Amy Goodman in conversation with PW Singer, author of Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.
An amazing revolution is taking place on the battlefield, starting to change not just how wars are fought, but also the politics, economics, laws, and ethics that surround war itself. This upheaval is already afoot -- remote-controlled drones take out terrorists in Afghanistan, while the number of unmanned systems on the ground in Iraq has gone from zero to 12,000 over the last five years. But it is only the start. Military officers quietly acknowledge that new prototypes will soon make human fighter pilots obsolete, while the Pentagon researches tiny robots the size of flies to carry out reconnaissance work now handled by elite Special Forces troops.
Wired for War takes the reader on a journey to meet all the various players in this strange new world of war: odd-ball roboticists working in latter-day “skunk works” in the midst of suburbia; military pilots flying combat mission from their office cubicles outside Las Vegas; the Iraqi insurgents who are their targets; journalists trying to figure out just how to cover robots at war; and human rights activists wrestling with what is right and wrong in a world where our wars are increasingly being handed over to machines.
Wired for War takes the reader on a journey to meet all the various players in this strange new world of war: odd-ball roboticists working in latter-day “skunk works” in the midst of suburbia; military pilots flying combat mission from their office cubicles outside Las Vegas; the Iraqi insurgents who are their targets; journalists trying to figure out just how to cover robots at war; and human rights activists wrestling with what is right and wrong in a world where our wars are increasingly being handed over to machines.
Part 2 of 2 here.
Namit, did you happen to catch this philosopher's zone
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/philosopherszone/stories/2008/2223849.htm
on the morality and political violence? I thought it was really well done. I will go back and check later if it was this show or another one Sanders did, but there is an idea that going to war demands a just cause so that those calling for going to war would be themselves willing to die for the cause.
Posted by: Peony | February 22, 2009 at 03:35 PM
Thanks for the pointer, Peony. I thought CAJ Coady tackled well some of the ways of thinking about war and how violence is justified (transcript). As you suggest too, I think this robotics led war has the potential for significantly altering the debate: the costs of war are dramatically different to one side (fewer dead soldiers and injured veterans, for instance), which will tend to lower political resistance to war. It can be mobilized stealthily and conducted outside media purview. Also radically different will be the experience of war (fought by remote control from suburban hideouts), redefining things like heroism and courage in combat, loss and suffering. Welcome to a brave new world for war: another case of material progress without moral progress simply raising the stakes for humanity.
Posted by: Namit | February 23, 2009 at 02:29 AM