legislating the genie back into the bottle
Oct. 6th, 2012 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
twoeleventoday's interception of a drone by the israeli air force (official video clip, via footube¹) reminded me of this opinion piece on drones by peter bergen, a cnn talking head.
essentially, he says that
a) the US has set a bad precedent for using drones by not providing some sort of legal rationale for their use.
and
b) what we really need is an international treaty on their use.
i'm tickled that he thinks that will make the slightest difference in who builds them and how they're used. i'm especially amused by his worry
i suspect mr. bergen is thinking of the various international efforts to restrict the acquisition of weapons of mass excitement (WMEs: poison gas, germ weapons, and nukes) by states and individuals. as iran and north korea have demonstrated, the existing legal regimes to prevent states from getting poison gas are laughably inadequate, and they serve only as speed bumps on the road to nuclear weapons. (though AQ Kahn apparently should get the assist for both, may such divine forces as may exist create a hell for him to burn in.)
we've been a more successful at keeping WMEs out of the hands of individuals, but not universally so. (anybody else remember aum shinrikyo?) our successes are largely due to two things:
1) the materials needed for such weapons are relatively exotic, and have few uses otherwise. this is less true for germ weapons, but...
2) making WMEs takes a fair amount of technical skill, especially if one can't get access to the good materials. (some skills, such as good methods of dispersing poison gas and germ weapons, aren't usually taught to civvies.)
neither is true of drones. you can make a perfectly good drone out of a super-scale model airplane, and if for some reason those were banned, a little sheet aluminum and some other very common components will suit just fine. larger drones are a little harder, but remind me of the difference between a cruise missile and a light plane with an autopilot packed full of gunpowder? oh, right: the performance envelope. (before anybody freaks out: this is hardly news. the hard part is getting the bang where and when you want it and big enough that somebody will notice. crashing a plane in a forest? even i can do that...)
nor are the skills all that hard to acquire. i'm certain most of my readers could hack up a model airplane into a drone, and i'm equally certain a few of you could make one in a machine shop from parts. two of you, i'm pretty sure, could also build and program a working autopilot for it as well if you set your mind to it. (another small set could probably modify a light plane if you had to.)
so, for all practical purposes, i'd stop wasting time with international diplomacy and start working on practical counter-measures. very small drones probably can't be stopped with foreseeable technology, but their mayhem potential is not noticeably greater than that of -- for different purposes -- a helicopter-borne photographer carrying a camera with a long lens or a high-powered rifle™.² the bigger the drone and the further it has to travel from launch, the easier it is to defend against, if we're willing to take the trouble.
1: the video is sufficiently low-resolution that it's not really possible to say much about what was shot down. the "drone" appears as tiny, fuzzy group of pixels. about all i can say from the video is that it apparently was large enough and/or hot enough for what i take to be a guided missile to get a lock on it. so, i'd hazard a guess that its wingspan was over a meter and it had a small (100+ W?) internal-combustion engine. i'm a little surprised that the israelis used a guided missile against it; i would have thought cannon fire would have sufficed.
2: does anybody what, if anything, the press catch-phrase "high-powered rifle" actually means? for example, what's a low-powered rifle? one chambered for .22LR, and nothing else? this is a complete aside, and i don't mean to get into a discussion of either guns or the press's inability to understand anything more complex than who is sleeping with whom; i'm merely curious if anybody actually knows.
essentially, he says that
a) the US has set a bad precedent for using drones by not providing some sort of legal rationale for their use.
and
b) what we really need is an international treaty on their use.
i'm tickled that he thinks that will make the slightest difference in who builds them and how they're used. i'm especially amused by his worry
As drone technology becomes more widely accessible, it is only a matter of time before well-financed drug cartels acquire them. And you can imagine a day in the not too distant future where armed drones are used to settle personal vendettas.um, yes, yes i can. but no amount of treatifying will prevent either one. drug cartels are not known for giving a damn about what's legal, nor for having much trouble in acquiring interesting pieces of kit (a few have small submarines now, and a couple are suspected of hacking the phone networks in mexico and/or columbia). nor can we really prevent individuals from making and using crude drones for killing other people.
i suspect mr. bergen is thinking of the various international efforts to restrict the acquisition of weapons of mass excitement (WMEs: poison gas, germ weapons, and nukes) by states and individuals. as iran and north korea have demonstrated, the existing legal regimes to prevent states from getting poison gas are laughably inadequate, and they serve only as speed bumps on the road to nuclear weapons. (though AQ Kahn apparently should get the assist for both, may such divine forces as may exist create a hell for him to burn in.)
we've been a more successful at keeping WMEs out of the hands of individuals, but not universally so. (anybody else remember aum shinrikyo?) our successes are largely due to two things:
1) the materials needed for such weapons are relatively exotic, and have few uses otherwise. this is less true for germ weapons, but...
2) making WMEs takes a fair amount of technical skill, especially if one can't get access to the good materials. (some skills, such as good methods of dispersing poison gas and germ weapons, aren't usually taught to civvies.)
neither is true of drones. you can make a perfectly good drone out of a super-scale model airplane, and if for some reason those were banned, a little sheet aluminum and some other very common components will suit just fine. larger drones are a little harder, but remind me of the difference between a cruise missile and a light plane with an autopilot packed full of gunpowder? oh, right: the performance envelope. (before anybody freaks out: this is hardly news. the hard part is getting the bang where and when you want it and big enough that somebody will notice. crashing a plane in a forest? even i can do that...)
nor are the skills all that hard to acquire. i'm certain most of my readers could hack up a model airplane into a drone, and i'm equally certain a few of you could make one in a machine shop from parts. two of you, i'm pretty sure, could also build and program a working autopilot for it as well if you set your mind to it. (another small set could probably modify a light plane if you had to.)
so, for all practical purposes, i'd stop wasting time with international diplomacy and start working on practical counter-measures. very small drones probably can't be stopped with foreseeable technology, but their mayhem potential is not noticeably greater than that of -- for different purposes -- a helicopter-borne photographer carrying a camera with a long lens or a high-powered rifle™.² the bigger the drone and the further it has to travel from launch, the easier it is to defend against, if we're willing to take the trouble.
1: the video is sufficiently low-resolution that it's not really possible to say much about what was shot down. the "drone" appears as tiny, fuzzy group of pixels. about all i can say from the video is that it apparently was large enough and/or hot enough for what i take to be a guided missile to get a lock on it. so, i'd hazard a guess that its wingspan was over a meter and it had a small (100+ W?) internal-combustion engine. i'm a little surprised that the israelis used a guided missile against it; i would have thought cannon fire would have sufficed.
2: does anybody what, if anything, the press catch-phrase "high-powered rifle" actually means? for example, what's a low-powered rifle? one chambered for .22LR, and nothing else? this is a complete aside, and i don't mean to get into a discussion of either guns or the press's inability to understand anything more complex than who is sleeping with whom; i'm merely curious if anybody actually knows.