The Future of Unmanned Aircraft in Combat

I know this has perhaps been discussed before, but having seen the CAS thread branch off onto the topic, I wanted to discuss this article I found on the issue

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ICK/is_2_16/ai_90529731/pg_1

Jeff Lt. Mustin
Jeff Mustin *

If a man’s trust is in a robot that will go around the earth of its own volition and utterly destroy even the largest cities on impact, he is still pitiably vulnerable to the enemy who appears on his doorstep, equipped and willing to cut his throat with a penknife, or beat him to death with a cobblestone. It is well to remember two things: no weapon is absolute, and the second of even greater import-no weapon, whose potential is once recognized as of any degree of value, ever becomes obsolete.

J. M. Cameron

Unmanned systems are the future of aerospace.

Jerry Daniels, the Boeing Company

WHEN THE JOINT Strike Fighter Program announced its winner, I vividly recall hearing the evening news anchor extol the virtues of the F-35 and then comment that, due to the success of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), that fighter may well be the last manned aircraft produced for the US military. About two weeks later, Boeing’s Jerry Daniels reaffirmed that statement (see above). Indeed, the press, public, policy makers, and war fighters have all witnessed the maturation of UAV and unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) technology. Although UAVs have been in operation for decades their ability to provide real-time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (TSR) built momentum in Operation Desert Storm and gained additional clout throughout numerous missions in Operations Allied Force and Enduring Freedom. Little doubt exists that UAVs employ a continually maturing technology that demonstrates its usefulness on the battlefield. However, will UAVs really make manned fighter aircraft obsolete? What role will t hey play in future combat, given their limitations and unique capabilities? The Air Force needs to answer these questions as it looks to the next generation of warfare. Before we consider the actual capabilities of manned versus unmanned aircraft, we should examine the relationship between technology and combat in order to define the former’s effects on UAV employment.

The United States has a strategy based on arithmetic. They question the computers, add and subtract, extract square roots, and then go into action. But arithmetical strategy doesn’t work here. If it did, they would already have exterminated us with their airplanes.

Gen Vo Nguyen Giap

During Desert Storm, Gable News Network painted a picture that revolutionized combat, etching images in the public’s mind of smart weapons slicing through chimneys and Maverick missiles guiding their way through the night to kill tanks. The technological revolution showcased in Desert Storm has done anything but slow down. The past decade has seen substantial increases in many technologies, from satellite-guided assets such as the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and Joint Standoff Weapon to integrated Inertial Navigation System/Global Positioning System (GPS) layouts in aircraft navigation. Without question, the relationship between technology and warfare is a fluid mixture, certain to stir up some debate. As history shows us, however, the only sure factor is that the progression of war-fighting technology always leads to effective and/or economical countertechnologies or tactics. This cycle has occurred throughout the history of warfare.

Take the knight of the Middle Ages, for instance. Highly trained and paid, he was a lone ranger, noted both for his armor and weapons. Becoming a knight required years of apprenticeship and training, and the price was heavy (not unlike modern-day pilots). But the invention of the crossbow changed everything. With one small arrow, a common farmer could topple a mighty knight with impunity. This innovation was considered so disgraceful that the Church of England attempted to outlaw the crossbow, and in 1139 Pope Innocent II declared it “hateful to God and unfit for Christians.” (1) The mighty knight, with all his training and bravado, now faced a lethal threat from relatively untrained peasants armed with a weapon that effectively and inexpensively countered his training and costly materials. One can easily substitute the F-15 for the knight and the antiquated MiG-21 for the farmer, and then arm the MiC-21 with a helmet-mounted cueing system that allows the pilot to target the AA-1 1 at high off-boresight angl es. Any fighter pilot knows what kind of problem at the merge that would represent. Like the knight, the fighter pilot is susceptible to an effective, inexpensive threat. Such is the cycle of technology in combat.

Radar constitutes another example of this technology cycle. Developed by scientists during World War II to detect approaching airplanes, radar proved its worth in the Battle of Britain. Early warning of approaching airplanes allowed beleaguered British Spitfire and Hurricane pilots to save gas by knowing exactly when and where to expect the attack. When the fight was upon them, they could focus their planes and concentrate firepower, giving them a huge advantage over their Luftwaffe counterparts. (2)

Now the primary method of detecting aircraft, radar for years has inspired planners to contrive techniques to defeat it. On the one hand, in the decades since its inception, many electronic countermeasures (ECM) systems were developed to avoid radar detection, including chaff, various forms of jamming, bin masking, terrain-bounce counterradar, and radar decoys. (3) On the other hand, electronic counter countermeasures (ECCM) such as detection and angle tracking; passive ranging; reduction of ground clutter and sidelobe interference; beam forming; and broadband, multifrequency operation were then invented and refined to reestablish the dominance of radar as the primary means of detection. (4)

The United States raised the stakes and established a benchmark in deception when it fielded the F-117, but even that aircraft is not invincible or invisible to radar. In fact, many radars operating on varied frequencies are rumored to have shown better success at picking up stealthy aircraft, (5) as are other technologies in development. The Russians have admitted that they tested the wreckage of an F-i 17 lost over Yugoslavia to strengthen their air defense network against stealth aircraft, with varying degrees of success. (6) Whether or not the F-117 is survivable in five years misses the point. Instead, the lesson learned is the inevitable downfall of technology in combat. The technological benchmark in warfare consistently resets, and there has yet to be a technology that cannot be countered.

Some revolutions have a short shelf life. What seems unique at the time tends to become the norm.

Brig Gen David Deptula

The late Col John Boyd established a hierarchy of people first, followed by ideas, and then technology–invariably in that order. (7) This overarching concept, essentially a synthesis of the aforementioned historical lessons of combat and comprehension of thought, can apply in many arenas but perhaps in military circles most of all. Humans developed technology to serve human functions. Essentially, it is a slave to that hierarchy. In a linear capacity, technology has shown some success at reasoning capability in applications such as chess. Chess, however, is linear, two-dimensional reasoning; warfare is not. As Murphy’s Laws of Combat proclaim, “Professional soldiers are predictable, but the world is full of amateurs,” a humorous way of identifying war as nonlinear thought. Nonlinear reasoning in a fluid, dynamic environment is solely the domain of the human mind. As such, technology remains secondary to the human capacity to reason and is vulnerable to the same reasoning principles.

This next lesson learned, then, is not that technology is useless in combat or life–far from it. Technology has uses, but, unlike the human mind, they are specific in purpose. Technology supports warfare–it does not wage warfare. Using Boyd’s hierarchy, humans conduct warfare by applying nonlinear reasoning to establish political will; develop tactics, techniques, and procedures; and manipulate technological innovation to assist in the implementation of those ideas and see them to fruition. As such, the human mind–not the computer chip–truly wages war.

One sees this in the realm of asymmetric warfare. Again, thanks to Colonel Boyd, one can define asymmetric warfare as the violent placement of strength upon weakness, as opposed to symmetric warfare, in which strength battles strength. (8) Asymmetric warfare comes in many shapes and sizes, from terrorists to guerrilla warriors to special operations teams. Its consistent virtue is the sudden and unexpected application of power that results from a combination of stealthy surprise and massing of forces almost instantaneously against an enemy. One must note that this stealth need not take the shape of radar-evading aircraft only. Instead, deception of any sort constitutes a true stealthy attack.

Asymmetric warfare is nonlinear by nature. As such, it allows smaller forces to fight effectively against larger, more cumbersome opponents by massing firepower rapidly to strike at weaknesses. This use of massive force at a single point of vulnerability represents the strength-upon-weakness principle that makes asymmetric warfare successful. Such warfare hinges upon accurate intelligence, fluid maneuver in the battle space, and surprise. It allows smaller forces to combat their enemies effectively and can also constitute the ability to fight inexpensively. The attack on the USS Cole demonstrated the ability to cripple a billion-dollar US Navy ship with an inflatable boat filled with explosives. Another example might include a theoretical infection of refugees with a strange virus in an attempt to harm an enemy military. Interestingly, the astute student of asymmetric war would do well do study the criminal behavior of organized crime and bank robbers. Aside from the ethical discussion of legality, they prese nt excellent case studies in the disproportionate use of sudden force to achieve a specific result.

I am advising a man on how best to employ light infantry and horse cavalry in the attack against Taliban T-55 (tanks), mortars, artillery, personnel carriers and machine guns-a tactic which I think became outdated with the invention of the Gatling Gun.

Declassified Commando Report,

Operation Enduring Freedom

Such disproportional use of force means that enemies with inferior technology but keen intellect can create and sustain a synergistic effect powerful enough to combat a superpower such as the United States. They do so by attacking our troops and inflicting casualties; hence, they try to win the mental battle by testing our political will, a potential American weakness, while avoiding economic or technological confrontations, which, historically, are American strengths. Asymmetric warfare attempts to negate our technological advantage. As Dr. Linda Beckerman explains,

When the form of warfare employed by both sides is linear, then Technical Superiority gives a decided edge. It raises the value of the constant k in the basic equation for linearity Y = kX + b. Thus in the Battle of Grecy, the long bow gave the British a decided advantage, despite being vastly outnumbered by the French. Technical superiority as a way of obtaining decisive advantage in linear warfare works fine so long as the other side is also employing linear warfare. Fortunately, Saddam Hussein was using linear warfare in Desert Storm, so our linear efforts paid off. However, he has since learned his lesson and has become decidedly non-linear, and the effectiveness of our efforts has dropped. (9)

The bottom line is that a technological advantage does not preclude asymmetric warfare and, in fact, if conflict is inevitable, probably invites it due to the lack of linear options for potential foes. Theoretically, a pure form of asymmetric war could offer victory by superior cunning or “winning hearts and minds” without achieving a single victory on the traditional field of battle. Again, our analogy of bank robbers comes into play–many robberies occur and achieve the desired result without any application of force. By inducing fear and coercing submission, the mere threat of force wins the mental battle and, therefore, the war.

This does not insinuate that symmetric or more traditional forms of warfare are gone forever. We must still take large, conventional threats seriously. Asymmetric war shows us yet again that our people and ideas–not technology–create true war-fighting capabilities. Technology, then, serves to support those ideas that can be construed as a strength or weakness–or, in many cases, both a strength and a weakness simultaneously–that both combatants can leverage. The combatant who manipulates these ideas more rapidly, operating inside the opponent’s observe-orient-decide-act (OODA) loop, as conceived by Colonel Boyd, will prove more successful. (10) The capacity to process data and rapidly make decisions is the foundation of the ability to fight. Technology is only as powerful as the human-derived political will behind it and only as lethal as the tactics with which one employs it and the skill that implements it. The human mind is the true war-fighting power.

UAV advocates quickly point out that because the UAV has a human in the loop, it retains the lethal edge. True, UAVs such as Predator retain human-in-the-loop principles, which enhance their tactical capacity to function in a dynamic environment. A significant difference exists between having a human in the loop and one in the cockpit, however. The primary difference lies in the ability to relay information to the human for processing. UAVs simply do not have the capacity to absorb, process, and relay the same amount of data as a pilot in the cockpit, who can maintain 360-degree situational awareness (SA) with his or her radar, wingman, and eyesight.

Pilot training represents one of the best examples of what might seem a semantic difference. When first teaching students to fly using instruments only, the Air Force deprives them of the ability to see anything else. They can still read the altimeter and airspeed, and they still have navigation aids available to them. In fact, they have all the same tools available to sustain flight and SA except their eyesight to process data from the outside world. Invariably, students suffer from a lack of positional awareness. They are cognizant of altitude and airspeed, but their general concept of position is that they are in a cloud–and that’s about all they know. To return vision to them, even for a moment, restores their SA. The reason for this is simple: when flying instruments, students look through the proverbial “soda straw,” flying with a limited field of view. Restoring vision serves to broaden their scope, and students thus regain their ability to maintain awareness. With training, one can overcome this, but pilots–more specifically, fighter pilots–always have better SA when they use their vision to maintain a broad field of view concerning the circumstances of their airplane.

UAVs simply do not provide a field of view broad enough to execute some combat missions. The Predator’s sensors, for example, are optimized with a 45-degree or greater look-angle and minimum slant range, placing the UAV within three nautical miles of the target. (11) Much like a cockpit pilot flying with an instrument hood, the external pilot of the UAV understands the aircraft’s attitude and altitude and can gain some awareness through sensors. Pie or she can take pictures, view thermal images, and can even view simulated images of the flight path. Even with this capability, the vision out of the sensor suite is limited and narrow. The external pilot lacks the overarching awareness provided by 20/20 vision–not to mention a cranium on a swivel beneath a bubble canopy.

This does not preclude UAVs from having roles; nor does it suggest that UCAVs should not carry weapons. Instead, one should note that they are support assets, limited in function because of their inability to absorb data and reason. Used within those limits, they can be very successful. The Air Force should use UAVs and UCAVs because their unique capabilities blend well with its missions. UAV loiter time, for example, can far exceed that of piloted aircraft. On the one hand, in the eyes of policy makers, the risk to a cockpit pilot (i.e., of becoming a casualty or prisoner of war) detracts from manned operations. On the other hand, we have shown that in certain situations a pilot in the cockpit has the edge because of his or her superior ability to reason, maintain SA, and subsequently take the fight to the enemy. The line between combat effectiveness and risk to the shooter is often as fine–and controversial–as the one between warriors and policy makers themselves. We seek to answer the questions about cos tbenefit analysis that define this doctrinal compromise. To do so, we must first identify those strengths and weaknesses inherent to this piece of technology so that we can leverage their capability to a greater degree.

I think there’ no doubt UAVs have come of age. The Predator UAV we have deployed around the world has done superb work for us. We see UAVs like Global Hawk that have stayed airborne for long periods of time. I think these will eventually replace manned reconnaissance aircraft. We will eventually have a conventional bomb-dropping capability also. This will come with time. Certainly nothing is technologically impossible, but we will see over time the utility of replacing all the aircraft. It’s hard to replace the gray matter that is inherent in every human being. There’s no computer that can do it quite that well yet.

–Gen John P. Jumper

The complementary nature of unattended vehicles with manned systems is something we have become more and more comfortable with.

–Secretary of the Air Force James G. Roche

UAVs have established roles as effective ISR assets. From the days of Buffalo Hunter in Vietnam to Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, the maturation of the UAV as a signals intelligence (SIGINT), imagery, battle damage assessment (BDA), and data-relay platform has been impressive. As the tempo of conflicts has increased, the capacity to loiter over extended periods has helped sustain fluid operations by providing more of the real-time intelligence necessary to make accurate decisions in dynamic environments. The inherent plausible deniability of an unmanned vehicle provides great promise for strategic reconnaissance as Global Hawk begins to take flight. The necessity of real-time BDA for Army artillery is far too hazardous for manned assets but perfect for UAVs. The adventuresome undertaking of collecting SIGINT on surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites is also well suited for unmanned assets.

Whether UAVs will inherit all battlefield surveillance and reconnaissance remains to be seen. The Predator UAV, optimized as a medium-altitude, fair-weather asset, has received criticism in the past for problems with its anti-icing capability and lack of communication, but one can attribute some of these concerns to the growing pains of a maturing system. However, it does not perform low-altitude reconnaissance well. The United States has lost 20 Predators, many of which were forced into enemy threat envelopes by poor weather or the desire to take a closer look. (12) Obviously, it presents a visual target during the day. At night, visual detection is limited, but radar and noise signature are still available. Additionally, UAVs are not the swiftest assets in the battle space. At maximum operational airspeed, a Predator takes 30 minutes to travel 50 nautical miles–an obscene figure that creates a serious liability when one tries to retask missions or get electrons on mobile targets. (13) Future variants migh t have a better top speed, but higher speeds usually create aerodynamic penalties for loiter time, one of the UAV’s biggest assets. To an extent, higher speeds can also make aircraft more visible to radar and susceptible to threats.

Perhaps the UAV’s most significant weakness in surveillance issues is, again, the lack of overarching awareness. A human in the cockpit (a very quiet cockpit) can provide a broad field of view in which to direct narrow sensors. Although high-altitude UAVs can do this, they cannot always extract the detail required by the intelligence community. Low-altitude, noise-sensitive manned assets have a better chance of obtaining this data in detail, especially at night. UAVs lack the overarching SA to look at the battle space and understand where they should focus their sensors. This is acceptable for performing specific surveillance of fixed targets, but moving targets could prove elusive. Higher-flying assets could direct UAV sensors to help alleviate this problem, but simply providing a human in the cockpit enhances the broad field of view and bypasses the need for data link. This presents numerous risks to manned assets, but the intelligence community will simply have to weigh the manned risk against the desired collection capability. As such, it is unlikely that unmanned assets, despite their success, will completely encompass all ISR functions in the next decades.

Obviously we don’t plan to stem armored attacks with a few Predators with Hellfires on them, but for those fleeting, perishable targets that present themselves as they did in Kosovo, this is a great opportunity to close the loop [and reduce the time] between tracking, targeting, and engaging [mobile targets].

Gen John P. Jumper

This brings us to the UCAV, which takes the UAV concept, with its inherent ISR capability, and adds weapons. How the weapons will be employed in the future remains to be seen. We do know, however, that we need to give UAVs in strike roles specific targeting jobs because of their aforementioned reliance and limited capacity to absorb and reason rapidly in the battle space.

The UCAV’s ability to collect data and perform limited strike functions is an old military concept with a new wrinkle. If we truly leverage UCAVs to fulfill their potential, we can liken them to airborne snipers. Using a set of eyes to look through a rifle scope and provide BDA, intelligence, and a “specific lethality” (to borrow a term from James Webb’s speech to the Naval Institute) on a tactical level has been a part of military operations for decades, if not longer. (14) A UCAV’s ability to provide a limited, focused “God’s-eye view” removes the risk to the shooter and provides a lethal, clandestine capability for accurate, if not precise, strike capability. It is also an excellent platform for lazing weapons and performing instantaneous BDA in this “elevated sniper” capacity. By providing real-time imagery, it allows a remote user to identify potential targets and, if warranted, eliminate the target. Interestingly, surveillance and target identification do not always lead to killing the target because do ing so compromises the capability for intelligence collection. Much like a sniper, however, a UCAV can maintain surveillance until someone decides to attack.

Exploiting UCAVs in precision-strike roles does not mean that tactical aircraft no longer need to drop iron on targets. A Predator UAV is not going to roll down the chute on a column of tanks; nor can it rapidly react to close with and strike mobile targets. A UCAV or its operator would have extreme trouble with receiving or issuing a nine-line text message or with constructing a talk-on close air support (CAS) strike in close quarters while maneuvering in a high-threat environment from a remote site with limited view. Data link is available, but even a low probability of intercept signals could compromise positions and become susceptible to jamming or deception. This problem is exacerbated when common tactical issues such as communication and data-link jamming are factored into the equation. GPS coordinates and weapons are coming of age, but coordinates become difficult to use when targets decide to move. Furthermore, GPS munitions are accurate, not precise–an important distinction. They are not the munitio ns of choice for “no collateral damage” targets. The United States is attempting to alleviate this problem through enhanced precision guidance, but this capability remains to be fielded, and GPS jamming could render such additions merely theoretical. Using UCAVs against fixed targets or as airborne snipers has vast potential.

One fact worth noting about UAVs is that all of the military services are using them. Although most services have always had some ability to perform autonomous tactical reconnaissance, the addition of missiles on the wings could theoretically cross some time-honored boundaries. Interservice parochialism has long held that the Air Force would use fixed-wing, forward-firing assets; the Army would maintain rotary-wing, forward-firing airframes; and Special Operations Command would utilize propeller-driven CAS support and rotary-wing assets with no forward-firing capability. The Hellfire missile currently employed by the Predator is the property of the US Army, which has long worked with snipers in the field. The fact that all services now operate UAVs could open the floodgates for operating UCAVs as well. Thus, the Army might decide to conduct autonomous GAS, which would threaten the Air Force’s control over the mission. Although a UCAV would never prove as effective as an A-10, the Army might consider a 70 perc ent solution “good enough,” especially considering the autonomy and reduced interaction. Imagine a Predator platoon deploying with a Ranger battalion and the ways of implementing those forces.

Much has been made of UCAVs performing suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) functions. Although UCAVs could prove useful in collecting SIGINT for distribution to the shooters and their battlefield-surveillance capability could help identify mobile sites for targeting or real-time threat updates, actually integrating UCAVs into “weasel” missions might be tricky. There is a very credible upside. The prospect of removing the potential for casualties or prisoners of war created by the dangerous, high-risk mission of offensive SEAD appeals to policy makers and removes a great deal of stress from commanders. Obviously, not too many suicidal fighter pilots exist either, but, again, dealing with SAMs is not a linear matter. UCAVs could definitely be used to attack fixed SAM sites with conventional weapons; at the same time, a JDAM could perform this function from a great distance with little-to-no threat to the pilots. The question of whether a UCAV could survive in such a serious threat environment is worth addi tional analysis and evaluation.

The fact that one can optically guide and use visual commands to project various SAMs into their terminal phase circumvents the more traditional radar warning receiver (RWR) spike and most forms of electronic warning. Although in theory we could detect the infrared launch plume, multiple launches typically associated with SAM traps and multiple electronic warnings might still make visual, “stealthy” launches lethal. The capacity to process the deception and data launched at the airplane from all aspects, possibly using different guidance systems, is beyond the capability of technological reasoning. Therefore, UAVs with limited scope and awareness would find it difficult to survive in this arena.

A UAV’s survival might seem trivial since it is unmanned, but the Predator’s price tag of $3.2 million per unit makes it attritional, not expendable. (15) Although far less expensive than a manned asset, it is less capable. As such, we could theoretically utilize UCAVs against high-risk targets, with an important caveat. If they are successful, then the employment was justified, but we must understand that, against an even slightly robust integrated air defense network, UCAVs might not survive and thus fail to eliminate lethal targets. If the latter occurs, we must have both the political will and the tactical capability to use manned assets against those targets.

One of the most significant cant military lessons of the Vietnam War was that control of the air over an enemy homeland must be wrested from him by men specifically trained for that purpose. On the face of it, that would sound like a redundant statement. After all, hasn’t the same lesson been learned from all the previous wars of the twentieth century? Of course it has, but recent technological preoccupations somehow seem to have blinded us to the importance of the man in the cockpit, and to the fact that air-to-air combat boils down to the man and his tactics against the other man and his tactics.

Lou Drendal, And Kill MiGs

In the words of one fighter pilot, trying to fly air-to-air combat in a UAV would be “like having a knife fight in a phone booth looking through a toilet-paper tube. You can try and flail all you want, but eventually you are going to die.” Air-to-air combat, more than any other type of aerial engagement, will long remain the domain of the fighter pilot. Simply put, all the targets are mobile, and SA is hard enough to maintain using a 360-degree field of view within the cockpit. Undoubtedly, a UAV would bring greater G limits and maneuverability to a dogfight, but that is what missiles are for. The fighter aircraft employs the missile based upon the broad SA of the pilot and his or her refined SA via onboard sensors, a capability with which UAVs will struggle. Many proponents would argue that turning aerial combat is a thing of the past, but this argument has existed for 50 years. Current missile technology has improved, and beyond visual range (BVR) combat is tactically preferable to a confrontation at the me rge. However, rules of engagement do not always allow BVR shots, preferring a more conservative visual identification, and missiles, like all forms of technology, can go “stupid” and fail. The need still exists for manned aircraft to turn and fight with other aircraft.

Nevertheless, UAVs might serve some function in aerial combat. Simply put, their ability to loiter makes them excellent sensor platforms for SIGINT issues. Giving them air-to-air radar capability would allow tactics of remote-radar data link or missile launches beyond visual range, which could be guided by the UAV’s radar beam. This type of deception increases potency through the masking of our own force composition. Other tactical uses, such as “seeing eye” long-range visual identification or support of combat air patrols, both domestically and abroad, could enhance the fighter pilot’s SA while increasing the life span of manned assets. Although UAVs will never fully inherit the air-to-air role, they can provide useful assistance in the accomplishment of that mission.

UAV technology is maturing rapidly, and, as with most new weapon systems, it will continue to progress as funding allows. Comparing the evolution of UAVs to that of airplanes can be instructive. Initially, airplanes were attached to the Army, which did not know how to leverage their capabilities effectively, so it limited them to scout and patrol roles. Eventually, some creative pilots fired guns and threw grenades from the cockpit, thus giving birth to the fighter aircraft. Like those early aircraft, UAVs are a new technology which current doctrine is attempting to refine as that technology comes of age.

We also need to keep in mind that we cannot deft at the determination of terrorists to die for their country with unmanned attack systems, because we will never win the psychological superiority necessary to defeat the leaders of such efforts.

Maj Gen William Nash, USA, Retired

Leveraging UCAV capability will be essential to future combat. History has shown us that technology has inherent weaknesses, such as the capacity to function in asymmetric, nonlinear environments. Consequently, we must be careful about placing too much faith in unmanned vehicles. For specific missions and purposes, they show great promise. Using them as ISR platforms and airborne snipers would maximize their strengths and provide excellent integration with manned assets. The notion that UCAVs could replace humans in warfare echoes of something out of a science-fiction novel. I think back to the time when a general told me that the movie Star Wars taught us three lessons: there will always be fighter pilots, there will always be fighter-pilot bars, and the dive toss never works. He was right.

I tend to agree with the article’s conclusion, but I wondered what other more informed minds thought of it. Even if we assume that UAV technology becomes considerably more advanced in coming decades, is it reasonable to assume that they will still only be able to fill certain specific roles while never completely supplanting manned aircraft?