Drone technology is moving from tactical to strategic use

 

Most of those interested in military and aviation history know how bombing forces developed.  At first bombs (very small ones) were dropped on front lines and support positions behind those lines - because the aircraft of the day couldn't reach any further.  As aircraft grew bigger, faster and more powerful, strategic bombing - attacking the enemy's population centers, factories, ports, etc. - became the new paradigm.  It mattered not whether your bombs actually hit a military target, because every target was now considered to be supporting the enemy's war effort.  Destroy an orphanage because it was built right next door to an industrial estate?  No problem.  Those orphans became "collateral damage" - unintended victims of the war.  Those who killed them bore no moral responsibility for their deaths.  They were simply "taking the war to the enemy", and that was a justifiable action.

Nuclear weapons didn't alter that scenario, except for the fact that one bomb could now destroy an entire city.  Air forces didn't need to send hundreds of aircraft to drop thousands of bombs (and be attacked as they did so, losing many aircraft and their crews to enemy defenses).  Instead, aircraft need not be sent at all.  A missile could drop a warhead accurately enough to spare the bomber crews from the losses they would otherwise incur.

However, drone technology is evolving so fast that it's changing the nature of technology in war.  It's not so much new as evolved . . . but that evolution is happening so quickly that it seems nobody can keep up with it.  Take Ukraine, for example.  When Russia invaded, Ukraine had effectively no air superiority to speak of, and few modern, high-technology weapons.  In their absence, Ukrainians had to develop new technologies as quickly as they could - and they did so very effectively.  We all know how Ukrainian drones stalemated the Russian advance in the Donbas area, and have led to a World War I-style trench warfare where neither side dares to advance in strength, for fear of the massive drone counterattack that would ensue.

What's more, Ukraine has now developed much larger, long-range attack drones that have gone far beyond what anyone had expected.  Indeed, they've blurred the distinction between "drone" and "cruise missile" until the terms are almost interchangeable.  Consider that a few days ago, Ukraine attacked a Russian oil refinery in Saratov, more than 1,700 miles from the launch site of the FP-5 Flamingo drones.  The FP-5 is claimed to have a maximum range of some 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles).  Is it a drone, or a cruise missile, or both?

Smaller drones have so altered the shape of modern conflict that they may even render nuclear weapons superfluous (at least in terms of the destruction of a nation's ability to wage war).  HMS Defiant commented recently:

I see that some people who ought to know better are still nattering about the state of our munitions and our general unreadiness to wage war against China. Yes, yes, I know, dead horse, thoroughly beaten already but I did want to point out that the country that can turn out 80,000,000 iphones in a couple of months probably has no trouble turning out 40,000,000 high end killer drones with 300 mile ranges and 250 pound warheads.

The goal of the SIOP was to bathe in [nuclear] fire targets that needed to be destroyed affirmatively. If one could achieve the same effect by applying precise 250 pound bombs directly to the actual target and not just the neighborhood or city, then the same effect is achieved without all the excess radiation.

This poses a logical mans thinking problem for the evening. Every single HQ and logistics warehouse and fuel dump in Asia and the Western Pacific is in a precise, down to the inch known location on a target map. The putative bad guys have 40,000,000 drones. The other bad apples north of the 38th are known to be making lots of drones of their own and furnishing to their very good friends in Moscow.

. . .

You know another place where the heads lie uneasy at night? Yeah, Taiwan is in easy flight range of 40,000,000 expendable killer drones.

It does make me wonder though. Just what the hell is our answer to those 40,000,000 drones? ... We treat all weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, etc) as nuclear weapons and will retaliate if they are used against us. What possible form will retaliation take if drones alone are enough to execute a complete decapitation strike at just about every level of government overnight?

There's more at the link.  Go read it all.

He poses an excellent question, to which (I suspect) nobody in the US government has developed any concrete, practical response as yet.  Perhaps they should move faster on that . . .

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 328

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

Following my health update a few days ago, I could think of only one song that would be appropriate this Sunday.  Tongue firmly in cheek, of course!

That's been one of my favorite Jethro Tull tunes over the years.

Peter

I've seen this for myself. It's scary!

 

Courtesy of a link provided by Zendo Deb at 357 Magnum, we find this video report on the growing problem of e-bikes that are powerful enough to do highway speeds - but still require no license or training to operate them.  I've seen this for myself more than once.  These kids come hurtling down driveways or out of alleyways, going far too fast to brake or turn, and barrel right across one or even two lanes of traffic.  I don't know how I've missed a couple of them - it was that close.

The video is from StacheD Training.  The blurb reads:

Kids across the US are being seriously injured and killed while riding e-bikes — but in a lot of these cases, what they're actually riding isn't legally an e-bike at all. In this video, I break down a string of recent crashes in Metro Detroit, what the data says about who's actually at fault, and why some of these "e-bikes" are really unregistered electric motorcycles capable of highway speeds.

CPSC Report — E-Scooter and E-Bike Injuries Soar: 2022 Injuries Increased Nearly 21%

https://www.cpsc.gov/Newsroom/News-Releases/2024/E-Scooter-and-E-Bike-Injuries-Soar-2022-Injuries-Increased-Nearly-21

The comments below the video on YouTube are pretty sobering.  Clearly, this is a problem that's only going to get worse, unless and until someone cracks down on the unrestricted availability of these unregulated e-bikes.

Peter

Twenty-five years ago...

 

We do not forget.  Pray God we never do - as individuals, or as a nation.

May the souls of all the victims of September 11, 2001 rest in God's peace.

Peter

AI as Skynet - panic hype, or realistic warning?

 

Over the past couple of days several researchers and "experts" (?) have warned that artificial intelligence (AI) risks running out of control and threatening the very survival of humanity.  Rather than post individual links to all the articles, click over to Ted Gioia, who's summarized them all in a single Substack post.

I'm not convinced by all the hype suddenly being whipped up on this subject.  Eight warnings in 24 hours (or is it 48)?  Eight alleged experts all preaching AI doom, gloom and disaster?  The simultaneous onset of all these warnings makes me wonder about the timing.  Is someone trying to panic our politicians and/or business leaders into acting before they can figure out what might work?  "Don't just stand there, do something!" is a very time-worn statement . . . particularly when the "something" isn't clearly outlined or understood.  I'm suspicious.

On the other hand, consider all the hacking exploits, data penetrations and other cybercrimes that have been increasing in frequency for a few years now.  There's no doubt that even without AI, they're a threat to many aspects of our modern society.  Indeed, just a few weeks ago we saw that many water utilities were recently hacked, in some cases severely enough to interrupt the flow of that commodity to customers.  It's gotten bad enough that the FBI has issued a formal warning about "cyber actors" causing "operational disruptions".  In the event of a major international conflict, up to and perhaps including war, it's not hard to imagine enemy nations actively trying to attack all our utility infrastructure in the same fashion, disrupting our entire economy (not to mention our armed forces).  The more AI is used to run our economy, the more risk that "rogue AI" instructions might be fed into their systems to corrupt and disrupt their operations.

So, I think we can agree that there's a genuine risk to our automated systems . . . but is AI itself that risk, or is it merely an added element to risks of which we're already aware?

Some "AI prophets" seem to think that AI will ensure a better future for the whole world.  Elon Musk is a prime example, seeing AI as one vital future component along with space travel and other engineering challenges.  In that sense, his views are a counterweight to "AI-doom-and-gloom" predictions.

So . . . AI as threat or promise?  I don't know enough to comment, but experts seem more than willing to tell the rest of us what to believe.  What do you think, readers?  Please discuss in Comments.

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  Zero Hedge reported at noon today:  "Perfectly Timed AI Panic Resurrects 'Bipartisan AI Safety Bill'."  Click over there to read the report.  Briefly, it appears that the rush of alarmist AI reports may be a deliberately planned political pressure tactic designed to rush controversial AI legislation through Congress.  Sounds like a reasonable explanation to me.