Offiziere.ch reports (via War Is Boring, my favourite warblog):

Like all branches of the U.S. military, the Marine Corps has invested heavily in unmanned systems in recent years. When the Marines spearheaded the drive through southern Iraq six years ago, they owned just a handful of 20-year-old Pioneer Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Today, the Marines operate newer Shadow UAVs at the division level, Raven UAVs down with the infantry battalions and companies, and small numbers of Packbot and Talon ground robots for engineer and bomb-disposal teams. While widespread, Marine robots fill mostly niche roles.
Now the officer that oversees Marine robot development wants bots capable of truly fighting alongside Marine riflemen, in large numbers. “You need to help me give them a better robot to operate more like a member of the squad,” Colonel James Braden told an audience of engineers and managers at the annual Unmanned Systems conference in Washington, D.C., last week.

Now, let me put it clear: I’m a big fan of Unmanned Systems (so do expect a blow-by-blow of the USAF Unmanned Systems flight plan, too, at some point!). More than anything, they save real soldiers from getting killed, and that’s always an enormous plus.

Except this time, I’m a bit sceptical.

A while ago, Lord Bingham of Cornhill, once senior Law Lord, launched some sharp criticisms against the use of UAVs:

The use of unmanned drones as weapons of war in conflicts around the world has been called into question by one of Britain’s most senior judges. Lord Bingham, until last year the senior law lord, said that some weapons were so “cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance”.
In an interview with the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, Lord Bingham compared drones, which have killed hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Gaza, with cluster bombs and landmines.
His comments are bound to intensify calls for new international rules to protect civilian populations from arbitrary attacks launched by the pilotless craft.
Lord Bingham asked in the interview, which addressed the issue of the state being bound by the rule of law: “Are there, for example, and this goes to conflict, not post-conflict situations, weapons that ought to be outlawed? From time to time in the history of international law various weapons have been thought to be so cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance. I think cluster bombs and landmines are the most recent examples.
“It may be – I’m not expressing a view – that unmanned drones that fall on a house full of civilians is a weapon the international community should decide should not be used.”

My primary training is as a lawyer under English law, so I am rather familiar with, and have deep respect for, Lord Bingham’s work as a lawyer. I cannot help but respectfully disagree with him on the matter of UAVs, however.

The problems he addresses are valid and real. Indiscriminate attacks, inconsiderate attacks, attacks on civilians or civilian property are not merely intolerable for humanitarian reasons, they are also illegal under the laws of war.

But what do drones add to - or subtract from - the equation? In my opinion, Lord Bingham confuses the medium with the message the weapon with the use it is put to. Using any weapon on unarmed civilians is criminal, from the rifle round to the cruise missile, and drones are no different. I doubt that UAV operators (whatever nasty jokes AFBlues’ Farva makes about them!) are out-of-control kids playing war with remote-controlled toys. On the other hand, it is hard to see why a Hellfire missile fired from a fighter, or one fired from the weaponised version of the Predator, the MQ-9 Reaper, are any different.

Or is it? There is a perception of unfairness in the idea that one side is using machines to kill ‘real’ people. It also smells of science fiction - I’m reminded of Phillip K. Dick’s Second Variety and the Governor of California. There’s a feeling that people should be killed by people, not by machines, and UAVs/combat robots are ‘cruel’ precisely because they emphasise the inequality between the haves, who can afford them, and the have-nots, who cannot.

One may well discard this as sentimentalism - but the question remains that if the formidable mind of one of the greatest British judges since Lord Denning reflexively looked upon drones with suspicion, it may give off a very wrong picture to the ‘uncommitted’, i.e. the civilian population.

The very same inequality highlighted above may be met by the civilian population with fear, and its inevitable offspring, revulsion. Meanwhile, opponents will spread propaganda painting themselves as heroic warriors in reference to their cultural traditions of warfare while denouncing the opponents as cowards that send machines to do a man’s work.

Widespread use of robots is still in the future. As the article notes, robots still predominantly fill niche roles. But for how long? When the inevitable change, fuelled by the desire to spare civilian casualties, occurs, the cultural perceptions associated with robotics is something to keep an eye on. In a number of moral/philosophical traditions that did not go through the Enlightenment, machines and technology stand in opposition to long-standing cultural traditions, and nowhere will that be more important than in the case of warfare. The robotic squad mates the Marines are looking for may be excellent warriors and save soldiers’ lives - but without sufficient cultural circumspection, they risk alienating host populations.

Remember: Terminator was great at killing. He was a lot less good at hearts and minds. And the wars Western powers need to prepare to fight are a lot less about plain old-fashioned killing and a lot more about securing popular support and withdrawing support from insurgencies.