https://airminded.org/2023/10/10/the-year-of-reading-airmindedly-xii/ ( )

I'm not a fan of the military-industrial complex, and this entertaining, insightful, and well-sourced book only deepens my disgust over the way the people involved treat innocent lives in the face of money to be made. What really surprised me was the amount of goofy fuck-ups and the straight up ignorance to facts displayed by many of them. If you wonder why anti-American groups in certain parts of the world have such an easy time convincing people that the U.S. are the bad guys, read this book. You may get a few hints. ( )

In “Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins”, author Andrew Cockburn provides a cogent counter argument to the belief that our military drones are typically deployed with near absolute precision. He explains that the technology isn't nearly as good as we'd imagined, and individuals "flying" and "targeting" aren't seeing things on the ground as clearly as advertised.

Bad intelligence often leads to killing the wrong party. To the eyes in the sky, any male 13 years old and above, or any male carrying an AK-47 is a terrorist. But in that part of the world, going out without a weapon is like going out without your wallet in the U.S. So in post event analysis, even if the wrong party is killed, after-bombing review still classifies the targeted individuals "terrorists" because they often can find a weapon in the debris. So accuracy counts and civilian deaths are often distorted.

Cockburn goes on to show the limits of targeting High Value Individuals. In more cases than not, it is often counterproductive. It often compared to "Mowing the Lawn". When some terrorist leaders appear to rise among the followers, they can be identified and mowed down, but new leaders just grow back. And they’re usually younger, more militant, less disciplined, and more "macho", making the situation worse. This is especially true if collateral damage is involved in the initial strike. Over ten years ago, Donald Rumsfeld asked ‘Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?” Cockburn makes the point that the drone program appears to make the answer to Rumsfeld’s question a big “no”. The constant deployment of drone’s just makes that many more terrorists, and it has become one of the greatest recruiting tool for the terrorists.

The question of drone use under International Law is also touched upon. But as Cockburn mentions,
International Law evolves as countries violate it. Targeted assassinations by Israel following the Munich Olympics massacre were initially condemned, but now it has become something of a common practice. Gradually, as practices evolve, what was once forbidden becomes accepted under International Law.

Cockburn also details the expense and waste associated with the program. As is true in other Pentagon program, even drones the military doesn't want, can't use, and don't work get funded by some influential congressman or senator. Talk about wasteful spending.

This book may pair well with Thomas Jefferson School of Law Professor Marjorie Cohn's recent book "Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues", which I plan on reading soon.
( )

An interesting contribution to the discussion around the Third Offset and the question of how (not if) humans will partner with machines on the battlefield. Drones are not a new concept, despite what some publications will lead you to believe, but a long-term issue that the military and the defense industry have been working on. As we rely more and more on machines, it's critical that we understand when they are a good resource and when they are not, and just how reliable they really are. Short of that, we're building a partnership in the dark, which will end just as poorly for us as it will for our enemies.

From WWII to Afghanistan, Cockburn documents the desire for and attempted implementation of a system that can remotely conduct surveillance and remove targets with "pinpoint accuracy". Also discusses the shift in accepted warfare tactics that is driving drone technology. Insanely interesting and nauseating read on the failure of "targeted killing" (government sponsored assassination) and the machinery that, in practice, is prohibitively inferior to soldiers on the ground/in the air. Cannot handle the ludicrous amount of inefficiency the military-industrial complex propagates. "The goal may have been impossible, but the attempts were very profitable." ( )