, where more bombs have already been used than in some prior declared conflicts.

These begin to resemble policing actions, and often the one leading these actions brings its allies along. It is apparent such technologies allow for very measured engagement in undeclared war zones, without necessarily informing the public or international community on the extent of participation, because disengagement becomes easier, when you have no real assets on the ground, negating the need for a traditional casus belli. This no doubt makes such ‘extensions of diplomacy’ more appealing to many countries facing less capable opponents.

Do you agree with the jist of it? Do you disagree? This isn't me looking for pointers, it's already been marked (9.0/10.0). I'm looking for your opinion on some of the questions discussed and how those opinions may differ from the typical aussie university setting. Nobody there was particularly tech savy so we kept the discussion simple, focusing on the broader concepts behind this emerging field of information driven warfare.