[News] The Drone Surge

Tue Jan 26 10:43:57 EST 2010

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175195/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_the_forty-year_drone_war_/#more

The Drone Surge
Today, Tomorrow, and 2047
By <http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/nickturse>Nick Turse

One moment there was the hum of a motor in the 
sky above.  The next, on a recent morning in 
Afghanistan’s Helmand province, a missile 
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126332847649526553.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_World>blasted 
a home, killing 13 people.  Days later, the same 
increasingly familiar mechanical whine preceded a 
two-missile salvo that slammed into a compound in 
<http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iO11PEDiP_MQ0JC72arbIluJmcHg>Degan 
village in the tribal North Waziristan district of Pakistan, killing three.

What were once unacknowledged, relatively 
infrequent targeted killings of suspected 
militants or terrorists in the Bush years have 
become commonplace under the Obama 
administration.  And since a devastating December 
30th 
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175188/tomgram:_engelhardt_and_turse,_the_cia_surges/>suicide 
attack by a Jordanian double agent on a CIA 
forward operating base in Afghanistan, unmanned 
aerial drones have been hunting humans in the 
Af-Pak war zone at a record pace.  In Pakistan, 
an “unprecedented number” of 
<http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/14/world/AP-AS-Pakistan-Missile-Surge.html>strikes 
-- which have killed armed guerrillas and 
civilians alike -- have led to more fear, anger, 
and outrage in the tribal areas, as the CIA, with 
help from the U.S. Air Force, wages the most 
public “secret” war of modern times.

In neighboring Afghanistan, unmanned aircraft, 
for years in short supply and tasked primarily 
with surveillance missions, have increasingly 
been used to 
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126332847649526553.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_World>assassinate 
suspected militants as part of an aerial surge 
that has significantly outpaced the highly 
publicized “surge” of ground forces now 
underway.  And yet, unprecedented as it may be in 
size and scope, the present ramping up of the 
drone war is only the opening salvo in a planned 
40-year Pentagon surge to create fleets of 
ultra-advanced, heavily-armed, increasingly 
autonomous, all-seeing, hypersonic unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

Today’s Surge

Drones are the hot weapons of the moment and the 
upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review -- a 
soon-to-be-released four-year outline of 
Department of Defense strategies, capabilities, 
and priorities to fight current wars and counter 
future threats -- is already known to reflect 
this focus.  As the Washington Post recently 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/13/AR2010011300465.html?hpid=sec-politics>reported, 
“The pilotless drones used for surveillance and 
attack missions in Afghanistan and Pakistan are a 
priority, with the goals of speeding up the 
purchase of new Reaper drones and expanding 
Predator and Reaper drone flights through 2013.”

The MQ-1 Predator -- first used in Bosnia and 
Kosovo in the 1990s -- and its newer, larger, and 
more deadly cousin, the MQ-9 Reaper, are now 
firing missiles and dropping bombs at an 
unprecedented pace.  In 2008, there were 
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703652104574652372456526440.html?mod=googlenews_wsj>reportedly 
between 27 and 36 U.S. drone attacks as part of 
the CIA’s covert war in Pakistan.  In 2009, there 
were 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/14/mehsud-drone-strike-missed-taliban>45 
to 53 such strikes.  In the first 18 days of 
January 2010, there had already been 
<http://news.antiwar.com/2010/01/19/latest-us-attack-kills-six-in-north-waziristan/>11 
of them.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the U.S. Air Force has 
instituted a much publicized decrease in piloted 
air strikes to cut down on civilian casualties as 
part of Afghan War commander General Stanley 
McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy.  At the 
same time, however, UAS attacks have increased to 
<http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/01/afghan-drone-war-spikes-under-mcchrystal/>record 
levels.

The Air Force has created an interconnected 
global command-and-control system to carry out 
its robot war in Afghanistan (and as Noah 
Shachtman of Wired’s Danger Room blog 
<http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/12/us-military-joins-cias-drone-war-in-pakistan/>has 
reported, to assist the CIA in its drone strikes 
in Pakistan as well).  Evidence of this can be 
found at high-tech U.S. bases around the world 
where drone pilots and other personnel control 
the planes themselves and the data streaming back 
from them.  These sites include a converted 
medical warehouse at Al-Udeid Air Base, a 
billion-dollar facility in the Persian Gulf 
nation of Qatar where the Air Force secretly 
oversees its on-going drone wars; Kandahar and 
Jalalabad Air Fields in Afghanistan, where the 
drones are physically based; the global 
operations center at Nevada’s 
<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/08/60minutes/main5001439.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody>Creech 
Air Base, where the Air Force’s “pilots” fly 
drones by remote control from thousands of miles 
away; and -- perhaps most importantly -- at 
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, a 12-square-mile 
facility in Dayton, Ohio, named after the two 
local brothers who invented powered flight in 
1903.  This is where the bills for the current 
drone surge -- as well as limited numbers of 
strikes in 
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126332847649526553.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_World>Yemen 
and Somalia -- come due and are, quite literally, paid.

In the waning days of December 2009, in fact, the 
Pentagon cut two sizeable checks to ensure that 
unmanned operations involving the MQ-1 Predator 
and the MQ-9 Reaper will continue full-speed 
ahead in 2010.  The 703rd Aeronautical Systems 
Squadron based at Wright-Patterson signed a $38 
million contract with defense giant Raytheon for 
logistics support for the targeting systems of 
both drones.  At the same time, the squadron 
inked a deal worth $266 million with mega-defense 
contractor General Atomics, which makes the 
Predator and Reaper drones, to provide management 
services, logistics support, repairs, software 
maintenance, and other functions for both drone 
programs.  Both deals essentially ensure that, in 
the years ahead, the stunning increase in drone operations will continue.

These contracts, however, are only initial down 
payments on an enduring drone surge designed to 
carry U.S. unmanned aerial operations forward, ultimately for decades.

Drone Surge:  The Longer View

Back in 2004, the Air Force could put a total of 
only five drone combat air patrols (CAPs) -- each 
consisting of four air vehicles -- in the skies 
over American war zones at any one time.  By 
2009, that number was 38, a 660% increase 
according to the Air Force.  Similarly, between 
2001 and 2008, hours of surveillance coverage for 
U.S. Central Command, encompassing both the Iraqi 
and Afghan war zones, as well as Pakistan and 
Yemen, showed a massive spike of 1,431%.

In the meantime, flight hours have gone through 
the roof.  In 2004, for example, Reapers, just 
beginning to soar, flew 71 hours in total, 
according to Air Force documents; in 2006, that 
number had risen to 3,123 hours; and last year, 
25,391 hours.  This year, the Air Force projects 
that the combined flight hours of all its drones 
-- Predators, Reapers, and unarmed RQ-4 Global 
Hawks -- will exceed 250,000 hours, about the 
total number of hours flown by all Air Force 
drones from 1995-2007.  In 2011, the 300,000 
hour-a-year barrier is expected to be crossed for 
the first time, and after that the sky’s the limit.

More flight time will, undoubtedly, mean more 
killing.  According to 
<http://edition.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/10/29/bergen.drone.war/>Peter 
Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann of the 
Washington-based think tank the New America 
Foundation, in the Bush years, from 2006 into 
2009, there were 41 drone strikes in Pakistan 
which killed 454 militants and civilians.  Last 
year, under the Obama administration, there were 
42 strikes that left 453 people dead.  A 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/world/asia/14pstan.html>recent 
report by the Pakistan Institute for Peace 
Studies, an Islamabad-based independent research 
organization that tracks security issues, claimed 
an even larger number, 667 people -- most of them 
civilians -- killed by U.S. drone strikes last year.

While assisting the CIA’s drone operations in the 
Pakistani tribal borderlands, the Air Force has 
been increasing its own unmanned aerial 
hunter-killer missions.  In 2007 and 2008, for 
example, Air Force Predators and Reapers fired 
missiles during 244 missions in Iraq and 
Afghanistan.  In fact, while all the U.S. armed 
services have pursued unmanned aerial warfare, 
the Air Force has outpaced each of them.

 From 2001, when armed drone operations began, 
until the spring of 2009, the Air Force fired 703 
Hellfire missiles and dropped 132 GBU-12s 
(500-pound laser-guided bombs) in combat 
operations.  The Army, by comparison, launched 
just two Hellfire missiles and two smaller GBU-44 
Viper Strike munitions in the same time 
period.  The disparity should only grow, since 
the Army’s drones remain predominantly small 
surveillance aircraft, while in 2009 the Air 
Force shifted all outstanding orders for the 
medium-sized Predator to the even more formidable 
Reaper, which is not only twice as fast but has 
600% more payload capacity, meaning more space for bombs and missiles.

In addition, the more heavily-armed Reapers, 
which can now 
<http://www.174fw.ang.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123182981>loiter 
over an area for 10 to 14 hours without 
refueling, will be able to spot and track ever 
more targets via an increasingly sophisticated 
video monitoring system.  According to Air Force 
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, Deputy Chief of Staff for 
Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, 
the first three “Gorgon Stare pods” -- new 
wide-area sensors that provide surveillance 
capabilities over large swathes of territory -- 
will be 
<http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/12/16/many-headed-dragon-heads-to-af-pak/>installed 
on Reapers operating in Afghanistan this spring.

A technology not available for the older 
Predator, 
<http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/02/gorgon-stare/>Gorgon 
Stare will allow 10 operators to view 10 video 
feeds from a single drone at the same time.  Back 
at a distant base, a “pilot” will stare at a 
tiled screen with a composite picture of the 
streaming battlefield video, even as field 
commanders analyze a portion of the digital 
picture, panning, zooming, and tilting the image to meet their needs.

A more advanced set of “pods,” scheduled to be 
deployed for the first time this fall, will allow 
30 operators to view 30 video images 
simultaneously.  In other words, via video feeds 
from a single Reaper drone, operators could 
theoretically track 30 different people heading 
in 30 directions from a single Afghan 
compound.  The generation of sensors expected to 
come online in late 2011 promises 65 such feeds, 
according to Air Force documents, a more than 
6,000% increase in effectiveness over the 
Predator’s video system.  The Air Force is, 
however, already overwhelmed just by drone video 
currently being sent back from the war zones and, 
in the years ahead, risks “drowning in data,” 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/business/11drone.html>according to Deptula.

The 40-Year Plan

When it comes to the drone surge, the years 
2011-2013 are just the near horizon.  While, like 
the Army, the Navy 
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/4294104.html>is 
working on its own future drone warfare capacity 
-- in 
<http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/11/can-killer-drones-land-on-carriers-like-human-top-guns/#more-18800>the 
air as well 
<http://www.gdrs.com/programs/program.asp?UniqueID=31>as 
on and even under the water -- the Air Force is 
involved in striking levels of futuristic 
planning for robotic war.  It envisions a future 
previously imagined only in sci-fi movies like the Terminator series.

As a start, the Defense Advanced Research 
Projects Agency or DARPA, the Pentagon’s blue 
skies research outfit, is already looking into 
radically improving on Gorgon Stare with an 
“Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous 
Surveillance-Infrared 
(<http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/08/new-army-camera-promises-total-surveillance/>ARGUS-IR) 
System.”  In the obtuse language of military 
research and development, it will, according to 
DARPA, provide a “real-time, high-resolution, 
wide area video persistent surveillance 
capability that allows joint forces to keep 
critical areas of interest under constant 
surveillance with a high degree of target 
location accuracy” via as many as “130 
‘Predator-like’ steerable video streams to enable 
real-time tracking and monitoring and enhanced 
situational awareness during evening hours.”

In translation, that means the Air Force will 
quite literally be flooded with video information 
from future battlefields; and every “advance” of 
this sort means bulking up the global network of 
facilities, systems, and personnel capable of 
receiving, monitoring, and interpreting the data 
streaming in from distant digital eyes.  All of 
it, of course, is specifically geared toward 
“target location,” that is, pin-pointing people 
on one side of the world so that Americans on the 
other side can watch, track, and in many cases, kill them.

In addition to enhanced sensors and systems like 
ARGUS-IR, the Air Force has a long-term vision 
for drone warfare that is barely beginning to be 
realized.  Predators and Reapers have already 
been joined in Afghanistan by a newer, formerly 
secret drone, a “low observable unmanned aircraft 
system” first spotted in 2007 and dubbed the 
“Beast of Kandahar” before observers were sure 
what it actually was.  It is now known to be a 
Lockheed Martin-manufactured unmanned aerial 
vehicle, the 
<http://www.af.mil/information/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=16001>RQ-170 
-- a drone which the Air Force blandly notes was 
designed to “directly support combatant commander 
needs for intelligence, surveillance and 
reconnaissance to locate targets.”  According to 
military sources, the sleek, stealthy 
surveillance craft 
<http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2914210>has 
been designated to replace the antique Lockheed 
U-2 spy plane, which has been in use since the 1950s.

In the coming years, the RQ-170 is slated to be 
joined in the skies of America’s “next wars” by a 
fleet of drones with ever newer, more 
sophisticated capabilities and destructive 
powers.  Looking into the post-2011 future, 
Deptula sees the most essential need, according 
to an Aviation Week 
<http://afpakwar.com/blog/archives/2505>report, 
as “long-range [reconnaissance and] precision 
strike” -- that is, more eyes in far off skies 
and more lethality.  He added, “We cannot move 
into a future without a platform that allows [us] 
to project power long distances and to meet 
advanced threats in a fashion that gives us an 
advantage that no other nation has.”

This means bigger, badder, faster drones -- armed 
to the teeth -- with sensor systems to monitor 
wide swathes of territory and the ability to 
loiter overhead for days on end waiting for human 
targets to appear and, in due course, be 
vaporized by high-powered munitions.  It’s a 
future built upon advanced technologies designed 
to make targeted killings -- remote-controlled 
assassinations -- ever more effortless.

Over the horizon and deep into what was, until 
recently, only a silver-screen fantasy, the Air 
Force envisions a wide array of unmanned 
aircraft, from 
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174912/nick_turse_the_Pentagon%E2%80%99s_battle_bugs>tiny 
insect-like robots to enormous “tanker size” 
pilotless planes.  Each will be slated to take 
over specific war-making functions (or so Air 
Force dreamers imagine).  Those nano-sized 
drones, for instance, are set to specialize in 
indoor reconnaissance -- they’re small enough to 
fly through windows or down ventilation shafts -- 
and carry out lethal attacks, undertake 
computer-disabling cyber-attacks, and swarm, as 
would a group of angry bees, of their own 
volition.  Slightly larger micro-sized Small 
Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems (STUAS) are 
supposed to act as “transformers” -- altering 
their form to allow for flying, crawling and 
non-visual sensing capabilities.  They might fill 
sentry, counter-drone, surveillance, and lethal attack roles.

Additionally, the Air Force envisions small and 
medium “fighter sized” drones with lethal combat 
capabilities that would put the current UAS air 
fleet to shame.  Today’s medium-sized Reapers are 
set to be replaced by next generation MQ-Ma 
drones that will be “networked, capable of 
partial autonomy, all-weather and modular with 
capabilities supporting electronic warfare (EW), 
CAS [close air support], strike and multi-INT 
[multiple intelligence] ISR [intelligence, 
surveillance and reconnaissance] missions’ platform.”

The language may not be elegant, much less 
comprehensible, but if these future fighter 
aircraft actually come online they will not only 
send today’s remaining Top Gun pilots to the 
showers, but may even sideline tomorrow’s drone 
human operators, who, if all goes as planned, 
will have ever fewer duties.  Unlike today’s 
drones which must take off and land with human 
guidance, the MQ-Ma’s will be automated and drone 
operators will simply be there to monitor the aircraft.

Next up will be the MQ-Mb, theoretically capable 
of taking over even more roles once assigned to 
traditional fighter-bombers and spy planes, 
including the suppression of enemy air defenses, 
bombing and strafing of ground targets, and 
surveillance missions.  These will also be 
designed to fly more autonomously and be better 
linked-in to other drone “platforms” for 
cooperative missions involving many aircraft 
under the command of a single “pilot.”  Imagine, 
for instance, one operator overseeing a single 
command drone that holds sway over a small 
squadron of autonomous drones carrying out a 
coordinated air attack on clusters of people in 
some far off land, incinerating them in small 
groups across a village, town or city.

Finally, perhaps 30 to 40 years from now, the 
MQ-Mc drone would incorporate all of the advances 
of the MQ-M line, while being capable of 
everything from dog-fighting to missile 
defense.  With such new technology will, of 
course, come new policies and new doctrines.  In 
the years ahead, the Air Force intends to make 
drone-related policy decisions on everything from 
treaty obligations to automatic target engagement 
-- robotic killing without a human in the 
loop.  The latter extremely controversial 
development is already envisioned as a possible post-2025 reality.

2047: What’s Old is New Again

The year 2047 is the target date for the Air 
Force’s Holy Grail, the capstone for its 
long-term plan to turn the skies over to 
war-fighting drones.  In 2047, the Air Force 
intends to rule the skies with MQ-Mc drones and 
“special” super-fast, 
<http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/09/the-pentagons-8/>hypersonic 
drones for which neither viable technology nor 
any enemies with any comparable programs or 
capabilities yet exist.  Despite this, the Air 
Force is intent on making these super-fast 
hunter-killer systems a reality by 
2047.  “Propulsion technology and materials that 
can withstand the extreme heat will likely take 
20 years to develop. This technology will be the 
next generation air game-changer. Therefore the 
prioritization of the funding for the specific 
technology development should not wait until the 
emergence of a critical COCOM [combatant command] 
need,” says the Air Force’s 2009-2047 UAS “Flight Plan.”

If anything close to the Air Force’s dreams comes 
to fruition, the “game” will indeed be radically 
changed.  By 2047, there’s no telling how many 
drones will be circling over how many heads in 
how many places across the planet.  There’s no 
telling how many millions or billions of flight 
hours will have been flown, or how many people, 
in how many countries will have been killed by 
remote-controlled, bomb-dropping, missile-firing, 
judge-jury-and-executioner drone systems.

There’s only one given.  If the U.S. still exists 
in its present form, is still solvent, and still 
has a functioning Pentagon of the present sort, a 
new plan will already be well underway to create 
the war-making technologies of 2087.  By then, in 
ever more places, people will be living with the 
sort of drone war that now worries only those in 
places like Degan village.  Ever more people will 
know that unmanned aerial systems packed with 
missiles and bombs are loitering in their 
skies.  By then, there undoubtedly won’t even be 
that lawnmower-engine sound indicating that a 
missile may soon plow into your neighbor’s home.

For the Air Force, such a prospect is the stuff 
of dreams, a bright future for unmanned, 
hypersonic lethality; for the rest of the planet, 
it's a potential nightmare from which there may be no waking.

Nick Turse is the associate editor of 
TomDispatch.com and the winner of a 2009 
Ridenhour Prize for Reportorial Distinction as 
well as a James Aronson Award for Social Justice 
Journalism. His work has appeared in the Los 
Angeles Times, 
<http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081201/turse/single>the 
Nation, In These Times, and regularly at 
TomDispatch. Turse is currently a fellow at New 
York University's Center for the United States 
and the Cold War. He is the author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805089195/ref=nosim/?tag=nationbooks08-20>The 
Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday 
Lives (Metropolitan Books). His website is 
<http://www.nickturse.com/>NickTurse.com.

Copyright 2010 Nick Turse

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