When the book is about robotics and advanced military technology, the reader might expect a more technical writing style – the author offering the full list of specs without too much thought on the art of writing. This is certainly not the case for Wired for War. P. W. Singer actually tells the fascinating story of unmanned machines, their evolution from the time when Nikola Testla demonstrated at the Madison Square Garden that he can control a boat by using radio frequencies to the unmanned vehicle remotely steered using a PlayStation-like controller.

Throughout history, the progress in military technology has changed the way wars were fought. When generals did not understand the new in warfare, lives were lost more than necessary. One such example is the Great War, which was “an odd, tragic mix of outmoded generalship combined with deadly new technologies,” Singer writes. It was in 1917 when the first unmanned weapons made an entrance on the battlefield. The ‘electric dog’ had a design similar to the tricycle and was carrying supplies to the trenches guided by the lights of a lantern. The ‘land torpedo’ was a remote controlled armored tractor which could carry over 1,000 pounds of explosives to the enemy trenches and explode.

World War II brought significant contributions in the advanced military technology sector. It was now that unmanned vehicles, both land and aerial, were used by both sides. The Germans were the first to use what we now call drones. The FX-1400 or ‘Fritz’ was launched by a plane flying at high altitude and then steered by radio into the target. Wired for War explains how these and other weapons were used and their impact on the battlefield.

Following WW2, and especially during the Vietnam War, the public knew very little about the development of unmanned weapons. Most programs were classified and the same time the military presented little interest in the new technology. However, the development of military robots, which were now focusing mostly on aerial surveillance, continued slowly. In this time, the Israelis used the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) at their full potential with great success.

The U.S. would later use them successfully in the Gulf War. However, UAVs became indispensable once they were equipped with GPS in 1995. Since then, the military is investing heavily in land robots and UAVs, signing contracts worth billions of dollars with various private firms of robotics. P. W. Singer writes about the dangers presented by the industrialization of warfare and discusses the consequences of employing robots to fight man’s wars.

From an economic point of view, the technology is available at exorbitant prices. In 1979 the U.S. military invested over 1 billion dollars in a program that failed to develop 789 Aquila drones; instead the result was a few prototypes that were never used. In our days, more than 6 billion dollars are invested in contracts with robotics firms. To this, we can add other expenses that cost the American tax-payers hundreds of billions of dollars. The United States could afford such expenses if wars were conventional and decisive such as World War 2, for example. However, today the U.S. debt is over 11 trillions of dollars and is expected to rise with about 1 trillion per year. We are in a serious global economic crisis and the US military does not seem to have an end in sight for the war in Afghanistan or Iraq (US troops are still active in Iraq and funding continues indefinitely). In my view, the US will not be able to continue a military presence in the countries much longer. Col. Thomas Hammes, has warned that this type of wars do not last years, but decades.

However, the robots have saved hundreds of American lives and in the same time, their use can significantly reduce the number of civilian casualties. P.W. Singer writes that he has interviewed numerous soldiers who had nothing but praise for the robots, saying that they saved their lives many times. Using unmanned weapons soldiers are exposed to relatively far lower levels of danger. Singer offers many examples of robots controlled from the distance by specialist soldiers and quotes drone squadron leaders talking about their missions.

In an article for The New Atlantis, P.W. Singer writes: “Many also feel that unmanned systems can remove the anger and emotion from the humans behind them. A remote operator isn’t in the midst of combat and isn’t watching his buddies die around him as his adrenaline spikes; he can take his time and act deliberately in ways that can lessen the likelihood of civilians being killed.” However, there are studies suggesting that soldiers will find killing easier if they are disconnected from the realities of war.

But perhaps, it is better to let P.W. Singer explain this himself (please watch the video below).

Click here to purchase the book.

Peter Warren Singer is a leading expert on 21st century warfare. He previously wrote two books dealing with different aspects of modern warfare: Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military (soon to be reviewed as well) and Children at War (Pantheon, 2005). Currently, P. W. Singer is Senior Fellow and Director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution.

Tags: afghanistan, conflict in the 21st century, drones, gulf war, iraq, land robots, military robots, modern warfare, p.w. singer, peter warren singer, robots, the great war, the robotics revolution, uavs, ulvs, unmanned aerial vehicles, vietnam war, wired for war, ww2

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