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ABSTRACT
New technologies such as Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPVs) make it possible to remove human beings from direct involvement in combat. How will this evolving dynamic affect the practice and purposes of political violence? Will conflict become ‘costless’ in human terms as machines replace people on the front lines or will the logic of war continue to call for human sacrifice? While considerable attention has been devoted to the role of technology in transforming warfare, little is known about how new modes of combat will affect established motives for using force. I explore these political dimensions of new modes of conflict, drawing three basic conclusions. First, to the degree that substituting machines for humans lowers the costs for fighting, conflict will become more frequent, but less definitive. Second, in a reversal of previous trends, battlefield automation promises disproportionately to revitalise ground elements of military organisations. Finally, regrettably, new technologies should weaken inhibitions against targeting civilians.
Acknowledgements
Previous versions of this paper were presented at the Historical Analysis for Defence and Security Symposium (HADSS), run by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), Portsmouth, UK, 21–22 May 2014, and at the National Technological University, Singapore, 7 July 2014. I thank David Blagden, Michael C. Desch, Tanisha Fazal, Jon Lindsay and Joshua Rovner for comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 For details of the relevant technologies and various arguments about their effects, see Peter Singer, Wired for War (New York: Penguin 2009); Andrew Callam, ‘Drone Wars: Armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles’, International Affairs Review 18/3 (2010); Michael Mayer, ‘The New Killer Drones: Understanding the Strategic Implications of Next-Generation Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles’, International Affairs 91/4 (2015), 765–80; Matthew Fuhrmann and Michael C. Horowitz, ‘Droning On: Explaining the Proliferation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles’, International Organization 71/2 (2017), 397–418. For additional discussion of the literature on RPVs, see Ulrike Esther Franke, ‘Drones, Drone Strikes, and US Policy: The Politics of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles’, Parameters 44/1 (2014), 121–30. The ethics of drone usage has received considerable attention elsewhere. See, for example, Michael N. Schmitt and Jeffrey S. Thurnher, ‘Out of the Loop: Autonomous Weapons Systems and the Law of Armed Conflict’, Harvard National Security Journal 4 (2012), 231; Rebecca Crootof, ‘The Killer Robots Are Here: Legal and Policy Implications’, Cardozo Law Review 36 (2014), 1837; James Igoe Walsh and M. Schulzke, The Ethics of Drone Strikes: Does Reducing the Cost of Conflict Encourage War? (Carlyle Barracks: The Army War College 2015); James Igoe Walsh, ‘Precision Weapons, Civilian Casualties, and Support for the Use of Force’, Political Psychology (2015).
2 Thomas Rid, ‘Cyber War Will Not Take Place’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 35/1 (2012), 5–32, argues that at least one technological conflict domain cannot support genuine warfare.
3 Definitional debates in the social sciences can be fractious and unproductive, perhaps because the definitions themselves are notional constructs. Social concepts are whatever humans deem them to be. Definitions of social phenomena are then more about convenience or consensus, or indeed politics and power, than about perspicacity.
4 See, Manuel De Landa, War in the Age of Intelligent Machines (New York: Zone 1991); Brian Glyn Williams, ‘The CIA’s Covert Predator Drone War in Pakistan, 2004–2010: The History of an Assassination Campaign’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 33/10 (2010), 871–92; Medea Benjamin, Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control (New York: OR Books 2012).
5 ‘The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.’ Hannah Arendt, On Violence (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co 1970), 5.
6 Perhaps due to its normative appeal, positive peace is often conceived of as more energised and activistic than negative peace. Technically, positive peace is simply the absence of motives for war. Thus negative peace would seem to be the more dynamic process, since incentives to fight must somehow constantly be countered or held in check.
7 Erik Gartzke, ‘Globalization, Economic Development, and Territorial Conflict’, in Miles Kahler and Barbara Walter (ed.), Territoriality and Conflict in an Era of Globalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006), 156–86; Erik Gartzke and Dominic Rohner, ‘To Conquer or Compel: Economic Development and Interstate Conflict’, University of California, San Diego and the University of York, 2009. Typescript.
8 See, for example, John A. Vasquez, The War Puzzle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1993).
9 The classic account is offered in Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War (New York: Free Press 1973).
10 James D. Fearon, ‘Rationalist Explanations for War’, International Organization 49/3 (1995), 379–414.
11 It has been argued that religion can create an important basis for indivisibilities. For a discussion, see Ron Hassner, War on Sacred Grounds (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2009).
12 Robert Powell, In the Shadow of Power: States and Strategies in International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1999).
13 For additional discussion of optimism versus uncertainty, see Mark Fey and Kristopher W. Ramsay, ‘Mutual Optimism and War’, American Journal of Political Science 51/4 (2007), 738–54.
14 Star Trek, episode 23, ‘A Taste of Armageddon,’ first broadcast on February 23, 1967 (suggested by anonymous).
15 The prospect for conflict rises as the stakes or ‘shadow’ of future payoffs increase. Cooperation is more difficult in situations where agreements determine a long stream of large costs or benefits. See, James D. Fearon, ‘Bargaining, Enforcement, and International Cooperation’, International Organization 52/2 (1998), 269–305. Also see Barbara Koremenos, ‘Contracting around International Uncertainty’, American Political Science Review 99/4 (2005), 549–65, for additional discussion of cooperation problems regarding international institutions.
16 Sam Cohen, Shame: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb 3rd ed (Xlibris 2005), 95. ‘Ideally [Cohen] wanted to reduce blast damage to zero, to eliminate the whole-sale demolition of civilian housing, services, and amenities that he had witnessed in Seoul. He saw a way to achieve this if a fusion reaction released almost all of its energy as radiation. … The bomb would still kill people – but this was the purpose of all weapons. … everyone would benefit if the weapons minimised pain and suffering while ending the conflict as rapidly as possible’ Charles Platt, ‘The Profits of Fear’, 2005. Published online by Boing Boing. http://boingboing.net/profits of fear.html, p. 8.
17 Cohen, Shame: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb, 14.
18 China, India and Pakistan, all developing countries with nuclear capabilities, appear to have adopted ER weapons.
19 Cobden, Richard. 1903 [1867]. Political Writings of Richard Cobden. Vol. I London: T. Fisher Unwin, page 355.
20 John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press 2005).
21 Francis J. Gavin, Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America’s Atomic Age (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2012).
22 One is reminded of General `Buck’ Turgidson in the movie Dr. Strangelove, who promises limited casualties in the event of nuclear war: ‘no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.’
23 See, John B. Alexander, Future War: Non-Lethal Weapons in Twenty-first Century Warfare (London: Macmillan 2000); Neil Davison, ed, Non-lethal Weapons (London: Palgrave MacMillan 2009).
24 Adversaries have repatriated soldiers during wartime. However, the practice is unstable. It is tempting to ensure that returnees are no longer militarily useful, either by obtaining a parole or by repatriating only injured soldiers.
25 There remain a number of more subjective factors affecting the decision to go to war, including the effect of fighting on social standing (‘taboos’), international law, coalition formation (i.e., balancing), and risk orientation.
26 See, Lisa J. Carlson, ‘A Theory of Escalation and International Conflict’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 39/3 (1995), 511–34.
27 Partial automation of combat has been evolving for quite some time. For example, the Wehrmacht deployed the Goliath tracked land mine carrier in 1940. The device, which was remotely controlled and expendable, was intended to carry an explosive charge to targets like enemy tanks or armoured defensive emplacements, such as bunkers, etc.
28 For an analysis of one-sided automated combat, see James Igoe Walsh and Erik Gartzke, ‘The Drawbacks of Drones: The Effects of UAVs on Militant Violence in Pakistan’, University of California, 2019. Typescript.
29 This has been examined extensively elsewhere. See, for example, Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler, War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1993); Singer, Wired for War.
30 Michael Horowitz, The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2010).
31 Gartzke, ‘Globalization, Economic Development, and Territorial Conflict’; Gartzke and Rohner, ‘To Conquer or Compel: Economic Development and Interstate Conflict’.
32 Note that what appears on its face to be a neutral ethical position, prohibitions against the targeting of civilians, has the effect of favouring the capable and more technologically advanced over the more backward or weaker. Unless the allocation of technology reflects some moral ‘oughtness,’ we have a classic tension between ‘might’ and ‘right.’ Indeed, what may appear to be natural or innate ethical values may well be the product of technological evolution and strategic action. Moral and immoral killing are strategic variables that can determine winners and losers.
33 Mao Zedong, On Guerrilla Warfare (New York: Praeger 1961). Note that the Borg, another element of the Star Trek franchise, capture this logic flawlessly. ‘Resistance is futile’ will in effect become the rally cry of technological powers. Robots will become cheap, while defeating them will not often yield victory.
34 Andrew F. Krepinevich, ‘Cavalry to Computer’, The National Interest, 37 1994, pp. 30–42.
35 Less technological combatants face multiple opponents with different technologies. Drones are proving effective in part because insurgents continue to need to engage local opponents through more traditional modes of warfare.
36 See, for example, Anne Deighton, The Impossible Peace: Britain, the Divison of Germany, and the Origins of the Cold War (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1993); Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2005); Megan Kate Nelson, Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Cvil War (Atlanta, GA: University of Georgia Press 2012).
37 Technically, the losing side should concede when it understands that an adversary is willing to impose sufficient costs to force the loser to concede eventually, whether or not the additional level/intensity of fighting actually occurs.
38 See, for example, Michael S. Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 1987); Ronald Schaffer, Wings of Judgement: American Bombing in World War II (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1988); Conrad C. Crane, Bombs, Cities, and Civilians: American Airpower Strategy in World War II (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas 1993).
39 Plans for the invasion of Japan were well advanced by the Summer of 1945, an expensive and fruitless effort if US officials anticipated the end of the war by other means. Norman Polmar and T.B. Allen, Code Name Downfall: The Secret Plan to Invade Japan and Why Truman Dropped the Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster 1995); Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (New York: Random House 1999).
40 See, for example, Robert K. Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany and the Winning of the Great War at Sea (New York: Random House 2007); Paul Halpern, A Naval History of World War I (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press 2012); Paul Kennedy, The War Plans of the Great Powers (RLE The First World War): 1880–1914 (London: Routledge 2014).
41 De Landa, War in the Age of Intelligent Machines; Singer, Wired for War; Benjamin, Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.
42 Nazli Choucri and Robert C. North, ‘Dynamics of International Conflict: Some Policy Implications of Population, Resources, and Technology’, World Politics 24/1 (1972), 80–122; Daniel R. Headrick, The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1981); William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since A.D. 1000 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1984); Martin van Creveld, Technology and War: From 2000 B.C. to the Present (New York: Free Press 1989); Emily O. Goldman and Leslie C. Eliason, eds, The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2003); Kier A. Lieber, War and the Engineers: The Primacy of Politics over Technology (Cornell University Press 2005).
43 See, Erik Gartzke and Dominic Rohner, ‘The Political Economy of Imperialism, Decolonization, and Development’, British Journal of Political Science 41/3 (2011), 525–56.
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Erik Gartzke
Erik Gartzke is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Peace and Security Studies (cPASS) at the University of California, San Diego, where he has been a member of the research faculty since 2007. Previous permanent faculty positions include Columbia University in the City of New York (2000 to 2007) and the Pennsylvania State University (1997 to 2000). He has held temporary positions at Dartmouth University, the Ecole des Affaires Internationales (Sciences Po), the Naval Postgraduate School, UC Santa Barbara and at the University of Essex. Dr. Gartzke received a PhD in Political Science from the University of Iowa in 1997. Professor Gartzke’s research focuses on war, peace and international institutions. His interests include deterrence, nuclear security, the liberal peace, alliances, information and war, cyberwar, and the evolving technological nature of interstate conflict. He has written on the effects of global commerce, development, system structure and climate change on warfare. Recent studies include the role of military automation on patterns of conflict, cross-domain deterrence and research contributing to the intellectual foundations of cyber conflict. Professor Gartzke’s research appears in numerous academic journals, including the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the British Journal of Political Science, International Organization, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Politics, Security Studies, World Politics, and elsewhere.