Viewpoint: Robots and War

At the beginning of the celebration of the centenary of World War I, 888,246 ceramic poppies were placed around the Tower of London. That figure was the number of British soldiers that were killed in World War I.

Some commentators made the point that the industrial nature of this slaughter which took the lives of almost 10 million soldiers was due to a clash between the 19th century military tactics and deadlier 20th century weapons. For example, the way the combatants lined up across from each other in the trenches, made no sense, given the new military hardware which the armies had acquired during the previous decades. In the battles of the Somme and Verdun appalling slaughter took place. No-one could have predicted the horrifying consequences of modern weaponry - tanks, machine guns and aircraft - being used together with out-of-date tactics.

Something similar is happening today. We think that future wars will be like the one fought in Iraq in 2003. This is untrue because there has been a revolution in the development of weaponry in the past decade. We have seen the development of autonomous weapons. Killer robots are capable of targeting and killing people thousands of miles way.

Shortly after 9/11, the US began sending drones into foreign airspace to kill suspected terrorists. At first, the strikes were confined to Afghanistan, but later they were extended to Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. These decisions have been supported by Presidents Obama and Trump even though many would argue that they were not legal and would serve as an example to other nations to follow-suit.

As the cost of these drones becomes cheaper, all kinds of terror groups will begin to use them leading to a global proliferation of deadly weapons. Even the Islamic State (ISIS) have deployed consumer drones carrying grenades in the battle for Mosul city.

Several nations are developing these sophisticated new weapons systems. Many countries use robots to provide the army with surveillance and disarm bombs. Others have robots which are capable of selecting and engaging targets with little or no human intervention.

In the United States, the US navy has developed the Phalanx anti-missile system aboard its Aegis ships. This system can perform its own "kill assessment" by weighing up the likelihood that a target can be successfully attacked. Many people are still unhappy about giving robots the power to kill and challenge the proposition that a robot should have the power of life and death over other human soldiers.

According to Christof Heyns, of South Africa, who is the UN's Special Rapporteur over extrajudicial executions feels that allowing robots to kill without any human authorisation could contravene humanitarian law and the human right to dignity. According to him, "humans need to be quite closely involved in the decision for it not to violate your human rights.

In the United Kingdom, the RAF is in the process of developing its own unscrewed jets called Taranis. These jets can fly to a particular place and observe objects of interest with little intervention from ground operators. The Russian army has its own "mobile robotic complex." This is an uncrewed tank-like vehicle that guards ballistic missile installations against attack. The South Korean army has what is called the Super Aegis II gun turret. This piece of armoury can detect and fire on moving targets without any human intervention at all. The Super Aegis II can pinpoint the location of someone 2.2 kilometres away.

Professor Christof Heyns worries that if these very destructive new weapons are not ultimately controlled by humans it could lead to the "depersonalisation of force." In a 2013 report to the UN, he warned that these "tireless war machines, ready for deployment at the push of a button" could lead to a future of permanent conflict. If governments do not have to put boots on the ground, going to war could become too easy.

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots was launched in April 2013. The United Nations has invited governments to attend the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in Geneva in November 2018 to discuss the use of lethal autonomous weapons systems. and how they might ultimately be banned.

Even though war is itself already inhumane, countries have banned weapons which have been considered too inhumane to use in warfare. These have included mustard and nerve gas, plastic landmines and biological weapons.

Autonomous weapons and the use of drones should now also be banned.