Drones, Ethics, and the Armchair Soldier

This is an article by the philosopher John Kaag about how the military is dealing with the changes in today’s environment with military warfare and the affects it has on the ground pilots that are driving drones to eliminate targets and terrorists.
10 years ago the Iraq invasion was a remote control game for the soldiers, very similar to how we use our remote controls for channel surfing on the TV or video games today. Many people use remote controls to play games, shoot animals, and blow up buildings to entertain themselves. The military uses similar remote controls to direct and deliver devastating military assaults against enemies and terrorists.
Today the operations of the traditional chain of command is similar to writing directions for robots but without having to think about ethics behind it. Now soldiers do not have to be carrying pounds of gear while fighting and fearing for their lives, instead they do their jobs sitting down, they have something in common with philosophers who do their job sitting down. John quoted, “For the first time in history, soldiers have something in common with philosophers: they can do their jobs sitting down.” This provides the remote control soldier additional time and ability to think about how they will use a drone to eliminate a target.
Soldiers today need to work their way through arriving at the logical answer of their orders and decisions while working through existential responsibility. This will not be easy and will need additional training to provide creative ways to make correct and rapid decisions. Past leaders worked their way through this strategy and thinking knowing they would be safe behind bunkers while the ground troops were out fighting prior plans. Past commanders such as Obama or Alexander the great studied and trained, not at an academy, but with strong engagement with philosophical traditions while emphasizing how to make the proper moral judgments when a decision was being made.
Jeff McMahan, author from The Stone, provided argument that soldiers engaged in combat should be held with additional responsibility for warfare as the scope is being opened up with the usage of drones. This type of warfare opens up the need for different thinking about how to train an armchair soldier. New tools and training are needed to help soldiers think, react, and make a quick decision on what to do prior to carrying out a commanded order. Soldiers need to be trained properly to use drones, even when they are moved further away from the front lines. This begs the question, are we really fighting wars properly?
The points about new training for military leaders and drone pilots are well implied in the article. With the changing style of fighting war it requires how leaders need to think differently about drone usage and how drone pilots need to think ahead and be mentally prepared for the drone launch and mission flight. The shift from warfare leader’s strategy will apply more pressure on the remote control soldier and provide more time for a thought out decision before making it. This new style of warfare can burnout the soldiers mentally if not properly trained and educated. The drone pilots need training to prepare themselves to make the correct moral decision of not just thinking about possibly eliminating someone but actually being prepared to do it, and then having to think about if you actually did eliminate someone and how that that could impact pilot emotions. Physical exhaustion is much less today while sitting down vs earlier warfare while on the ground running with heavy gear and a gun. The training needed is significant as we move forward with drone usage to protect our troops. Proper training will assist with mental thinking about decisions to be made and are they the right decisions when it comes to engagement and the situation they are in with today’s drone age. The thought patterns of war have changed dramatically in short time leaving training to be a huge part of today’s warfare training but in a different manner than it used to be.
I agree with the author’s views that new training needs to be prevalent to the drone pilots. Rather than be on the ground with a gun at 110 degrees they are in a recliner with a joystick at 70 degrees and a glass of ice water at their side. Fighting on the ground and seeing the person you are eliminating would have a mental impact on many soldiers. Eliminating them on a screen image would be less traumatic, but could still have a mental impact to those not trained properly. Is it emotions that are tearing the pilot’s mental thoughts, or is it ethical thoughts? That would lead to the “burnout” term that some pilots are encountering as they are going through their given orders. Even though the change of location for many soldiers removes them from harm there is still the mental patterns of knowing harm is potentially being done to innocent people. A ground soldier can visually see who and what is in front of them where the drone pilot has less time and visual acuity to make that split decision prior to pulling the trigger.
This is where additional training needs input for the mental aspect of drone pilots, it is similar to a fighter pilot dropping artillery, they are unsure who is in the way and do not think much about it. It could very well be many innocent people eliminated but they are not aware at the time. It is half a dozen ways or the other, it is too bad we do not work and communicate more with our enemies prior to deploying troops or drones to solve issues. We tend to jump to throwing a punch first rather than sitting down and visiting the issues at hand over a drink. It always seems the innocent suffer more than the troops or drone pilots when warfare is initiated with limited intelligence information.
The author makes valid points about moral and ethical theories about the current decisions needed to be made by drone pilots and I do agree with the training that is needed by the military from the top to the bottom. Philosophical training, psychological training, and ethical training all need to be a part of a soldier’s syllabus to make a good decision. Continued training on how to use logical decision making by the drone pilot is a mandatory tool if drone usage continues to grow within the military warfare age.
One thing not visited in this article was the continued development of technology, this needs to be continually upgraded into the visual aspect of drone technology. Better screen visuals, faster computer processers, and improved cameras will improve visuals to the drone pilots to assist with decision making to allow proper moral and ethical decision making while dealing with minimal mistakes while eliminating casualties.

Kaag, John (2013, March 17) Drones, Ethics and the Armchair Soldier,
The New York Times Retrieved from http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com
/2013/03/17/drones-ethics-and-the-armchair-soldier/

McMahan, Jeff (2012, November 11) Rethinking the ‘Just War’, The Stone
Retrieved from http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/rethinking-the-just-war-part-1/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0