Modern warfare: Drones and society

Perhaps the toughest decision any leader can undertake is the prospect of declaring war. A leader must be confident enough to believe their convictions that war is the only answer. It cannot be taken likely. War is bloody. War is miserable. War is expensive. All focus tends to be displayed on whether it is necessary. A short and decisive victory can elevate a leader into the people’s hearts. Yet a war that is bloody and sluggish can signal the end of a government. Countless leaders have ridden the polls of popularity after victory; whereas countless more have fallen upon defeat. The Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz said that “War is an extension of politics by other means”, and even to this day wars are resolved by political leaders and diplomats, not soldiers. War is constructed through a political and moral lens. Is an invasion illegal? Could it have international consequences? Is it affordable? These are all questions asked before a potential conflict may ensue. Yet few people actually ask militarily what war means.

The apparatus of war has evolved over the centuries. From formations of soldiers across Great Plains, ready to duel on horseback to the use of cruise missiles in the Gulf wars. As the size of armies has grown and the weapons became more mechanised, it created units dedicated to medical and logistics. The advances in communications and intelligence have allowed armies to operate at greater distance and with more efficiency. No longer do generals lead from the front but can be stationed hundreds of miles away. These advances have not only changed the way wars are fought but increasingly how wars are won. Up until the mid twentieth century, victories were determined by the capitulation of an army or the capture of the enemy’s major city. Today’s technological wars are fought within smaller warzones; requiring fewer frontline troops but retaining devastating fire power.

The increasing use of unmanned drone aircraft is systematic of this change. Even at the beginning of the Iraqi invasion in 2003, drones were small reconnaissance probes that scoured for intelligence. Now, they are much bigger and armed with missiles to target and kill any threat. Controlled from thousands of miles away in a military base in Nevada, operators are engaged in a form of virtual war as they hunt enemies around the world. In late 2011, the American born Islamist militant, Anwar Awlaki was killed by a CIA drone in Yemen to little news coverage. In fact, the use of drones over North-West Pakistan, killing an unknown number of militants and civilians, has caused America less trouble diplomatically than the raid carried out by US Navy SEALS that killed Osama bin Laden.

Wars that are unseen are perhaps more conducive for a government and military. Compare the news coverage of assassinations of Iranian nuclear physicists by foreign agents (possibly Mossad) and the computer virus that has caused havoc to Iranian nuclear enrichment plants (CIA, GCHQ) to NATO’s role in Libya. It is unsurprising that governments are investing heavily in their secret services and Special Forces, moving away from the traditional spheres of warfare.

All the while, Western societies are increasingly subscribing to a post-militaristic view. As fewer families are affected by war, they are moving away from the ideas of associated with the army. Civilians do not accept the idea of a soldier dying for the good of the mission. Soldiers are ends in themselves, not means of the Army. The use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) has made this war more vivid, particularly with a greater number of survivors and a modern media to convey their story. Although every death is tragic, it neglects the fact that soldiers sign up knowing they could possibly die. In World War One, on average 559 British soldiers died per day (886,939 in total), In Afghanistan, a war that began in 2001 has so far killed 398 soldiers. It highlights the point.

All wars are demanding on all constituents: politicians, the military and ordinary citizens. Although wars will be fought on different lines, it will continue to ask the same questions as before.

After war: Post Combat Trauma Stress

I have just started watching Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg’s World War Two miniseries ‘The Pacific’. As a narrative perspective it is easy to conclude that ‘Band of Brothers’, the 2001 series set in the grey clouds of Europe, is better and for many reasons. The war in Europe had its obvious heroes and villains and moral structures of good versus evil. These were typified by acts such as the liberation of Paris to the discovery of the death camps in Hitler’s blood lands. The Pacific war did not breathe the romance of liberating Europe; it was a war of attrition. US Marines launching seaborne assaults on isolated islands in the hope of flushing out a determined and virulent enemy. It was savage and neglected and often distorted by the realms of Hollywood and the denouement in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

We have a Hollywood interpretation of the brutality of war but have time for those who gave their lives for such causes. Yet there appears to be great neglect to those mentally scarred by war. In recent years the National Arboretum was erected in Staffordshire to commemorate the war dead and much publicity and charity has been made of sites like Headley Court, dedicated to help injured soldiers recover after life-threatening injuries. The toils and scars from the death and blasts in World War One are etched in our memories through the poems of Sassoon, Owen and Graves; yet the legacy was vivid in the minds of those who survived the front only to face a hell from within. The British Army identified around 80,000 men suffered from the exposure to such atrocities, many of their wounds would never heal and they ended up in asylums.

Figures show that more American soldiers have committed suicide in the past decade than have been killed in combat in Afghanistan. Post-traumatic combat stress (PTCS), as it has now been identified, has caused countless dedicated men to turn their lives to drugs, alcohol and crime.

It is estimated that around 20,000 veterans are within the criminal justice system and that 10% of the prison population is filled with former soldiers. There is an argument that many members of the armed forces came from the fringes of society and that enlisting, cruelly, was the best way to steer clear from crime, but that would be an indictment on the reputations of many these honourable men.

In the last twenty years, the British Army was involved in Iraq twice, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone; all for varying durations with incalculable risks. Young and inexperienced men are entering situations that are abnormal to society, and expect the things they saw, did and became as normal. Perhaps it is understandable that drugs and crime have become their tonic.

It is now normal procedure for decommissioned battalions, who have just seen combat, to spend a fortnight or so unwinding in places like Cyprus, away from the enemy’s bullet and the banalities of family life. After the Falklands War it was noticed that members of the Parachute Regiment, who flew back home, were more likely to suffer PTCS or commit suicide, than members of the Royal Navy who had a two-week journey back to the UK. It is deemed that this decompression is a vital starting step to let soldiers unwind from months of combat.

War is never glamorous and even the bright lights of Hollywood are reflecting on the trials of soldiers in modern-day warfare. We know the sacrifices made in such theatres are heavy on families and communities, but perhaps it is changing our relationship with mental illness as well. We live in a country where the public no longer accepts or understands the need for long drawn-out wars. Most soldiers would acknowledge and fear the ideas of sacrifice but I daresay many would disregard the scars that come with it.

Iraq off our backs.

History came and went yesterday as US combat troops left Iraq seven years after they embarked on removing Saddam Hussein. After losing over 3000 men and women, many questions will be asked whether America, military, economically and psychologically has the appetite for intervening or fighting in foreign fields. The departure is part of a wider planned exit strategy to reduce America's footprint in the world, particularly the Middle East, and though admittedly hurried, Iraq has improved over the past few years from the democratic process seeing a decline in militia violence and economic boosts from the oil industry. Despite America's full withdrawal at the end of 2011, Iraq is still a violent place, where simmering religious and ethnic tensions could potentially destabilise future political progress. It is still too early from an American military perspective to conclude whether combat operations were successful or not but America and Barack Obama will need to continue the fight in Afghanistan.

The problem with exit strategies as General David Petraeus recently said is that they should be settled on military grounds, not by political decisions. NATO forces have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, yet strategists believe the country's future can only be resolved with the Taliban around the negotiating table; yet to what extent is this desirable? The historical precedents of Somalia, Sudan and Yemen must not lie comfortably with historians. Surely all that time invested would appear futile if Afghanistan descended into the midst of its recent history. What about all the soldiers who have died for a better place for young Afghanis, it would appear all in vain for a quick fix exit. Last week, nine aid workers (including several women) were murdered by the Taliban, as a new UN report illustrated that violence against woman and children has increased by 30 per cent; three quarters of these acts have been committed by the Taliban.

Political impetus seems to take precedence over these matters. Maintaining a fighting army costs billions of pounds and heavy casualties does not enhance the war's popularity. With an enemy that is increasingly using abhorrent tactics and a political situation that seems neither effective or evolving, a withdrawal seems hopeless when there is no plan in place which surely means Afghanistan will dot our futures' for some time to come.