Threatening proliferation

India has had its maiden glimpse of a drone weapon piercing its security apparatus and launching an attack on its Air Force base in Jammu and Kashmir. The attack rings a bell of alarm as very simple and low-cost drones may have been used to drop a heavy load of explosives. The real threat arises from three factors — easy affordability, non-traceability and the stealthy nature of drones. The incident has stirred a debate as to whether the country is prepared enough to brace drone attacks that seem very much a part of future weaponry composition.

Apart from being a concerning issue, droning is also a matter of intrigue for many. Violence, after all, is an inherent human impulse and weapons and their changing forms have always fascinated us. The use of weapons involves two actors — the one who launches the attack and the other who defends or embraces it. Being in any of the two roles, it is important to understand the nature of this evolving weapon or weapon carrier.

There is much to learn from observations as drones have been used worldwide for the past few decades. Both the state actors and non-state actors have been deploying and evolving the warfare technique. The threat is further magnified as defence experts around the world confirm that the technical efficiency of drones could be coupled with human-like intelligence through the use of Artificial Intelligence. As the UN secretary-general, António Guterres puts it: "The prospect of machines with the discretion and power to take human life is morally repugnant." As countries around the world are investing millions of dollars in this area, India cannot afford to lag behind; building its own capacity and also the defence framework against the imminent threat is of critical importance. This brings us to the question of the business and costs involved in it which should guide us as to what extent the investment has to be done and in what direction.

The ethical and moral aspects involved in the use of drone weapons requires a thorough assessment. All these aspects bring us to retrospection where we stand in the arena of drone warfare, given the nearly absent history we have in this regard.

What is drone warfare?

Drones are a cheap piloting technology that are remotely controlled by some agent, say humans. Technically termed as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, these find application in a variety of areas, including delivery of vital products. Some of the e-commerce companies are even figuring out ways to use drones for the commercial delivery of their products.

Towards the end of the 20th century, drones found a new application of military surveillance — pioneered by the United States against Serbia. These drones called Gnat (later renamed as Predator) had the capacity to loiter in the year for around 12 hours and collect information. This primary use of drones was defined by the acronym ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance). After the 9/11 attacks, the use of drones by the US for targeted killing started — primarily targeting the Taliban and the Al Qaida. The US made some failed attempts to target the leaders of these outfits. Since then, the United States remains the largest player in the drone warfare scenario with the number of target nations/regions increasing over time — Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq etc. As time progressed, more nations joined the fray. At present, Besides the US, countries like the United Kingdom, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia have emerged as significant players. Turkey's innovative venture in the development of drones equipped with laser-guided missiles — Bayraktar TB2 — proved its utility in the Syria War where it was a major weapon of the government against rebel leader Khalifa Haftar. Israel too has dominated its rivals by inundating them with its frequent Kamikaze drone attacks.

The increased use of drones by more nations is coupled with the advent of more sophisticated technological advances and the ever-evolving approach towards the use of drones. They have come a long way from surveillance to singular strikes and then to mass strikes. Now, comes the evolutionary leap in the form of drone swarming. In this AI-based warfare technique, a large cluster of drones not just hover over the targeted area at a particular time, they also coordinate among themselves. Human intervention is minimal and AI rules the roost. The drones are fed about the specification of their targets, and they can change their strategies as humans do. The only difference — which is perhaps most significant— is that they have much higher efficiency than humans and they can cause multiple-fold damages as compared to humans. The United States also uses satellite technology in its operations.

Ethical issues

The idea of launching attacks on the adversary sitting thousands of miles away in one's own land may certainly sound fascinating. But this remote nature of drone swarming also triggers the questions of ethical morality. Not everything seems to be fair in this war!

The United States has been using sophisticated drone warfare technology in pursuance of its war on terror. In the process of targeting specific individuals and outfits located in a particular region, it is known that the US has ended up killing a large number of civilians. According to a research conducted by Reprieve in 2014 "in attempts to kill 41 individuals, the US killed as many as 1,147 other people and that on average the high-value targets died three times".

These findings reflect the inaccuracy factors inherent in drone attacks. Moreover, strong state actors are well equipped to nullify a large part of the drone attacks through their anti-drone technologies but this does not hold true for unarmed civilians. They have to bear the brunt in any case.

Large-scale inconsistencies in the tracking and identification of targets have been found. As the process goes, specific regions within a particular time frame are identified where the target adversaries are likely to assemble. This could lead to erroneous calculations — and a single miscalculation could mean the loss of many innocent lives. Further, the approach adopted to kill the target involves launching repeated strikes — amplifying the damage multiple folds.

There have been revelations of 'kill list' prepared by various other countries including the UK as a part of their counter-terrorism mission. These missions have not to be reckless and accomplished at the cost of innocent lives, compromising the ethical and moral standards.

The future

In fact, the present. Drone warfare has already become part of the military action of major superpowers and also some smaller countries. It is another thing that India has been largely inert to these developments until now. But how long? The Jammu attack already seems to have signalled a change.

The fact that drone technology has seen massive amounts of investment by some of the military and economic superpowers makes it seem improbable that those will turn their paths around. And since war always involves at least two parties, the countries or non-state actors they will engage with, will also be forced to build up their capacity in this direction. In plain and simple terms, there is no looking back. India too will have to ramp up its drone warfare technologies to remain in the race.

At the same time, keeping in view a large number of civilian lives lost, there has to be an international regulation around the issue. Human rights groups and activists are pushing for an international treaty in this regard. This could be a good initiative as advanced drone warfare is still in its evolutionary phase and the direction it will take is yet to be ascertained.

The countries that have already made leaps in drone warfare technologies are certainly opposing any such treaty. But it has to be understood that without concrete regulations and treaties, drone warfare will remain a grey area — used ambiguously and in an unabated manner with concealed information about civilian losses.

The future of battles in the form of advanced drone warfare seems inevitable. The countries should certainly build up their capacities — as they are already in the race. At the same time, this has to be made safe and not reckless. India perhaps has the opportunity to take a leadership role in this direction also — given the strong legacy it holds in the realm of peace. Let war and peace go hand in hand.

The big business

Apart from being an important military warfare technique, drones are also a part of big business. Either a country wishes to dominate the emerging warfare zone or is concerned with its own security against these drone attacks, a large sum of investment is imperative.

The major players in the business of weaponized drones are the United States, the United Kingdom, China and Israel. Among these, China has been a late entrant. It started making and exporting weaponized drones only after 2011. The country, however, has managed to reach the helm over the past decade. As per a 2020 report by Sweden-based Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China has delivered 220 combat drones to 16 countries over the last decade. A large part of its combat drones went to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Pakistan follows at the third spot. These three countries alone receive around a quarter of drone supplies from China. Other countries receiving the supply include Sudan, Nigeria, Serbia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Indonesia etc.

The drone supplies from China very much define the landscape of drone warfare in the middle-east. The reason is that the US has largely kept itself constrained from exporting its drones in the region. In fact, the US supplies were largely limited to its allies like the United Kingdom and Spain — that too in almost negligible amounts as compared to China. It is possible that the US was concerned about the misuse of drones by bad players or it did not want the technology to go into the hands of its competitors. The US has however recently opened up to the UAE after its normalisation of ties with Israel. But given the fact that China is selling cheaper and advanced combat drones to the UAE in large quantities, why shall the country go for the US drones that are almost 4 times costlier.

The major drones supplied by China Include Cai Hong and Wing Loong series. While Cai Hong has been supplied to countries like Jordan, Egypt, Iran and Nigeria, the Wing Loong series was extensively used in the Libya war to assist Haftar's Libyan National Army against the Government of National Accord. The drones supplied by the US on other hand include Predator, the unarmed UAVs and Reaper, the armed UAVs.

The cost of Cai Hong CH4 is estimated at around USD four million while that of the Reaper is around USD 16 million. Apart from the cost factor, the US drones while being more efficient in terms of operation fall behind on the parameters of upgradation. Its Reaper drones are still meant for non-contested skies, largely limiting its scope. It is pertinent to note that, unlike the USA, China is not a signatory to the 1987 MTCR which places restrictions on supplies of Category 1 systems. China offers its drones with lenient conditions of usage, making it an attractive supplier.

The most important question here is that if a country, say India, invests heavily in importing these drone weapons and anti-drone combatant techniques, how immune could it be from the threat presented by its rivals or terror groups? The answer is very complex. In response to the heavy investment made by nations, terror outfits are using low-cost easily available drones that can carry significant amounts of explosives. Even if a country uses its highly expensive combat mechanism to nullify those cheap attacks, it would mean a huge financial loss. Countries including India should play their cards very cautiously while investing. There is always a risk of falling prey to huge and ill-defined markets!

Conclusion

The use of drones for military purposes was initiated by big countries, particularly the US. The role of these drones upgraded from that of a surveillance tool to a weapon carrier that can potentially drop explosives at targeted areas. From its initial usage in the mid-1990s to the present day, drone use in the military has gone through two very significant changes — 1) it has become a commonplace due to reduced costs; and 2) the use of Artificial Intelligence and other advanced technologies that have made drone swarming a threatening reality. The largely unregulated zone is reported to be being used recklessly — often costing the lives of unarmed innocent civilians as the accuracy of the drone attacks is limited. There has emerged a need not just to put in stringent regulations through international treaties but to also establish norms governed by ethics. This will be a challenging task since a significant number of countries have already invested in the technology. There is no retreat from here because non-state actors including terrorist groups are also using cheaper versions of drone weapons, and they are unlikely to give up. The new war and peace mechanism has to be drawn.

Views expressed are personal