Unmanned: Drones, Data, and the Illusion of Perfect Warfare

by William M. Arkin

  “The VORTEX program is a spiral development effort that integrates hardware to support duplex LOS operations and tactical IP communications using the NET-T firmware upgrade as a primary means of FMV LOS dissemination. Future upgrades include software that enables in-flight configuration changes and improved encryption technologies.” U.S. Air Force (USAF) Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) Vector—Vision and Enabling Concepts: 2013–2038, February 2014, p. 71.

  22. Broadly speaking, “processing” refers to the conversion of collected information into forms suitable for the production of intelligence; “exploitation” to the analysis of this information and the production of intelligence; and “dissemination” to the delivery of this intelligence to the end users. See JCS, Joint and National Intelligence Support to Military Operations, Joint Publication 2-01, Appendix II, October 7, 2004.

  23. Air Power Against Terror: America’s Conduct of Operation Enduring Freedom, p. xxix.

  24. Adam Hebert, “Army Change, Air Force Change,” Air Force Magazine, March 2006.

  25. Richard J. Newman, “The Little Predator That Could,” Air Force Magazine, March 2002.

  26. See, e.g., William M. Arkin, American Coup: How a Terrified Government Is Destroying the Constitution (2013).

  27. Hugh Lessig, “At Langley, a classified unit quietly marks the end of Iraq war,” Daily Press, December 19, 2011; http://articles.dailypress.com/2011-12-19/news/dp-nws-langley-iraq-drones-20111219_1_iraq-war-war-zone-msr-tampa (accessed October 15, 2013).

  CHAPTER ELEVEN The Explosion

  1. Dr. Daniel L. Haulman, Air Force History Research Agency, U.S. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles In Combat, 1991–2003, June 9, 2003; Defense Science Board Study on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles, February 2004, p. 4; Rebecca Grant, “Iraqi Freedom and the air force,” Air Force Magazine, March 2013.

  In February 2003, the worldwide DOD inventory of UAVs was 163 airframes.

  2. Rebecca Grant, “Eyes Wide Open: The lone Global Hawk flying above Iraq was one busy, busy bird,” Air Force Magazine, November 2003.

  3. Charles E. Kirkpatrick, Joint Fires as They Were Meant to Be: V Corps and the 4th Air Support Operations Group During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Association of the US Army, Land Warfare Papers No. 48, October 2004.

  4. Rand Corporation, Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003–2006), p. 7. The analysts explained: “Saddam regarded Kurds and Shi’ites backed by Iran as more immediate threats than an unlikely U.S. invasion. Therefore, he kept most of his forces opposite Kurds and Iranians, leaving the invasion corridor through Kuwait to the vicinity of Baghdad largely unprotected. Baghdad was defended by Republican Guard divisions deployed around the city, but even they offered only sporadic resistance. Saddam and his two sons issued amateurish and confusing orders to their military commanders, who were not allowed to exercise any initiative. The Iraqi Army was neglected, demoralized, and poorly trained even by regional standards. Moreover, the Iraqi soldiers knew from experience that U.S. forces were overwhelmingly superior, and therefore most of them deserted before making contact.”

  See also Joint Center for Operational Analysis and Lessons Learned, Joint Forces Command, Iraqi Perspectives Project: A View of Iraqi Freedom from Saddam’s Senior Leadership, 2006.

  5. Lieutenant General Walter E. Buchanan III, the air component commander, told the House Armed Services Committee in 2004 that “prior to launching the first weapons to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein, Predators flew above Baghdad gathering data, monitoring HVTs and providing us real-time intelligence information.” See Walter E. Buchannan III, “Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance,” Statement Before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Tactical and Land Forces regarding unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAV) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), March 17, 2004.

  6. Charles E. Kirkpatrick, Joint Fires as They Were Meant to Be: V Corps and the 4th Air Support Operations Group During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Association of the US Army, Land Warfare Papers No. 48, October 2004.

  7. “Even when the advance into Iraq was held up by fierce sandstorms, use of Global Hawks flying well above or offset from the storms enabled a constant stream of intelligence to be provided, ensuring that coalition commanders were not left making educated guesses based upon a mixture of partial information, experience and instinct”; RAF, Air Power UAVs: The Wider Context, p. 41.

  8. Charles E. Kirkpatrick, Joint Fires as They Were Meant to Be: V Corps and the 4th Air Support Operations Group During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Association of the US Army, Land Warfare Papers No. 48, October 2004.

  9. Future Force: Joint Operations, Air Force Chief of Staff General John P. Jumper, Remarks to the Air Armaments Summit VI, Sandestin, Florida, March 17, 2004; obtained by the author.

  10. PowerPoint Briefing, Colonel Mace Carpenter, Fast and Final: Operation Iraqi Freedom, March 22, 2004; obtained by the author.

  11. Charles E. Kirkpatrick, Joint Fires as They Were Meant to Be: V Corps and the 4th Air Support Operations Group During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Association of the US Army, Land Warfare Papers No. 48, October 2004.

  12. PowerPoint Briefing, Major General Dave Deptula, HQ ACC/XP, Airpower Lessons from Operation Iraqi Freedom, October 2003; obtained by the author.

  13. Rebecca Grant, “Eyes Wide Open: The lone Global Hawk flying above Iraq was one busy, busy bird,” Air Force Magazine, November 2003.

  14. John A. Tirpak, “The Blended Wing Goes to War,” Air Force Magazine, October 2003.

  15. Rebecca Grant, “Iraqi Freedom and the air force,” Air Force Magazine, March 2013.

  16. Michael Isherwood, Global Hawk and Persistent Awareness: Sizing the Global Hawk Fleet, Northrop Grumman Assessment Center, August 2008, p. 28.

  The Defense Science Board later wrote that “one Global Hawk in the Iraqi theater from 8 March 03 to 23 April 03 accounted for 55% of the Time Sensitive Targets generated to kill air defense equipment. In missions, Global Hawk located 13 Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAM), 16 batteries, 50 SAM launchers, over 70 SAM transport vehicles and over 300 tanks.” Defense Science Board Study on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles, February 2004, pp. iii–iv.

  Predator also scored a couple of notable hits, one an urban attack in Baghdad that its proponents crowed could only be done by the sharpshooter with its Hellfire missile, given the strict constraints imposed on avoiding collateral damage.

  According to a UK RAF study: “While the destruction of an Iraqi ZSU-23-4 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun near al-Amarah by a Hellfire launched by a Predator attracted press attention, the work of ISTAR [ISR] UAVs tended to go unnoticed. Yet again, however, the scale of information that could be obtained from the unmanned platforms provided commanders with the ability to make informed decisions based upon near-real time or real time reconnaissance product.” See RAF, Air Power UAVs: The Wider Context, p. 40.

  17. Charles E. Kirkpatrick, Joint Fires as They Were Meant to Be: V Corps and the 4th Air Support Operations Group During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Association of the US Army, Land Warfare Papers No. 48, October 2004; Defense Science Board Study on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles, February 2004, p. 4; Defense Science Board Study on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles, February 2004, p. 28.

  18. Defense Science Board Study on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles, February 2004, pp. 9–10.

  19. Defense Science Board Study on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles, February 2004, p. 4.

  20. The U.S. Unmanned Aerospace Vehicle Industry: Transformational Capabilities in the Making; Presentation by the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Industrial Policy), 1st AIAA Unmanned Aerospace Vehicles, Systems, Technologies, and Operations Conference, Portsmouth, Virginia, Tuesday, May 21, 2002.

  21. Defense Science Board Study on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles, February 2004, p. 18.

  22. Defe
nse Science Board Study on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles, February 2004, p. 24.

  The air force made similar recommendations: “The roles of UAVs are continuing to dynamically change, but their integration ability with other CAF assets is falling behind. UAVs need better integration into the Link 16 network to improve their role in SCAR and other missions.” See USAF, 2004 CAF Tactics Review Board/Weapons and Tactics Conference Final Report, UAV MDS Working Group, UAV Chair: Capt. Nick Devereaux, Det 4, 53 TEG/DO, n.d. (2004).

  23. One of the board’s recommendations was: “Build on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program base (AJCN and others)…. Airborne relays will be needed to link mobile forces in the field and other UAVs.” It went on to say “This need was recognized in the ASD (C3I), (ASD (NII)), study on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles as Communications Platforms, dated 4 November 1997. Major conclusions were:

  • Tactical communications needs: can be met much more responsively and effectively with Airborne Communications Nodes (ACNs) than with satellite;

  • ACNs can effectively augment theater satellite capabilities by addressing deficiencies in capacity and connectivity.”

  See Defense Science Board Study on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles, February 2004, p. 24.

  24. Defense Science Board Study on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles, February 2004.

  25. Defense Science Board Study on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles, February 2004, p. 8.

  26. Defense Science Board Study on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles, February 2004, pp. ix, x.

  27. Mr. Dyke Weatherington’s Testimony to HASC Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, March 3, 2006; www.dod.mil/dodgc/olc/docs/test03-03-26Weatherington.doc.

  28. Rand Corporation, Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003–2006), p. xiv.

  29. Rand Corporation, Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003–2006), pp. xviii, 9, 33.

  30. Soon after Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), it was recognized that “mission need to rapidly produce a high volume of precise and accurate mensurated geolocation coordinates to support the employment of precision-guided munitions.” See Air Force, Common Geopositioning Services (CGS) Technical Requirements Document, July 16, 2004.

  CHAPTER TWELVE Flock of Birds

  1. Pioneer was son of Scout, an Israeli-designed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) born of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. For the army, Pioneer became successor to Aquila, a princely billion-dollar propeller-driven aircraft that died in 1987 at the age of eight. Hundreds of the $850,000 Pioneers ended up being acquired by the services; the last retired from Iraq duty as they became increasing unsupportable in 2007.

  See the excellent summary of the history and characteristics of Pioneer at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum website, Pioneer RQ-2A UAV; http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm_A20000794000 (accessed April 27, 2014). The Smithsonian, unfortunately, repeats the story of Iraqi soldiers surrendering to a Pioneer in 1991, not quite an accurate story (see Chapter 4).

  2. Pioneer didn’t directly give birth to Shadow. On the way were Heron 26, which Pioneer beat in a flying competition, and Hellfox and Outrider, both of which died in development. And there were Prowler II and Sentry, both of which lost out to Shadow in competitive fly-offs to determine which drone would become the new standard. Bill Yenne, Attack of the Drones: A History of Unmanned Aerial Combat, p. 71.

  3. The exact range difference was 67 nm (125 km) for Shadow (RQ-7B) and 100 nm (185 km) for Pioneer (RQ-2B).

  4. “Small UAS support broader multi-sensor ISR missions than Micro UAS. They are less sensitive to meteorological conditions than Micros as well as have greater range, endurance and payload capabilities. These vehicles also possess the ability to carry stores for delivery, including target marking and ordnance delivery. In terms of the DOD this can be a Tier I or Tier II System for the army and Marines and does fulfill the role of a Class I and Class II System in the Future Combat System parlance for small military tactical units.” See UAS Service Demand 2015-2035, August 2013, pp. 101–102.

  5. Army PowerPoint Briefing; David Milburn, Sigmatech Contractor, Spectrum Manager, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Project Office, PACOM 2012, July 2012.

  6. DOD, UAS Roadmap 2005, p. 27; AFSOC PowerPoint Briefing, AF Flight Plan for Small UAVs, June 21, 2004.

  7. The army bought four AeroVironment FQM-151 Pointer UAVs in 1999, for military operations in urban terrain (MOUT), then the rage, and as part of the Pathfinder ACTD (advanced concept technology demonstration) program. In November 2003, Congress approved an additional $9.3 million to purchase a mix of Pointer and next-generation Raven UAVs, also from AeroVironment (58 systems: 16 Pointer, 42 Raven). The Pointer served the marine corps from 1990 until it was replaced by the Group 1-equivalent RQ-14 Dragon Eye in 2003, which was replaced by Raven.

  Pointer was used by Navy SEALs in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but it was already well on the way to being retired.

  See also Peter Finn, “Rise of the drone: From Calif. garage to multibillion-dollar defense industry,” Washington Post, December 23, 2011; www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/rise-of-the-drone-from-calif-garage-to-multibillion-dollar-defense-industry/2011/12/22/gIQACG8UEP_story.html (accessed February 19, 2014).

  8. The Flashlight small UAV (SUAV) flew for the first time in October 2001. After successive feedback and development, Flashlight yielded the initial variant of the RQ-11 Pathfinder Raven UAV, which then became Raven.

  9. “Weighing in at approximately five pounds, the Dragon Eye carries two color cameras and can be outfitted with chemical and biological sensors in the nose cone. The UAV also offers night-vision capabilities that are especially valuable for force protection and SOF operations. USS Albany had complete control of the UAV, utilizing systems within the Type 18 periscope. The UAV has a payload capacity of 12 ounces and researchers are developing lightweight zoom lenses to further improve the vehicle’s value and utility. The aircraft can fly at altitudes up to 10,000 feet, over a range of 40 kilometers, for approximately one hour—all on a single battery charge. The Albany launch followed a successful demonstration in February of the UAV’s capabilities at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay. A prototype UAV was launched and controlled by force protection personnel ashore to search out the waters ahead of a submarine as it entered port. Although the modular UAV is designed to be a “throw-away” item, some have been flown and recovered successfully more than 30 times. The new UAV design is ideal for stealth, due to its ultra-quiet electric motor and small size.” www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/issue_28/albany.html.

  10. Air Force Fact Sheet, Wasp III, published November 1, 2007; www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets/Display/tabid/224/Article/104480/wasp-iii.aspx (accessed April 29, 2014); John D. Gresham, “SOF Persistent ISR: The SOCOM UAS Roadmap,” Special Operations—2008 Edition; www.bluetoad.com/display_article.php?id=32988 (accessed April 27, 2014).

  11. In winter 2008, Raven B was introduced to marine corps operating forces as a replacement for the Dragon Eye UAS, which was first fielded in 2004.

  12. The mission operator (MO) uses the laptop for map-based control of the vehicle, limited to setting parameters of the various waypoints (the waypoints are labeled A, B, C, D, E, L O1, O2, O3, and H). The vehicle operator (VO) has no map display (video only) but has full control of the vehicle. The MO can display the live video but cannot control the vehicle in any mode other than NAV mode, which is used for waypoint control. See Nicholas Stroumtsos, Gary Gilbreath, and Scott Przybylski, “An intuitive graphical user interface for small UAS,” Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific, SPIE Proc. 8741: Unmanned Systems Technology XV, Baltimore, MD, May 1–3, 2013.

  13. Marine Corps PowerPoint Briefing, VMU Overview, Gunnery Sergeant Charles “Cookie” Cook, n.d. (August 2011).

  14. Marine Corps PowerPoint Briefing, VMU Overview, Gunnery Serg
eant Charles “Cookie” Cook, n.d. (August 2011).

  15. Air Force PowerPoint Briefing, UAV Battlelab Overview to Weapons and Tactics Conference, January 15, 2002.

  16. Marine Corps Center for Lessons Learned, (U) Unmanned Aircraft System: RQ-11B Raven Group I Employment in OIF (U//FOUO) Lessons and Observations from 1st Battalion, 4th Marines and 2d Battalion, 23d Marines, December 2009; released under the Freedom of Information Act.

  17. Raven B was equipped with a protected GPS signal, improved optics, and an infrared illuminator (to mark targets on the ground). Raven B begat Raven B eight channel, which begat Raven B DDL—for digital data link—in 2009, which begat Raven B Gimbal the next year, replacing the fixed cameras with electronic stabilized pan-tilt-zoom functionality, the ball “ruggedized for nose impact,” that is, crash landing. Digital data link (DDL) replaced Raven’s analog command link and video, replacing the original four-channel (or later eight-channel) analog setup, increasing channels by a factor of four (or eight). DDL thus supports sixteen Ravens operating simultaneously in the same area. Additional upgrades include digital/encrypted Full-Motion Video (FMV) and aircraft control, and future interoperability with Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) and Unattended Ground Sensors (UGS); see USAACE Info Paper, TCM-UAS RQ-11B Raven UAS, March 22, 2010.

  See also Army PowerPoint Briefing; David Milburn, Sigmatech Contractor, Spectrum Manager, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Project Office, PACOM 2012, July 2012.

  18. The gimbaled payload has a price range of $30,000 to $48,000 (depending on the quantity purchased); see Digital Raven Enhanced with New Gimbaled Payload, Image Processing, Defense Update, April 2, 2012; http://defense-update.com/20120402_raven_gimballed_eo_payload.html (accessed April 28, 2014).

  19. Puma AE (All Environment) begat Puma AECV (All Environment Capable Variant) for Special Operations Command, which also begat Aqua Puma, a perfect companion for Navy SEALs, as it was waterproof. In 2012, the 1,000th Puma came off the production lines, and Sweden ordered some of its own Pumas and WASPs.