Dehumanizing War

[shadowraith]

as some of you you know i'm in the air force, currently stationed in new mexico. i had a briefing the other day (most of which i can't go into), but a portion highlighted the effectiveness of UAVs (unmanned aieral vehicles, predators, reapers, ect.) and it got me to thinking. while i can't deny the advantages of UAVs (in fact i'm an advocate of using them, in large part to how much i rely on them for protection and intell. when i'm down range) i still can't help but wonder if they are accelerating the desensitizing of war in our society, and even being a stepping stone to dehumanizing war. again i'm not saying we shouldn't use them cause right now i think they're a great asset,but if we are not careful, are we headed down a path that will lead us to being a country that has no problem going to war (for the right or wrong reasons) because all we have to do is send in the drones.

i'm curious what you all think... and i do accept the possibility that i've put way too much thought into it on account of i have way too much time on my hands

[Head Wreck]

a question that has been plaguing people since the V1 doodlebug.

i think with the latest advances its moving to more of playing a videogame than a war. we allready have had an issue of national air guard pilots whooping anc cheering during friendly fire encounters on our troops with no thought that the people not shooting back are people. and then hearing the reactiaons of those pilots when the message does get told to them after being passed through channels

its a situation that started with aircraft in some respects rather than the first cruise missile.

Edited August 29, 2009 by Head Wreck

[candyman]

Although many systems are getting to the point where all they need is someone at the controls way back at base there are still functions that must be served by real people on the front line.

I have looked into many of these unmanned vehicles and weapons systems and the fact is that their are either too expensive to build, too expensive to keep up, or too "wild" when put into use. Yes real pilots do make mistakes and although that really sucks there are still MANY more cases where these pilots saved someones ass. Just because a computer can make more decisions in a smaller amount of time does not make it better...there are things a human minds can do that no computer will do...at least for a while yet.

The Airforce will always need pilots, the Navy will always need sailors, and the Army and the Marines will always need Infantry...and all those branches will need their mechanics, intelligence, blah blah blah...

I do have an issue with people saying that we are desensitizing war. Before WW2 war was a whole different animal. No there was nothing different about it but until the media came along and raped everything war was something that sucked, but it served a purpose just like it did every other time. Are the wars today any different than the wars of old? No, every war does have a reason behind it like money, power, oil, suffering people, etc. None of the reasons make it and better or any worse...it still has to end and that means using all our power to put a stop to it. People will die and shit will get messed up which really sucks but the last thing we need to do in this situation is what the media is doing today...making it look wrong and like a lost cause. It causes things to clog up and then a fine tuned fighting machine turns into a beat up Ford Pinto...instead of working hard to the end of the track, or war, it kinda stumbles along with the mechanics, congress and such, giving only the bare bones of what it need to do the job right.

So in short you really have nothign to worry about. Since the first major conflict in history there have been movements and inventions to take humans out of the conflict but it turns out that humans are still in the thick of things and it doesn't look like they will be getting out any time soon.

[Simon Bar Sinister]

About 3 or 4 years ago, I read a story on msn.com about this. Seems that (at that time) the USAF was tentatively planning not to accept any new pilot trainees/cadets at the Academy after 2025. 2029 would be the last graduating class of fighter pilots - after that, USAF fighter planes were expected to be fully automated.

I have no idea if this is still the current thinking/planning, but it seems appropos to mention it here.

[candyman]

About 3 or 4 years ago, I read a story on msn.com about this. Seems that (at that time) the USAF was tentatively planning not to accept any new pilot trainees/cadets at the Academy after 2025. 2029 would be the last graduating class of fighter pilots - after that, USAF fighter planes were expected to be fully automated.

I have no idea if this is still the current thinking/planning, but it seems appropos to mention it here.

Yeah my uncle works there as a civ. tech on their computers and he heard that too...he also heard just as many people calling the story bullshit. With many of the new fighters and other planes out there they really can't be piloted by anything other than humans. Also, we lose pilots while we gain pilots so they won't stay around and IF they should take the pilots out of the planes they are still flow by pilots at remote stations so...yeah they will probably keep bringing kids in to help out. And judging by the rate of progress on completely auto aircraft it will be well past 2029 before we get a reliable fighter plane in the sky for a decent price...and then it will probably only carry spit-wads to provoke the enemy.

If nothing else the Air Force would really get made fun of by the other branches if they lost their big college and we CAN'T let that happen now can we...oh wait they get shit all the time anyways!