Do robotic planes and other things that kill at a distance make it too easy to kill?

They may make it too difficult to avoid “collateral damage” (that is MilSpeak for dead civilians.)

That’s an excellent question. I’m sure it’s designed to be that way. The last thing the military wants is a gun shy soldier. By making it more like a video game they can make it “fun,” don’t you think?

McChrystal has put the kibosh on drones in Afghanistan, because he doesn’t want civilians to be killed every time we think a high-end target is hiding in a house.

For more on the subject, The New Yorker has a thorough look at US drone warfare in the Oct 26th issue. It’s on newsstands now or you can buy it online for $4.99.

The author, Jane Mayer, was interviewed last week on Fresh Air. The free audio is online.

I don’t know about less difficult however it makes it more expensive.

I agree with @AstroChuck . This is ”..an excellent question..”.
And very well put.

It’s unsettling to know that people can be killed so easily.

When guerrilla war was fought by the American colonists against the Imperial British Army. It was considered “unsportsman-like,” if not “uncivilized” by the British.

When it comes to war the only value to life is your own. You will do what ever it takes to come home in one piece.

The military will always look for ways to make waging war killing easier.

Here’s a book that a former Flutherer used to tout frequently as a definitive work on the subject. It examines factors that led to a much improve willingness to fire among soldiers of the Vietnam conflict vs. WWII and prior wars.

Not only does it detach the soldier from the kill, it has the potential to detach society from the war. In the past, going to war was a politically loaded decision that required the widespread support from the population; the deaths of soldiers packs a powerful emotional punch that must be countered by belief in the cause. When money replaces people as the primary casualty on our side of the fight, there will be much less need for that emotional support, and it will be much easier for the government to go to war for its own interests. Because we all know that a good portion of our society doesn’t really give a fuck about the people we gun down, so long as no one with American citizenship gets hurt.

I’m not so sure. Our society seems positively squeamish compared to ones back in the day that had to do the deed up close and personal with length of sharpened metal.

@ChazMaz The point is that you don’t have to leave home to fight a robotic war. There will be no question about coming home in one piece. Doesn’t that make it a hell of a lot easier to pull a trigger? Your enemy won’t even know who pulled the trigger.

As @Jayne said, there are consequences to being “unsporting” about how you fight. When it’s real easy to pull a trigger, you can get a whole lot more collateral damage. Also, you may start pulling it just in case it’s a bad guy, without really checking if it is, indeed, a bad guy.

When you are remote, you feel invulnerable, and that can cause you to make stupid decisions. For example, the US has given Pakistan the right to select targets. We don’t check on their targets, we just shoot them. This lets us be manipulated. Also, when we kill a lot of civilians, we start creating further opposition. We become a faceless, inhuman enemy. Some would argue that we are doing more to create terrorists than we are doing to stop terrorism.

Personally, I think robotic warfare makes killing seem less like killing. It reduces the consequences and it makes it difficult to believe you are actually killing people. I suppose air force pilots have felt like this for a very long time, as do those who shoot off mortars or missiles at an enemy too far away to be seen. I think this is very dangerous. We need to humanize war, not dehumanize it. We need to make the cost of killing higher, not lower. We need to learn to use humanistic solutions, not video game solutions. If we don’t, we will only create more and more terrorists. For every terrorist killed, ten more will spring up in their place. Not good.

Even better, make it so when the coffee maker goes on the deed is done.
Don’t want to be late for work. :-)

The point I was trying to make is. Robotic warfare is just 21st century gorilla warfare.
They faced the same dilemma back then. They also saw the new techniques and technologies of killing their adversary as being “detached” from the battle.