I was one of the speakers at a recent conference on “Drone Wars” in London on 18 September. Organised by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) this was the first of its kind in the country and aimed to bring together academics, researchers and activists to discuss the issues associated with the increasing use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) by the security forces and the military. 

The conference was opened and chaired by Chris Cole of FOR who have been waged a significant campaign to raise the profile of the use of drones in the UK. Their new booklet “Convenient Killing: Armed Drones and the ‘Playstation’ mentality” was launched at the conference. The FOR discovered recently from a freedom of information request that RAF pilots operating from the US have conducted over 400 drone missions in Afghanistan and, in the 17 months of first being deployed in 2008, have fired 84 missiles from Reaper drones.

Noel Sharkey (Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Sheffield) gave an enlightening and somewhat worrying presentation on “Robotic Weapons: Where Next?” and workshops on the use of drones by Israel; the legality of drone use; the research and development of drone technology by BAE Systems and a group from Wales led a session on local actions, describing their experiences of campaigning around the problems associated with extending drone test flights from Parc Aberporth in Mid-Wales.

Among the major issues addressed were the high number of civilians deaths associated with drone attacks; the illegal use of drones for targeted killings by the US; the possibility that removing the pilots from the battlefield makes warfare more like a computer game than reality and the worrying developments of future robotic combat systems.

The Israeli use of drones during the invasion of Gaza in 2008/ 2009 accounted for the deaths of at least 87 civilians, many of them children. The June 2009 Human Rights Watch report: “Precisely Wrong: Gaza Civilians Killed by Israeli Drone-Launched Missiles" – highlighted the fact that frequently the killings had no combat or defensive role whatsoever. It declared that Israeli drone operators “failed to exercise proper caution” in determining whether their targets were civilians. Since 2004, over 1,500 people have been killed in Pakistan during 165 drone strikes - 155 of which have taken place since January 2008. Most of these are claimed to have been militants but no official figures are released for the numbers of civilians killed and reports in newspapers are not entirely reliable and do not tell the whole story. In one attack in June last year a Predator airstrike killed at least 60 people at a funeral in South Waziristan in Pakistan. Such attacks are serving to fuel anti-American sentiment and are interpreted as American cowardice and a willingness to fight without honour. Hence they are certainly good for recruiting terrorists.

Drones are also being deployed by the CIA who, in 2004, secretly hired Blackwater to locate and assassinate top Qaeda operatives from hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. While this programme was initiated by the Bush administration, it has increased under Obama and there have been around 50 known drone strikes in Pakistan since Obama became president. In October last year Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, warned the US that these “targeted killings” may violate international law.  He said that the CIA had to show accountability to international laws which ban arbitrary executions.

Current and future research and plans for robotic systems to be deployed in combat on the battlefield were also outlined. Machines will be required to make instant decisions on what to do, what to target and what to fire on and systems are therefore being developed with increasing levels of autonomy. A 2003 study by the U.S. Joint Forces Command, entitled “Unmanned Effects: Taking the Human Out of the Loop,” suggests that networked, autonomous robots could be the norm on the battlefield by 2025. In terms of combat aircraft, in the US Boeing has been carrying out test flights of their X-45A Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) since 2002 (the first bombing run test was performed in April 2004) and they claim a capability to work autonomously, manage its resources and engage with previously undetected targets . In the UK the RAF is developing its own pilotless combat aircraft with a high level of autonomy - the Taranis. BAE Systems is the prime contractor and flight trials are expected to begin next year. Another MOD and BAE Systems project called Mantis was kept under wraps for some time and has an undisclosed budget. Plans are for it to eventually be able to fly continuously for 24hours with a payload capability equivalent to 12 Brimstone missiles or six Raytheon Paveway bombs. A prototype was flown last October from Woomera Test Range in South Australia.

One of the aims of the conference was to bring campaigners together and share information and ideas. Representatives from peace groups in Wales described their continuing campaign against drone testing and the expansion of permitted flight zones in Ceredigion. Parc Aberporth has been declared as a “centre of excellence” for drone development by QintetiQ and the maiden flight of the Watchkeeper UAV (a £899 million intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance system for the Army) was made from Aberporth in April this year (see Bro Emlyn for Peace and Justice:  http://www.bepj.org.uk/ for more information on the campaign). The problems of getting media coverage and of refuting claims that these technologies provide local jobs were discussed.

There are plans to follow up this extremely informative and valuable conference with further meetings and ideas for highlighting the issues and organising events and actions keep an eye on www.for.org.uk for future announcements.

In the mean time it is very interesting that two other meetings to discuss the implications of research and development into robotic warfare are being held in Europe in September/October this year. One person will be speaking at all three - Professor Noel Sharkey.  A seminar is being organised by the Science Policy Centre at the Royal Society in London on October 11 when, along with Wing Commander Christopher Thirtle and Professor Juergen Altmann he will be addressing the question “Controlling drone wars: time for restrictions on armed robots?” the ethical, legal and political issues associated with the current proliferation of armed robots, and possible moves towards completely autonomous systems will be discussed. Finally, a three-day workshop organised by the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) will be held in Berlin on 20-22 September. The ICRAC is calling for an arms control regime to control the deployment of autonomous robots in warfare and keep the human in the loop controlling the application of lethal force – see http://www.icrac.co.cc/ for more details. The use of robots is revolutionizing the way in which war is being fought. It is presenting a challenge to what we might understand by honourable, ethical and legal behaviour in the research lab and on the battlefield. Rapid developments in technology mean that we need to urgently address these issues. It is to be hope that these and subsequent meetings will provide some much needed impetus in that direction.