We all joke that one day we will be replaced by robots and computers at our jobs. But what about replacing soldiers from war with unmanned aircraft? One of the planes, called Switchblade , was built by California-based AeroVironment . The small plane is remote-controlled with the ability to direct it right from any Army base. (There was also testing of non-remote-controlled unmanned vehicles but found that it is more difficult with obstacles on the ground). The military is able to use soldiers from basic training to control the plane, instead of spending time and money on training pilots.
According to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) , the agency plans to have one third of the Air Force unmanned by 2010 and removing a third of the soldier’s from the Army’s grounded vehicles by 2015. So regardless of your standpoint on the war, we can hopefully at least agree that we want our soldiers to be safe and unharmed. So replacing soldiers with unmanned aircrafts should be a good thing, right?
There have been some reports of civilian deaths due to the unmanned airplanes, but the Air Force insists that the planes check the targets, just like regular pilots would do. Also, there have been other reports of many of the unmanned planes crashing. But both are just a part of the trial and error process.
However, how much can we trust technology to work all the time? Just think about simple technology used in our everyday lives and how often it doesn’t work. How reliant can we be on the unmanned planes to work all the time and accurately? One might say that technology used in the military is so advanced that it would never break down or malfunction. But think about the situations these planes will be involved in. How could we not imagine they might crash or malfunction (with or without a pilot)?
We have to remember, that even though the planes may not be reliable, they could possibly save many lives. But to have it done within two to seven years may be asking too much. Are we really ready to fight a war without soldiers?
