A Russian fighter jet severely damaged an American drone within the skies over Syria earlier this month, marking the second such incident this 12 months. The fighter released a stream of burning hot flares in the trail of an unmanned MQ-9 Reaper, indicating how automatic, push-button warfare can make it easier to open fire on a goal—and potentially dramatically increase the chances an armed incident could spiral uncontrolled.
So, we asked an authority to weigh in: is drone warfare becoming too very similar to a video game, psychologically removing soldiers from their actions? Or is it an example of technology’s ability to scale back human casualties?
A Campaign of Harassment
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The incident took place over Syria, where the MQ-9 Reaper was performing overwatch duties for U.S. troops participating in Operation Inherent Resolve. Because the video above shows, the Su-35 Flanker-E fighter jet approached the unmanned drone from the rear and accelerated in front of it. Once in front of the drone, it released a stream of anti-missile flares. The new-burning flares, designed to lure away infrared guided missiles, “severely damaged” the Reaper’s rotors. Despite the damage, the drone was in a position to safely land.
The multi-role Su-35S, Russia’s newest operational fighter jet, was also carrying a pair of Vympel NPO R-77 long-range air-to-air missiles, as shown within the video still (below). The R-77 is roughly similar to the American AIM-120 AMRAAM missile. The aircraft was also carrying a pair of unidentified missiles on its wingtips, locations typically reserved for the R-73 infrared guided missile. The R-73 is roughly similar to the American AIM-9X Sidewinder missile.
Low Escalation Risk
The Pentagon’s fleet of surveillance drones has taken a beating. In 2019, Iranian air defense shot down an RQ-4 Global Hawk drone operating in international airspace. In March 2023, a pair of Su-27 Flanker fighters flew past one other MQ-9 Reaper over the Black Sea. One in all the Su-27s unintentionally clipped the Reaper’s propeller, damaging it to the extent it needed to be intentionally crashed.
Russia is bullying U.S. drones where it might probably find them, and is doing so in retaliation for America supporting Ukraine. In a broader sense, nevertheless, Russia is doing it because America can shrug off the shootdown of a drone—no humans are endangered, in any case.
“An MQ-9 Reaper doesn’t have a mom or a dad. It doesn’t go to high school, play video games, or prefer Domino’s to Pizza Hut. It’s a drone,” Zachary Kallenborn, a drone expert, tells Popular Mechanics. “If a state loses a drone, there isn’t a great public outcry to rescue a lost brother or sister. So, drones are each easier to deploy and easier to destroy.”
Push-Button Warfare
In the trendy world, death is handled the flip of a switch or the press of a button. The weapon system—be it a missile, remote-controlled gun, or drone—then opens fire on the goal, eliminating it. That’s a far cry from warfare during most of human history, when killing involved cutting, smashing, or pounding the enemy together with your bare hands.
Once humans began using tools, the tools became more sophisticated, and the killing became more faraway from the killer. It’s easier to tug the trigger of a gun than to swing a knife, and it’s easier to press a button than it’s to tug a trigger. The operators of armed drones are much more faraway from the motion; in Afghanistan, drones just like the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper were often operated from as far-off as Nevada, hundreds of miles from the combat zone. But does that physical distance translate into psychological distance?
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“The psychological implications of drone warfare are removed from clear, and hotly contested,” Kallenborn explains. “Although various academics argue drones turn war right into a video game where soldiers kill easily without connection to the lives lost, other research, particularly recent studies, show drone operators are sometimes more connected to realities on the bottom.
“Soldiers change into soldiers to guard and serve,” Kallenborn continues. “Their training and experiences should, and infrequently do, encourage them to attach with the soldiers around them. Watching your buddy from boot camp risk their life in a war zone hundreds of miles away might connect drone operators more on to the lives lost and saved—in comparison with, say, an artillery operator in theater who could also be physically near the motion, but has no technique to see the outcomes of their shell blasting apart an enemy position.”
Distant-controlled warfare extends beyond armed drones. This summer, in the course of the Wagner revolt against Moscow, the mercenary group emphatically stated it didn’t wish to open fire on Russian troops manning checkpoints. There was no direct Russian-on-Russian ground fighting. Wagner troops did, nevertheless, open fire on Russian aircraft, shooting down seven helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, killing a complete of 29 air crew.
Although there was no public explanation for the aircraft shootdowns, one theory is that it’s easier to see an airplane as, well, an airplane, and judge to shoot it down, fairly than consider the people inside. The choice to kill is much more removed when the airplane is a mere radar track on a pc screen.
The Takeaway
Nations can take risks with unmanned aircraft, like drones, they will’t take with manned aircraft. That cuts each ways, though, as adversaries usually tend to open fire on unmanned aerial vehicles. But, because the Wagner mutiny might show, even vehicles with humans inside will be psychologically easier to fireplace on if technology reduces them to targets.