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MPs to probe UK drone policy
20 November 2012
The Defence Select Committee is set to launch a two-year inquiry into how the UK uses lethal force, according to a report in The Times. The inquiry will examine the use of UAVs, and MPs and peers will also hold a joint debate on the UK's drone policy, the report said.
"An unmanned aerial vehicle is the same as any other platform that fires weapons," committee chairman James Arbuthnot told the newspaper. "The issues that are concerning people are the distance between the person who is controlling that platform and the death that results from it."
Last month an All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drones was set up, chaired by Labour MP Tom Watson.
Lord Bates of Langbaurgh, a member of the group, told The Times: "It is a growing and obvious concern, not only how we use them in a way that is ethical, but how we would defend against them being used in a hostile way."
Christoph Heyns, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary killings, said the UK's public consideration of the issue could help "shape the broader international reaction" to drone use.
A spokesman for the Drone Wars UK website said: "We very much welcome the news that the Defence Select Committee will be investigating the use of armed drones, although the 'devil is in the detail' and we await the exact scope and remit of such an inquiry.
"We think it is very important the Select Committee and the public gets to examine the details of all the UK's 350 drone strikes, the circumstances surrounding the launch of weapons and the resulting casualty figures/damage assessment reports. If so this is will be an important step forward to answering the many ethical and legal questions around the growing use of armed drones."
The UK has over 335 unmanned aerial vehicles, the majority of which are smaller, unarmed varieties such as the 293 hand-launched Desert Hawk III drones, which provide "over the hill" surveillance for the British Army in Afghanistan.
Five armed Reaper drones have been operated by the Royal Air Force in Afghanistan since May 2008, and have fired 239 Hellfire missiles and deployed 52 laser guided bombs in that time. Reapers have also provided more than 40,000 hours of surveillance and reconnaissance to commanders on the ground, according to official statistics.
Last month a new squadron of Reapers, based at RAF Waddington, in Lincolnshire, was 'stood up', doubling the size of the UK's Reaper force to 10 and allowing the Royal Air Force to pilot the drones from the UK for the first time. They had previously been launched in Afghanistan but were piloted from an air force base in the United States.
On 1 November, Armed Forces Minister Andrew Robathan said: "Reaper is not an autonomous system and all weapons employment depends upon commands from the flight crew. The weapons may be released under the command of a pilot who uses Rules of Engagement (ROE) that are no different to those used for manned UK combat aircraft.
"The targets are always positively identified as legitimate military objectives, and attacks are prosecuted in strict accordance with the Law of Armed Conflict and UK ROE. Every effort is made to ensure the risk of collateral damage, including civilian casualties, is minimised."
HAVE YOUR SAY
20 November 2012
Am I mistaken, but doesn't the article largely answer the question(s) to be the subject of the study?
Equally puzzling that the study is scheduled to take two years, presumably timed to coincide with the cessation of 'combat operations' in Afghanistan, so what exactly is the point?
Hereman - Wirral, England
20 November 2012
Hereman - Wirral, England
I think you have answered your own questions.
And I agree with you.
Martin Bayliss - Stroud
20 November 2012
I would have thought that the ROE would be the same as for manned aircraft that useStand off weapons, they make it sound like they are plinking off Hellfires indiscriminately.
How much will this study cost? Another waste of valuable tax payers money
Rob - Telford
20 November 2012
Glad to see a consensus of opinion that this represents a complete waste of time and money which could be usefully spent elsewhere!!
Hereman - Wirral, England
20 November 2012
At present the UK armed forces are using American-built drones. I therefore wonder how long it will be before any British-built machines might be in service, as we are told that BAE Systems are developing UAVs that will be far superior to the Predators and Reapers.
mikeyb - Merseyside
21 November 2012
mikeyb - Merseyside
In my view the BAE Mantis & Taranis UCAVs development/first flight are being held up for political reasons.
Because developing UCAVs is cheaper than manned aircraft - and BAE both have the cash and the technology to develop them alone - I think BAE should go it alone on these and not wait for a clumsy bi-national or multinational project to be formed.
To be blunt - any collaboration with Europe on UCAVs essentially means BAE handing over its expertise and competitive edge in this field - the Treasury should be put in its place and BAE allowed to become the national champion in this respect.
But alas - the UK civil and MOD trans-atlanticists will see to it this never happens. No prizes for guessing how France would use a technical lead like the UK has on autonomous UCAVS.
Martin Bayliss - Stroud
14 December 2012
In a moral sense, there is no difference between UAVs, UCAVs or Unmanned Combat Aircraft and any other distance weapon system. People who think that there is have probably seen too many silly films like the Terminator series. Although in one sense, those films are interesting as an expression of the paranoia some people feel in relation to any new technology. Sometimes this paranoia may be understandable to some extent; we've already seen how the internet can be used to co-ordinate terrorism, for example.
The really important questions regarding UAVs and UCAVs are neither ethical or legal, but military. If this technology has the potential to substantially change the nature of warfare- which is possible- then clearly, the potential implications of that are very great.
It would in my view be more intelligent to consider the implications of the technology for NATO as a whole rather than merely of terms of, say, the defence of UK airspace. UAVs have already proved their effectiveness in Afghanistan; it would be premature to say that they represent a definitive solution to the problems of insurgency that affect much of the world today, but they may have that potential.
Where UCAVs or Unmanned Combat Aircraft are concerned, it is also possible to identify potential roles for these platforms within NATO. For example they could provide some form of airpower for the smaller NATO nations that lack the facilities or the resources to operate very expensive manned aircraft.
What should be clear to anyone of any intelligence that the real implications of this technology are dependant, not simply on the technology itself, but the way it is used.
Some people have expressed concern about the uses that might be made of UAVs by people like Saddam Hussein and the late Colonel Gaddafi. I would imagine that they would have used it to eliminate people they regarded as their political enemies, which of course is what they were doing anyway, by less technologically advanced means. But given the potential of the UAV as an assassination weapon, I doubt whether they would have been all that enthusiastic.
J. Southworth - University of Hull