Unmanned: Drones, Data, and the Illusion of Perfect Warfare

by William M. Arkin

  27. The payload on Predator, the black box, was the MX-14 Wescam, a stabilized gimbal (or sensor ball) turret slung underneath the chin and containing a visible color and infrared video camera. Predator delivered daylight and nighttime full-motion video (FMV). Additionally, Predator squeezed a form of compressed FMV into existing bandwidth—akin to the same signal going through a dial-up pipeline, as opposed to broadband. Before Predator, at least in the military, the norm for manned reconnaissance was 8-by-10-inch glossy images that took an hour or so to process and much longer to distribute. See Glenn Goodman, Evolving the Predator; Interview: Thomas J. Cassidy Jr, President and CEO General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance Journal, July 2004, p. 26.

  Motion imagery is defined as an imaging system that collects at a rate of one frame per second (1 Hz) or faster; DOD/IC//National System for Geospatial Intelligence, Motion Imagery Standards Board, Motion Imagery Standards Profile, Version 5.4, December 3, 2009.

  Full-motion imagery (FMV) refers to motion imagery at twenty-four frames per second or higher. This is generally considered the minimum frame rate required to appear fluid to the human eye. The Motion Imagery Standards Board notes that “Historically… FMV has been that subset of motion imagery at television-like frame rates (24–60 Hz)”; See Rand Corporation (Lance Menthe, Amado Cordova, Carl Rhodes, Rachel Costello, Jeffrey Sullivan), The Future of Air Force Motion Imagery Exploitation: Lessons from the Commercial World, 2012, p. 3, fn. 14. For background on FMV, see also the excellent paper by Lieutenant Colonel Mark A. Cooter, USAF, Airborne Armed Full Motion Video: The Nexus of Ops/Intel Integration in the Joint/Coalition Environment, Joint Forces Staff College, Joint Advanced Warfighting School, 25 May 2007.

  28. Glenn Goodman, Evolving the Predator; Interview: Thomas J. Cassidy Jr, President and CEO General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance Journal, July 2004, p. 26.

  29. Frank Strickland, “The Early Evolution of the Predator Drone,” Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Extracts, March 2013).

  30. Peter Finn, “Rise of the drone: From Calif. garage to multibillion-dollar defense industry,” Washington Post, December 23, 2011; www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/rise-of-the-drone-from-calif-garage-to-multibillion-dollar-defense-industry/2011/12/22/gIQACG8UEP_story.html (accessed February 19, 2014); Quoted in Ian Shaw, History of U.S. Drones: The Rise of the Predator Empire: Tracing the History of U.S. Drones, Understanding Empire (Blog), 2013; http://understandingempire.wordpress.com/2-0-a-brief-history-of-u-s-drones/ (accessed March 27, 2013).

  31. Lieutenant Colonel Richard L. Sargent, Chapter 8: Aircraft Used in Deliberate Force, p. 226; in Deliberate Force: A Case Study in Effective Air Campaigning.

  Major Mark Biwer, The Joint Broadcast Service Supporting Bosnia: Value to the Warrior and Lessons Learned, A Research Paper Presented to the Research Department, Air Command and Staff College, March 1997, gives specific examples of Predator’s use in Bosnia, see pp. 27–28.

  32. American Forces Press Service, Linda D. Kozaryn, Predators Bound for Bosnia, February 8, 1996.

  33. On August 11, 1995, Bosnian Serbs shot down one Predator. “The unlucky aircraft had descended to 4,000 feet to get beneath a cloud layer and had lingered in a valley for about an hour at the behest of commanders in Naples, Italy. Its loss was virtually inevitable. Another Predator crashed a few days later because its engine quit.” Rumor has it that the Bosnian Serb military was able to shoot down the Predator by firing a machine gun out the open side door of a helicopter.

  On August 14, 1995, technicians destroyed a second Predator when it developed engine problems and lost power over Bosnia.

  See Linda Shiner, “Predator: First Watch: Lesson learned: never send a man to do a machine’s job,” Air & Space magazine (Smithsonian), May 2001; James Risen and Ralph Vartabadian, “Spy plane woes create Bosnia intelligence gap,” Los Angeles Times, December 2, 1995; Larry Ernst, “Predator: our experience in Bosnia using UAVs in combat,” Proc. SPIE 2829 Airborne reconnaissance XX (131) (1996).

  34. Matt J. Martin with Charles W. Sasser, Predator, p. 24.

  35. “The RQ-1 is a remotely operated single engine propeller driven aircraft capable of speeds to 120 knots, altitudes to 25,000 feet, and airframe endurance in excess of 24 hours (clean). Takeoffs and landings utilize a forward mounted nose camera. The RQ-1 is the legacy airframe from which the MQ-1 was developed, and it lacks weaponized capability. All future procurements will be of the MQ-1 variant, and the RQ-1 will be phased out through attrition. The RQ-1 employs the Wescam 14 payload sensor and internal SAR with 0.3 meter resolution. The Wescam 14 employs EO and Medium Wave IR (MWIR) sensors. The RQ-1 is capable of performing limited Killer Scout and FAC(A) without laser designation capability. The RQ-1 employs a military standard (Mil Std) 1553 avionics bus”; ACC, Concept of Employment for the MQ-1 and MQ-9 Multi-role Endurance Remotely Operated Aircraft, 2 May 2002, FOUO (obtained by the author), p. 4.

  See also Major Christopher A. Jones, USAF; Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVS): An Assessment of Historical Operations and Future Possibilities; A Research Paper Presented to the Research Department, Air Command and Staff College, AU/ACSC/0230D/97-03, March 1997, pp. 32–33.

  36. See the criticisms leveled in Bosnia, in Whittle, in Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution (2014), pp. 113ff.

  37. See Rand, The Predator ACTD: A Case Study for Transition Planning to the Formal Acquisition Process, 1997, pp. 21–22.

  38. George Galdorisi, Robin Laird, and Rachel Volner, Taking the Next Step: From “Unmanned” to True Autonomy, Abstract for 17th ICCRTS, “Operationalizing C2 Agility,” US Navy, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) Pacific, p. 3.

  39. “The only cost figure the JPO [Joint Program Office] considered during the ACTD was associated with the aerial vehicle. The JPO estimated the flyaway target cost for the Predator in the $3–$3.5-million range. However, in April 1996, the Predator TIPT reported that the cost of a Predator system, including four aerial vehicles, a ground control station, one Trojan Spirit II system, operator training, and logistics support, was around $30 million. Prior to the release of this information, the air force… did not realize that significant life-cycle costs would be associated with the entire system.” See Rand, The Predator ACTD: A Case Study for Transition Planning to the Formal Acquisition Process, 1997, pp. 43–44.

  40. See Richard M. Clark, Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles: Airpower by the People, for the People, but Not with the People; A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the School of Advanced Airpower Studies, for Completion of Graduation Requirements, School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Air University, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, June 1999, p. 53.

  “Three Predators equipped with a color video camera and an electro-optical/infrared camera, conducted 128 missions each totaling 850 hours (and with 6.6 hours average endurance—more than double what the Pioneers averaged in Desert Storm)…. In November 1995, the Predators, still in limited supply, were fitted with synthetic aperture radars and redeployed to Bosnia to provide detailed radar images in adverse weather. By May 1998, Predators had logged more than 600 sorties and 3800 flying hours over Bosnia”; Christopher J. Bowie, Robert P. Haffa, Jr., and Robert E. Mullins; Future War: What Trends in America’s Post-Cold War Military Conflicts Tell Us About Early 21st Century Warfare, Northrop Grumman Analysis Center, 2003, pp. 55–56.

  41. Lieutenant Colonel Richard L. Sargent, Chapter 8: Aircraft Used in Deliberate Force, p. 228; in Deliberate Force: A Case Study in Effective Air Campaigning.

  42. DOD, UAV Annual Report FY 1996, 6 November 1996, p. 9.

  43. Bill Yenne, Attack of the Drones: A History of Unmanned Aerial Combat, p. 63.

  44. Major Christopher A. Jones, USAF; Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVS): An Assessment of Historical Operations and Future Possibilities; A Research Paper Presented to the Research Department, Air Command and Staff College, AU/ACSC/0230D/97-03, March 1997, p
p. 32–33.

  45. Whittle, Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution (2014), pp. 104, 114–115.

  46. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Richard H. Van Atta, Jack Nunn, Alethia Cook, and Ivars Gutmanis; in IDA, Transformation and Transition: DARPA’s Role in Fostering an Emerging Revolution in Military Affairs, Volume 2—Detailed Assessments, pp VI-21 to VI-22.

  47. Rand, The Predator ACTD: A Case Study for Transition Planning to the Formal Acquisition Process, 1997, p. 33.

  48. Houston R. Cantwell, Major, USAF, RADM Thomas J. Cassidy’s MQ-1 Predator: The USAF’s First UAV Success Story, Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama April 2006, p. 14.

  49. The impact of PowerPoint is still an issue today, at least with the wise guys of Washington. Robert Gates writes that PowerPoint briefings became “the bane of my existence in Pentagon meetings”; Duty, p. 82.

  CHAPTER FIVE Dialogue of the Deaf

  1. Quoted in JCS, Joint Publication 2-01, Doctrine for Joint and National Intelligence Support to Military Operations, October 7, 2004, p. III-27.

  2. In 1975 the idea of arming RPVs for strike operations was discussed in the final report of the Long Range Research and Development Planning Program. The LRRDPP’s employment concept was that armed RPVs would employ standoff precision munitions to penetrate enemy air defenses and, then, in the case of a major target such as an oil refinery, make a kamikaze strike against the facility; Barry D. Watts, The Evolution of Precision Strike, CSBA, 2013, pp. 17–18.

  3. Thomas P. Ehrhard, Air Force UAVs: The Secret History, p. 21.

  4. General Ronald Fogleman, who became chief of staff of the air force in 1994—mid-development of the Predator—made an argument that the UAV was all about the mission, neither technological determinism nor bureaucratic triumph. Even though the air force hadn’t looked at Predator in much detail, with the retirement of dedicated reconnaissance jets and a questionable future for the manned SR-71, and with oversubscribed national satellites capable of only episodic coverage of the battlefield, he personally pushed for the new loitering drones to fill the gap; Richard Whittle, Predator’s Big Safari, Mitchell Papers 7, August 2011, p. 9; Whittle, Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution (2014).

  Thomas P. Ehrhard, Air Force UAVs: The Secret History, pp. 50–51, makes a much more convincing institutional and opportunistic argument about the air force’s newfound enthusiasm after Bosnia.

  5. Quoted in Major Christopher A. Jones, USAF; Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): An Assessment of Historical Operations and Future Possibilities, Air Command and Staff College Research Paper, March 1997, p. 23.

  It is important to note that Predator can fly at 25,000 feet but actually flies most of its missions at 10,000 to 15,000 feet.

  6. In April 1996, Secretary of Defense William Perry stated, “The Predator has proved its ability to provide a significant and urgently needed reconnaissance capability in many mission areas and the continued participation of each Service must be maintained.” Quoted in Houston R. Cantwell, Major, USAF, RADM Thomas J. Cassidy’s MQ-1 Predator: The USAF’s First UAV Success Story, Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, April 2006, p. 14.

  7. Chris Bowie estimates that the United States had spent about $21 billion between 1950 and 1998 on unmanned aerial vehicles; Chris Bowie (then Northrop Grumman Analysis Center), PowerPoint Briefing, UAV Lessons Learned, 1950–2001, n.d. (Version 5, 2001).

  8. SAR sensors are different than passive electrooptical sensors that do not provide their own illumination.

  9. Kazuo Ouchi, “Review: Recent Trend and Advance of Synthetic Aperture Radar with Selected Topics,” Remote Sens. 2013, 5, pp. 716–807; ACC, Concept of Employment for the MQ-1 and MQ-9 Multi-role Endurance Remotely Operated Aircraft, 2 May 2002, FOUO (obtained by the author), p. 4; Robert Hendrix, “Aerospace System Improvements Enabled by Modern Phased Array Radar,” Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems, Baltimore, Maryland, October 2002; “Northrop Grumman Delivers First TUAVR Radars and Spares to the Army,” July 17, 2001; American Forces Press Service, Linda D. Kozaryn, Predators Bound for Bosnia, February 8, 1996.

  The AN/ZPQ-1 TESAR used a radar signal in the 10-20 GHz J-band. Strip map imaging observes terrain parallel to the flight path or along a specified ground path. Resolution depends on range and swath width. At ground speeds from 25 to 35 m/sec, the swath width is 800 meters. Spot map mode observes 800 x 800 meter and 2400 x 2400 meter tiles. In MTI mode, moving targets are overlaid on a digital map.

  “The TESAR [Tactical Endurance Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)] system uses four algorithms in its three-stage algorithmic approach to the detection and identification of targets in continuous real-time, 1-ft-resolution, strip SAR image data. The first stage employs a multitarget detector with a built-in natural/cultural false-alarm mitigator. The second stage provides target hypotheses for the candidate targets and refines their angular pose. The third stage, consisting of two template-based algorithms, produces final target-identification decisions”; Dalton S. Rosario, “End-to end performance of the TESAR ATR system,” Proc. SPIE 4053, Algorithms for Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery VII, 677 (August 24, 2000).

  10. David A. Fulghum, Washington; Global Hawk Crashes in UAE After Afghanistan Mission, Aviation Week & Space Technology, January 7, 2002.

  There was a major perception that the sensors were not operating as anticipated, due to lack of pilot experience, to poor visibility, and “to a misunderstanding of how imagery is collected and analyzed.” See Rand, The Predator ACTD: A Case Study for Transition Planning to the Formal Acquisition Process, 1997, pp. 24–25.

  11. Four NATO allies (France, Germany, Italy, and the UK) also flew their own new unmanned drones: Mirach, CL-289, Phoenix, and Crecerelle. See Air Force PowerPoint Briefing, U.S. Air Force Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Capt. Dan Callahan, Chief, UAV Operations, HQ AF/XOIRC, n.d. (2000); DOD/JCS, Joint Statement on the Kosovo After Action Review, 14 October 1999; Tony Capaccio, “JSTARS Led Most Lethal Attacks on Serbs,” Defense Week, July 6, 1999, p. 13.

  12. Hunter did as well. Pioneer and Crecerelle sent motion imagery back to a ground control station for processing and further distribution; the CL-289 and Phoenix transmitted infrared imagery to line of sight users.

  13. Whittle, Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution (2014), p. 131.

  14. Quoted in Christopher J. Bowie, Robert P. Haffa, Jr., and Robert E. Mullins; Future War: What Trends in America’s Post-Cold War Military Conflicts Tell Us About Early 21st Century Warfare, Northrop Grumman Analysis Center, 2003, pp. 55–56.

  15. Linda Shiner, “Predator: First Watch: Lesson learned: never send a man to do a machine’s job,” Air & Space magazine (Smithsonian), May 2001.

  16. As told in Major Houston R. Cantwell, USAF; Beyond Butterflies: Predator and the Evolution of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle in Air Force Culture; School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Air University, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, June 2007, p. 25. See also RAF, Air Power UAVs: The Wider Context, pp. 37–38; Richard Whittle, Predator’s Big Safari, Mitchell Papers 7, August 2011, p. 12.

  Many others would tell anecdotes reflecting the same or similar problems, perhaps also adding even a little antiunmanned bias: Lieutenant Colonel David Nichols, commander of the 510th Fighter Squadron at Aviano Air Base, Italy, during Allied Force, provided the following vignette on the use of the Predator UAV: “The Predator would give us an 8 by 10 picture of a tank. We would ask ‘Where is it?’ And they would say ‘Well, it’s in Serbia!’…. pilots and command staffs had to improvise during the conflict to find ways of making Predator’s capabilities beneficial to the squadrons flying the missions.” See Major Kathy B. Davis, USAF; Operation Allied Force: Reachback and Information Processes; AU/ACSC/031/2002-04; Air Command and Staff College; Maxwell AFB, Alabama, March 2002, pp. 9–10.

  17. The story as it gets told is that Lieutenant General Michael Short, Jumper’s subordinate and the direct commander of the air campaign in Italy, had a son who was an A-10 pilot fly
ing over Kosovo. He told Dad of the problems of talking the pilots onto the target, and Short then talked to Jumper, who called General Ryan in Washington, who called in Snake and the other subject matter experts to solve the problem. But Richard Whittle pretty much determines that this was urban legend. See telling in Richard Whittle, Predator’s Big Safari, Mitchell Papers 7, August 2011, p. 13; and Whittle, in Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution (2014), p. 132.

  18. Richard Whittle, Predator’s Big Safari, Mitchell Papers 7, August 2011, pp. 13–14.

  19. Walter J. Boyne, How the Predator Grew Teeth, Air Force Magazine, July 2009 (Vol. 92, No. 7).

  20. Houston R. Cantwell, Major, USAF, RADM Thomas J. Cassidy’s MQ-1 Predator: The USAF’s First UAV Success Story, Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, April 2006, pp. 24–25; Richard Whittle, Predator’s Big Safari, Mitchell Papers 7, August 2011, p. 14.

  21. Using its infrared camera, a Predator tracked a Serb military vehicle driving into a shed, shooting its laser at the spot, the A-10 then hitting the building with a 500-pound laser-guided bomb. Whittle, Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution (2014), p. 141. See also Richard Whittle, Predator’s Big Safari, Mitchell Papers 7, August 2011, p. 15.

  22. USAF, RQ-1A Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) System, 1999 DOTE report, p. v-153; Richard Whittle, Predator’s Big Safari, Mitchell Papers 7, August 2011, p. 15.

  23. Bill Yenne, Attack of the Drones, p. 86.

  24. Richard Whittle, Predator’s Big Safari, Mitchell Papers 7, August 2011, p. 17.

  25. RAF, Air Power UAVs: The Wider Context, pp. 37–38; Walter J. Boyne, How the Predator Grew Teeth, Air Force Magazine, July 2009 (Vol. 92, No. 7).

  26. USAF, RQ-1A Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) System, 1999 DOTE report, p. v-153.