DRONES AND THE ART OF WAR    

It is important to understand that war kills people. There may be some exceptions but my impression is that every country has the ability to go to war; surely, the international sale of arms makes that point. For each country buying arms, the crucial question is what sort and how many. A bit of a jaunt into history will provide some context.

The ancient Romans, in their prime were by all odds the masters of warfare, at least so it seemed until they ran into the Parthians. The Romans marched in with their invincible legions but were stopped cold. It was a clash of military philosophy; the Romans fought on foot in well-ordered ranks and had tactics to deal with whatever situation they faced. The Parthians, following Asian tactics were horse archers who avoided hand-to-hand combat; they swooped close, launched volleys of arrows and skipped away to avoid the Roman military machine. When retiring from the field, they would turn in their saddles and send a final volley known to us now as the Parthian shot. The Romans had archers, but they were wedded to infantry so ceded the conflict to the Parthians.

The west, in its crusades used heavy cavalry to smash into their enemies. In essence, the side that weighed more would win. Except that they took Jerusalem, they lost every time. The Muslims, have you guessed it, were horse archers and the battles were pretty much like the Romans v. the Parthians. Some military thinkers approached a French king urging that he equip the invasion force with bowmen. The king refused. He asserted that the bow was the devil's weapon and not appropriate for god's army. You can figure out what happened.

Back before Joan of Arc, when the English decided they owned France, it was by then a pretty monotonous story. The French army, consisting of heavy cavalry along with inconsequential footmen would routinely charge well-prepared English defenses. They disdained the bowmen who shot arrows into them and got shot to pieces as a consequence. It happened over and over again. All the English had to do was find some high ground and invite them to come. The French, declaring honor obliged.

The Prussians consistently beat the French in the Franco-Prussian wars. They had the needle gun, an effective breech-loading rifle that could be fired in a prone position. The French held on to their muzzleloaders requiring they march into battle and remain upright so they could load. Guys lying down shooting at guys standing up … no contest.

In Italy, during WWII, the Germans occupied a church on top of Monte Cassino. Our air force was not permitted to bomb it because it would hurt Christian sensibilities. Many American and British soldiers died because of that idiocy.

There is a multitude of such quirks. Pre-Pearl Harbor, our Secretary of the Army refused to read Japanese intercepts because gentlemen did not do such things. (Perhaps apocryphal but you get the picture.)

The Northern military knew about breechloaders but refused to equip the union army with them because it might lead to profligate shooting. There was a time when armies did not fight on Sunday. And on and on and on.

The United States now has a weapon, which is quite different and extremely effective, the drone. That is an unmanned airplane (a drone could be a boat or a car) that is driven by a person at a computer in this country. Using on the ground intelligent, they can kill our enemies. To be sure, with ICBMs we could do the same but with overwhelming collateral damage. It would cost zillions of dollars to kill one of the baddies, huge numbers of people would die and property values would seriously go down.

Such tactics cause a great hullabaloo. Of course, the recipients of such attention call it immoral, but so do so many on our side. Innocent people get killed and sometimes that is true (still, what are they doing hanging with our enemies) and it is immoral to target specific individuals. And, besides, our enemies would become madder at us than they already are. And, heavens, sovereignty is violated.

Surely, when non-combatants are casualties it is a tragedy. As a general rule, in warfare it simply happens. When we invaded France, what do you suppose happened to the civilians living there on the beaches? Hell, we flattened the place with our bombs but hoped only Germans were hurt. Yeah.

Somehow, it is immoral to kill specific individuals, yet the history of warfare is to do it if you can. There was a time when American officers went into combat wearing their rank on their shoulders. German snipers shot them to pieces; pretty soon, American officers wore innocuous identifiers. Of course, we did the same to the Germans. It was a great coup when we shot down the premiere Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, he who designed the Pearl Harbor attack.

And, they will become angrier? Of course, that is how the losers usually feel. But, such tactics have decimated both the El Queda and the Taliban leadership and that pleases me.

Drones are a new form of warfare. Not only are there no counter-measures but they raise questions about sovereignty. We violate Pakistan every time we take out an enemy on their soil because they let our enemies take action against us. In the not-so-long-ago days, our enemies could snicker at our protests to their host country as they did in Afghanistan. Perhaps, perhaps if we had drones in those days we could have dealt with them with less fuss. Think of how many lives that might have saved.

There is no doubt that other countries will get their own drones and for certain, there will be developed effective counter-measures but until that day, we have the edge and that is important.

Are we in any danger? Yes, but not from external enemies. It is the boobs who think that the more surveillance of our citizens the better. If we put up with such nonsense, the slide into fascism becomes steeper.

Drones are a dandy machine

They help us become much more mean

They kill lots of bad ones

For sure, we want re-runs

In such warfare, our hands are quite clean