Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or Drones designed and manufactured in Pakistan have been making news since IDEAS 2008 event in November of last year. Also in the news has been the growing reliance on armed drones (aka predators) by Americans in Afghanistan and Pakistan's FATA region to target militants with increasing casualties. This post is an attempt to put these headlines in perspective for those interested in the 21st century high tech warfare.
Back in 1970, the U.S. Army Gen. William Westmoreland is reported to have said: “On the battlefield of the future, enemy forces will be located, tracked and targeted almost instantaneously through the use of data links, computer-assisted intelligence and automated fire control. … I am confident the American people expect this country to take full advantage of its technology–to welcome and applaud the developments that will replace wherever possible the man with the machine.” Is this vision from the 1970s being realized today?
The basic strategies and thought processes are the same but the methods of Sun Tzu or Carl von Clausewitz or WW2 are long gone as the modern battlefields evolve. There are still tactics such as the use of decoys, deception and the element of surprise, but today the remote-controlled Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs), high-tech guidance and targeting systems, mobile missile launchers and anti-aircraft systems are some of the most sophisticated technologies on the planet.
Reflecting the modern realities, the US military is targeting its recruiting efforts on a generation of Americans that has grown up with computer-based video games. The recently opened Army Experience Center in Philadelphia is a fitting counterpart to the retail experience: 14,500 square feet of mostly shoot-’em-up video games and three full-scale simulators, including an AH-64 Apache Longbow helicopter, an armed Humvee and a Black Hawk copter with M4 carbine assault rifles. For those who want to take the experience deeper, the center has 22 recruiters, according to a report in the New York Times.
On a practical level, thousands of miles away from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, American remote pilots in Nevada fly armed drones and target the perceived enemy with deadly force. In front of the remote human pilots is a live video from the Predator's camera, thousands of feet above ground. Buildings and trucks come into view. They zoom in and out, put the cross-hairs on the targets and fire missiles with ease, killing dozens on the ground.
Beyond Nevada,at Djibouti's Camp Le Monier, CIA agents and special forces troops - about 1500 personnel in all - have opened a wide-ranging but little-reported front in President George W. Bush's so-called "war on terror".
This high-tech, not-so-covert battle is part of a broader US effort against suspected terrorists. It surfaces frequently, with news of air strikes on suspected Taliban forces in Afghanistan or al Qaeda operatives in Yemen. Such warfare places heavy reliance on the accuracy and breadth of human intelligence on the ground. In Afghanistan, failure of such intelligence has often led to growing friendly fire incidents and increasing civilian casualties.
In addition to human intelligence on the ground, there is need for Electronic Warfare Support (ES). ES in military terms, is the passive detection of signals in order to detect and locate threats or target location, information necessary to conduct Electronic Attack (EA). By comparison, Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) is the related process of analyzing and identifying the intercepted frequencies (e.g. as a cell phone or RADAR). SIGINT is a combination of ELINT, COMINT, and MASINT.
On the military strategy and planning front, wargames are a subgenre of strategy video games that emphasize strategic or tactical warfare on a map. Computer wargames are generally classified based on whether a game is turn-based or real-time and whether the game's focus is upon military strategy or tactics. These distinctions divide computer wargames into four categories: real-time strategy, real-time tactics, turn-based strategy, and turn-based tactics. Wargaming is an essential part of any high-tech military campaign.
Given the nature of the broad shift to high-tech warfare in the battlefields of the world, it is understandable that Pakistan's military is beginning to take it seriously. All three Pakistani military branches have sought to build UAV capabilities. The Army has considerably increased its UAV inventory; the Air Force has formed two UAV squadrons (with the intention of fielding up to six); and the Navy tested the Schiebel Camcopter S-100 rotary UAV from a frigate in March, Defense News reports. Karachi-based Integrated Dynamics, the designer and manufacturer of drones for Pakistan Army and Air Force, actually exports its Border Eagle surveillance drone to the United States for border patrol duties. The company also makes drones for the turbojet-powered Tornado decoy, which can fly up to 200 kilometers, and emit false radar signals to confuse enemy air defenses into thinking they are attacking aircraft.
Pakistan's traditional rival India is pursuing relationships with Israel and UK to acquire UAVs. All of India's current UAV needs are met by Israel, and this partnership will ensure that will continue to be the case for at least the near future.
Related Links:
Pakistani Drones in America
Mockery of Pakistani Sovereignty
India, Israel UAV Partnership
New York Times
India's UAV Technology Center
NPR Radio
Electronic Warfare
Wargames
America's High-tech Warfare
It's not Your Father's Military
Pakistan Police: Good Cop? Bad Cop?
11 hours ago
5 comments:
Here's an CNN-IBN online poll result of its Indian audience:
Is Israel a role model for India when it comes to security?
Yes: 59 per cent
No: 41 per cent
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/war-on-terror-israels-the-way-to-go-with-pak/82023-3-single.html
This poll confirms my earlier post about India's middle class demanding India "do a Lebanon" in Pakistan.
Comment received via email:
Dear Riaz,
Good thinking.
It is not like Pakistan had an option -- with not much money left to buy real fighter planes, and with all Pakistani airforce pilots too busy land-grabbing in Karachi and elsewhere, thus having no time to train for combat action, drones are the way to go.
In fact the Pakistani army should be entirely replaced by walking drones. There will soon be a couple of Unmanned Army Brigades (UAB).
Integrated Dynamics is exporting also to Italy, Spain and other countries. Their technology is all based on Chinese components and integration work is done in Karachi with significant electronic design and testing, which is not a small feat, as we both know.
Keep up the good work.
Shams
Shams,
Along with the high-tech robotics, you still need significant human intelligence and well-trained special ops units to be effective.
In fact, that's where the US has been lacking, in addition to lack of political framework needed to win the war on terror.
Riaz
Here's a BBC report on the effectiveness of American predators:
The predator drone attack which killed two senior al-Qaeda operatives on New Year's day is the latest chapter in an intensive campaign by the US. Many in Washington believe it is having a significant impact on al-Qaeda and its ability to operate.
The two operatives killed in the most recent strike had both been wanted by the US for years.
"We believe strongly that Usama al-Kini and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan are in fact dead," a US counter-terrorism official told the BBC.
The men were killed by an unmanned Predator drone carrying Hellfire missiles, the latest strike in an intensifying campaign with around two dozen such attacks since last summer.
According to analysts, the campaign is the result of the lower degree of certainty required to launch missiles, and a decision to increase the number of strikes and widen the target set of what can be hit.
But it also thought to be the product of new technology being employed.
Last year I visited Creech air force base in Nevada, where the military drones are controlled from. The CIA drones used in attacking high profile al-Qaeda targets are controlled from a separate location.
Inside a ground control station, we saw grainy pictures beamed back from Afghanistan of a Taleban compound which the drone was preparing to fire on.
The drones have highly advanced sensor balls hanging out of their underbelly which can beam back pictures as well as provide other forms of data.
The drones offer other unique advantages, according to Colonel Chris Chambliss, in their ability to stay over a target and watch for a longer period than a manned flight.
"The weapons are the same that we carry on manned platforms so it's not the weapons per se but it's the persistence," he told me. "It's what we call the unblinking eye."
Security analysts believe the US may also be using new technology to track al-Qaeda leaders.
Considerable investment has gone into a programme looking at "Clandestine Tagging Tracking and Locating" technologies.
These allow individuals to be invisibly tagged and tracked or located at great distance by unique identifiers.
Together with more traditional methods like human intelligence and the tracking of communications, these technologies are thought to have been employed aggressively against al-Qaeda.
Most individual leaders are largely replaceable for al-Qaeda, apart from perhaps one or two who have particular expertise in developing unconventional weapons - men such as Abu Khabab Al-Masri who was reportedly killed by a strike last year.
According Israel's Haaretz newspaper, Iran is claiming building a UAV with 600 mile range.
A top Iranian defense official said Wednesday that the country has built an unmanned surveillance aircraft with a range of more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometers).
Deputy Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi told the semiofficial Fars news agency that he could not provide more details on what he called an important achievement.
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