Author Archives: Diana Wueger

The Growing Threat to Saudi Intellectuals: The Case of Hamza Kashgari

by Diana Wueger Posted on April 6, 2012

This guest post is by Lauren Morgan, a writer and analyst from Indiana whose research primarily focuses on regional politics in the Middle East and homegrown terrorism. Since 2009, Lauren has worked as an analyst with the Joint Terrorism Task Force. She holds a degree in Middle Eastern Studies and is a former resident of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She can be reached via Twitter @lemorgan.

Hamza Kashgari, a Saudi writer and poet, created a firestorm of controversy on Milad an-Nabi, the anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, when he took to his personal Twitter account, which has since been deleted, and said the following:

  • On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you.
  • On your birthday, I find you wherever I turn. I will say that I have loved aspects of you, hated others, and could not understand many more.
  • On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more.

Despite the obvious poetic nature of his comments, they enraged conservative Saudi clerics who declared him an apostate and called for King Abdullah to execute the twenty-three year old. Kashgari fled the Kingdom and entered Malaysia on February 7. Two days later, as Kashgari was preparing to leave Malaysia for New Zealand, Malaysian authorities detained him and subsequently deported him to Saudi Arabia, where his fate remains uncertain.

Kashgari made his initial court appearance on March 7 and entered his tawbah (repentance) to the Saudi court system, according to Fadiah Nadwa, the representative for Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) who was contacted by Kashgari’s friend and traveling companion to try to halt Kashgari’s deportation from Malaysia. The courts, however, have given no indication whether his tawbah was accepted, and Nadwa notes that there are cases where defendants, despite entering their tawbah, have remained in detention for years without trial. Since his arrest, Kashgari reportedly has been kept in solitary confinement and denied access to his attorney, renowned Saudi human rights lawyer Abdulrahman Allahim, though Arab News reports that Allahim and Kashgari’s family attended the initial court appearance.

Media attention has been minimal and broadly inaccurate, but the importance of Kashgari’s case as a precedent for similar free speech cases in the Kingdom cannot be overstated. In the past month alone, another Saudi resident, Mohamed Salama, has been accused of apostasy, with many parallels being drawn between his case and Kashgari’s. In addition, well-known Saudi human rights activist and lawyer Walid Abu Al-Khair was banned from traveling to the U.S. at the end of March; he is accused by the religious establishment of being influential to Kashgari. The State Department has issued a statement saying they are “seeking clarification” on the travel ban.

Was Hamza Kashgari Targeted for Arrest?

Since his arrest, rumors have swirled online that the government targeted Kashgari for arrest long before he tweeted the now infamous words about the Prophet. Muath Aldabbagh first met Kashgari four years ago at a gathering led by Abdullah Hamiduddin, a scholar of Yemeni descent known for opinions that differ from the standard Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. After becoming acquainted through Hamiduddin’s circle, Kashgari and Aldabbagh met weekly with a small group to discuss philosophy at coffee shops and homes across Jeddah.

Aldabbagh explained in an interview that Kashgari had recently abandoned the strict religious dogmatism that permeates Saudi society. He emphatically defended Kashgari against critics’ claims that he is an apostate, however, saying that Kashgari is “still within religion, trying to appreciate it in his own way.” Aldabbagh believes Kashgari’s youth and popularity as a newspaper columnist has made him an ideal target for a religious establishment that has become increasingly nervous about the rise of Saudi intellectuals in recent years. He notes that “different groups, such as mine and other groups, have been discussing intellectual matters and taking knowledge into our own hands.” In a country where free thought and critical thinking are not welcomed by the religious establishment, attending groups like the one that Kashgari and Aldabbagh frequented puts these intellectuals at risk for retribution.

The repeated deceptions committed by officials involved with the detention and deportation of Kashgari further validate Aldabbagh’s suspicions that Kashgari was targeted. Malaysian authorities have been intentionally deceptive on multiple occasions about the arrest of Kashgari. Malaysia’s Home Minister intentionally deceived reporters by stating that Kashgari’s detention was at the request of Interpol; Interpol has since strongly denied this claim. Fadiah Nadwa of LFL spoke with me at length about the chaotic scene that developed at the airport in Kuala Lumpur as she and other LFL representatives tried, unsuccessfully, to halt Malaysian officials from deporting Kashgari. She said that lawyers served papers to airport officials to stop the deportation, but police and authorities deceived them in order to prevent the court order from being enacted. In addition, Nadwa claims that when LFL asked to check Kashgari’s immigration report, Malaysian immigration officials claimed there was no record of Kashgari ever entering the country. LFL has since issued a statement and photograph confirming Kashgari’s entrance into the country.

A New Witch Hunt?

Kashgari’s case has evoked a renewed sense of fear amongst activists who have been utilizing social media, and Twitter in particular, to speak openly about rights issues in the Kingdom for the past few years. That Kashgari was arrested just months after Crown Prince Nayef’s ascension is not lost on Saudi activists. If Kashgari was targeted for arrest, it confirms the fears expressed by liberal Saudis following the ascension of Prince Nayef to the position of Crown Prince in October 2011. Then, Saudis took to Twitter to tweet #NayefNightmares - the fears (some real and some humorous) they had about his increased power and influence in the country due to his reputation as a social conservative with strong ties to the religious establishment.

Indeed, more than one activist I interviewed agreed to speak to me only on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. According to one, “the fear for many liberal Saudis isn’t to be labeled an activist anymore. The fear is that you are labeled an atheist.” Aldabbagh echoed this claim, noting that the religious establishment recognizes that “liberal has now become mainstream. Their enemy right now is atheism. Anyone who is against them, they label him as being an atheist.” He admits he has received numerous threats following Kashgari’s arrest from individuals who have warned him “you’re next”.

Conclusion

Kashgari’s case could set a dangerous legal precedent for free speech in Saudi Arabia. It also illustrates the far-reaching influence of the Saudi regime. As Saudi activist Hala al-Dosari notes, “We’ve never had someone brought from overseas to be prosecuted for speaking against Islam.” It is troubling that Kashgari was deported back to Saudi Arabia despite the Kingdom not having an extradition agreement with Malaysia and despite Kashgari having broken no laws in Malaysia.

Equally troubling is the lack of legal movement on Kashgari’s case within Saudi Arabia. Despite publicly retracting his comments and entering tawbah to the Saudi courts, Kashgari’s detention continues. But Nadwa remains optimistic, saying “the fact that he’s not been tried yet is a good indication for us. I think the pressure is really working.” Still, others fear that the government, under pressure from the religious establishment, will try to make an example out of him. “We fear that he will be a scapegoat,” said Saudi activist Hala al-Dosari in an interview.

The only acceptable conclusion to this case is Kashgari’s immediate and unconditional release from custody. To ensure that the regime does not bow to clerics’ calls for Kashgari’s execution, the international community must demand that the Saudi regime release him at once. Many Saudi activists agree that the Saudi regime is sensitive to international pressure and does not want negative publicity; Fadiah Nadwa emphasized the urgent need for international attention to Kashgari’s case, saying, “It’s very important for us to step in now and increase the pressure so that they won’t step in and execute him. I think we have to be fast in our actions.”

I would like to give special thanks to Hala al-Dosari, Hasan Radwan, and Daveed Gartenstein-Ross for their assistance in bringing this article to fruition.

Posted in Human Rights, Middle East, Saudi Arabia | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Women on Top

by Diana Wueger Posted on March 8, 2012

A week ago, Micah Zenko asked me to contribute to a blog post that would address the question “Women are significantly underrepresented in foreign policy and national security positions in government, academia, and think tanks. Why do you think this is the case?”

Turns out, that’s not an easy question to answer – the scope is broad, and the problem isn’t confined to this field. Women are underrepresented at the top in a lot of fields – economics, journalism, medicine, business, etc – which suggests there’s a cultural component to this. And indeed, a friend of mine is working on a psych PhD on why women aren’t seen as effective leaders. I’ve been after her to write about this for G&L, but it boils down to the traits that Americans associate with being an effective leader are, broadly speaking, not the traits that we associate with women. If we don’t see women as effective leaders, why would we promote them to leadership roles?

But I think the problem for women starts much earlier, long before biases about women’s leadership potential kick in. I think the problem starts when women first enter the workforce (actually, it probably starts earlier than that, but I can’t solve the education system):

There’s a gap in the types of tasks women and men are assigned early in their careers. Intentionally or not, women tend to given more administrative or support work rather than policy or research work; path dependence takes over from there. I recall a prominent scholar regularly asking his female research assistant (RA) to pick up his dry cleaning and take his car to the shop—things he didn’t ask of male RAs.

So women writ large aren’t doing the right work to gain the knowledge, experiences, and networks necessary to move up. How to fix that? Employers, pay attention to what assignments you give your staff, both female and male. Your male interns need to learn to greet guests at events just as your female interns needs to learn to take meeting notes. Sure, the work needs to get done, but make sure you’re assigning work fairly. It should not be up to your female staff to decline assignments that aren’t appropriate.

Also at issue is mentorship and sponsorship:

Young women have trouble finding men willing to act in that capacity because there are few mechanisms to develop the rapport that underlies a good, productive mentoring relationship. Conversely, men may be concerned about how a mentoring relationship will be perceived and shy away as a result. But mentors are vital for opening doors and offering suggestions and feedback about career choices—efforts that are particularly valuable in the foreign policy world.

I’ve been incredibly lucky to find some fantastic men to act as mentors, among them my co-bloggers Daveed, Jon, and Sky. They help me navigate the terror of writing publicly, they offer suggestions for managing my career and educational choices, and they tell me when I’m being too hard on myself or when I’m not trying hard enough. Their honest feedback and support has been invaluable. Which is not to say we don’t also need female mentors – I don’t know where I’d be without Eve Sandberg, Stephanie Carvin, Erin Simpson, or Laura Seay – but in a field where the old boys’ network is still real, we need men too.

But where do young women find male mentors? That’s a problem I’m not sure how to solve, and I’d love to hear suggestions for how to overcome it, because I think this is a huge, huge deal. I found mine organically, through a year’s worth of inconsequential chatter and afternoons spent at happy hours that built into the rapport necessary for honest feedback. But I also initiated a lot of that contact, asking for help and insisting they pay attention to me, which is not something women generally feel comfortable doing, and which has the potential to aggravate wives and girlfriends (Amy, Bethany, and Julia - thank you for being awesome). So… let’s hear it. How do we bridge this gap?

All this is not to deny that women may also have some difficulty moving from the middle to the top of the national security and foreign policy world. There are real challenges to managing that transition as well, as Jolynn Shoemaker, Director of Women in International Security, highlights:

Work-Life Concerns: Inflexible schedules, unrelenting travel, and constant pressure to be in the office are common features of these jobs. Many women are looking for opportunities to contribute meaningfully but also have more control over their personal lives. They perceive that the foreign policy field is unaccommodating to flexible arrangements or detours from the traditional advancement track, and they feel pushed out.

Career Burn-Out: Mid-level women point out that the 24-7 schedules and constant pressures are leading to more women opting out of leadership opportunities. Whether they have families or not, younger women are re-examining the established definitions of success, and in some cases, concluding that the personal sacrifices are too high.

Lack of Sponsorship: Women recognize that they need “sponsors” –powerful advocates who will open doors for them – but that male colleagues are benefiting much more from this support. Women also point to an underlying sense of competition, ineffectual mentoring approaches, generational divides, and different views on work-life balance as obstacles to building these relationships with senior-level women.

So yeah. I highly recommend you read the entire post, then spend 10 minutes thinking about what you can do to help your female staff or friends or Twitterbuddies to advance in their careers. Then go do it. Invite somebody to lunch, or ask them to help with a research project, or whatever. Or stay home with your kids and let your wife go to her office happy hour. This is partly a numbers game, and the more women with the experience, knowledge , and networks necessary to get to the top, the better off we’ll all be.

***

Apropos of nothing except that this is a pink-but-not-sickly-sweet drink, here’s my new favorite cocktail (courtesy of Drinksnob). Happy International Women’s Day, everybody!

Blood and Sand

1 oz Scotch (I used Tomatin 12 – no call to go too high-end here)

1 oz blood orange juice

3/4 oz cherry brandy (I used bourbon that had had cherries soaking in it for a few months, but Cherry Heering is fine)

3/4 oz sweet vermouth

Turn off Twitter. Shake everything over ice. Strain into glass. Be happy.

Posted in Careerism, Cocktails, Gender | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

The Anti-Piracy Business - Warning Shots and the Rules of Engagement

by Diana Wueger Posted on March 2, 2012

I’ve had an interest in the private maritime security industry and the international regulations thereof ever since a friend’s ship was taken by pirates a couple years ago, so when friend of the blog Jay Fraser* approached us about doing an interview with his friend who runs a maritime security company, we jumped on it. I hope you find it as interesting as I do! - DW

Many of us grew up with pictures of swashbuckling pirates and images of Errol Flynn in movies like “Captain Blood” and “The Sea Hawk.” [ed: and some of us grew up with Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook...] In school, we learned about the Barbary Pirates attacking American and British shipping vessels off the Northwest Coast of Africa, near Tripoli and Algiers, and President Thomas Jefferson’s naval responses. More than two hundred years have passed, and while the locale has shifted to the northeast coast of Africa, the problem piracy remains. Today, piracy is focused primarily in the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean. Pirates are live firing against merchant vessels, sometimes attempting to board the ships, and are using violence and ransom as a means to an end.

As noted in a recent update published by Stratfor, with the end of the monsoon season and the return to calmer water in the region, the piracy season is “back on.” One of the more recent trends is the emergence of companies hired by the shipping companies to place armed personnel on the commercial vessels in efforts to discourage and limit the success of these pirates.

I’m privileged to know and to call a friend a man who operates one of these private security companies, Jim Jorrie of Espada Logistics and Security Group (San Antonio, Texas). I interviewed Jim for an audio spot for ThreatsWatch about three years ago and he and I recently talked about doing an update. Thanks to my friends at Gunpowder & Lead, here is the interview we did just a few days ago.

Jay Fraser: Jim, when we spoke back in April 2009, it was right after some pirates in the Gulf of Aden had overrun the Maersk Alabama. The ship’s captain Richard Phillips was held captive after the rest of the crew was released. The incident ended when Navy sharpshooters were able to take the kill shots. But this incident brought to the attention of many Americans the problem of piracy on the high seas, and especially off of the coast of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden. Today I would like to cover a lot of ground in a short time and have you explain how the piracy problem has evolved in the last three years.

Jim Jorrie: Thank you Jay for this chance to give an update from our last interview. Yes, the last three years have been very interesting and things have really changed out there.

JF: Since G&L is a new audience, can you give us a quick bio and then a capsule version of how you got into the pirate fighting business?

JJ: I started out in 1983 enlisting in the Navy and moved on to receive a commission in the Army with a focus on Defense support to Civil Authority missions. As a civilian I have worked in the intelligence community and held the post of Homeland Security Coordinator for San Antonio and the surrounding areas. I have also had the privilege of being involved in several National Response Plans such as the Pandemic Influenza response plan. Around 2004 I was asked to provide some security assessment work for private oil exploration in Colombia. This bloomed into multiple security projects and was really the genesis of ESPADA. About 3½ years ago we had an opportunity to assess the emerging piracy problem in the Gulf of Aden. Since one of our core competencies is providing logistics in austere locations, providing anti-piracy security services was a natural fit for our company.

JF: When we spoke earlier this week, you and I talked about the changing nature of the Somali pirates and specifically about their levels of aggression, the fact that they are better armed and that they now use tactics like kidnapping.

JJ: Three years ago the piracy was conducted by two major clans in Somalia. Since that time, organized crime syndicates have joined the enterprise increasing the technology, intelligence gathering and execution of piracy. Also, there emerged confederations from other countries that expanded the pirate network. For example, vessels that are overtaken in the lower Red Sea may now be taken by Eritrean or Yemeni criminal confederations that will in turn transfer the ship to the Somali clans that in turn negotiate for the ransom. The same is true on the east coast of Africa where you may have Kenyan and Mozambican confederate criminal organizations that cooperate with the Somali pirate clans.

We continue to see the use of RPGs and AKs in most attacks, but there have been a few attacks where the pirates have used crew-served weapons such as the PKM. Other than that, the major change in operating tactics has been the actual use of the hijacked vessels as mother-ships. They use cranes that are on the ships to lift the pirate skiffs onto the deck of the ship and then take the hijacked vessel far out at sea to launch their attacks.

JF: Some people aren’t really aware of the rules of engagement your company and others must operate under. Can you explain a bit of what has to be done in order for you to operate and perform your security functions (restrictions, still not permitted to fire on sight or have to wait and return fire?).

JJ: This continues to be an interesting source of debate. The International Law of the Sea that covers piracy is several hundred years old. And it is very clear on what rights a ship’s Captain has to defend his ship from a pirate attack. Of course in recent years lawyers have gotten further involved in crafting specific, eloquent language that restates rules from the Barbary pirate days. For example, if a pirate vessel fires on a ship the ship’s master may use any means at his disposal to safeguard his ship and crew. For a security team, this means we can fire warning shots to communicate to an approaching or menacing vessel that he is approaching an armed ship. However, if the security team fires on an approaching vessel without the command of the master in defending the ship, then the master/team/owner etc. are liable for the actions. Most engagements will begin and end at approximately 300 meters from the vessel. At this distance the pirates either begin firing at the ship or the warning shots communicate the potential danger of them proceeding. To many people, having to wait until a heavily armed pirate boat is within 300 yards of the vessel and - more importantly - until it has fired on the vessel before the vessel’s security team can respond is an uncomfortably short distance, but those are the rules of the game in antipiracy security.

JF: I think one of the more interesting things people need to hear is about the practical business issues of running a company like Espada. The other day you mentioned some points about the need for rapid deployment. Can you add to that?

JJ: Unlike a traditional contract, our services are hired ad-hoc. This presents some extreme logistics and personnel challenges for us. It is very expensive to fly people back and forth halfway around the world, so you have to have facilities in the Area of Operation in which to house them. A normal notification of a request for our services comes with about 48 hours advanced warning. Paying the security team members doesn’t stop, so scheduling them for follow on transit work and reducing their down time is of key concern. The cost of insurance for this sort of business is, as you can imagine, astronomical. And on top of these challenges is the fact that many of the countries know that the ship owners and security team can work out of their designated transfer points. So at times, just getting a bus ride from the airport to the boat with equipment can cost over $10K USD. With all of the deposits, insurance, working capital requirements, and emerging regulatory requirements I would hate to try to start a business like this now as it would be very hard.

JF: One of the comments you made struck me when you mentioned about weapons regulations.

JJ: While I am a firm believer in the accountability of firearms, US companies have been put into a competitive disadvantage to their British and European counterparts with regards to regulatory compliance and authorization in marine security. We spent a lot time early on asking different government departments the proper way to export weapons for the exclusive use of our security personnel. Unfortunately, not having the resources of some of the other large defense contractors, we made a few missteps in the handling of the reporting. The British and Europeans, in contrast, received active support from their governments, even to the extent where they were able to get letters of endorsement for their business from the government. Clearly this is something the US government does not do. I do think that the US regulatory agencies are starting to come up to speed with understanding the commercial requirements of the marine security industry. And is my hope that they will continue to work with legitimate maritime security organizations to help facilitate and not restrict their business. Bottom line, the more successful we are the more Americans we put to work.

JF: I guess one final question is about the “soldiers of fortune” that you encounter in theater and the problems they are creating for you and your company.

JJ: This turns out to be a classic example of one or two organizations that have no business being out there in the first place, screwing something up and the rest of us having to deal with the whiplash of new rules. Whatever happened to the old adage that if you stepped on the foot of your date, you weren’t invited back to the dance? Weapons authorizations, terrestrial logistics, and the other aspects of operating in a marine security business are serious and complex. This is not an arena that a group of hunting buddies needs to venture out into carelessly. Very few problems have come from the larger more established companies.

JF: Jim, is there anything else that you’d like to add before we wrap this interview?

JJ: I think I will leave you with two comments. One, there is a lot of good combat veterans out there that are unemployed. And I would put out there to you that this line of work is something they should consider, as we strongly prefer to hire veterans because of their training and professionalism. Lastly, in all my travels over the last 3 years setting up our maritime security operations I have gained a renewed appreciation for being an American. It is easy to get caught up in the political rhetoric and other problems in our communities. But when you spend time in other countries dealing with their politics, their regulations, their lack of a constitution and civil liberties, it gives you a new perspective that maybe this 300 year experiment that we call America isn’t that bad after all.

*Jay Fraser is a technology entrepreneur currently operating two ventures, one of which is involved in counterfeit detection and covert surveillance technologies. He serves as Principal Investigator for this company’s Department of Defense contracts, and has also coordinated sensitive international special projects. His responsibilities include strategic direction, operations, managing programs with federal agencies and National Labs, negotiating licensing and R&D agreements, and dealing with potential commercial partners & customers. The second company, newly formed, is involved in the information sharing environment with the ability to enable seamless exchange of information across and among a network of authorized users. Until recently he wrote about issues related to homeland security, policy implications, and technologies used in the Global War on Terror for ThreatsWatch.Org. Mr. Fraser is an experienced public speaker and often lectures on technology strategy and technology transfer.

Posted in Small Arms, Terrorism | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

The Walsh Exchange: An Undergrad IR Research Conference

by Diana Wueger Posted on February 22, 2012

Hey undergrads and people who know undergrads!

There’s a conference April 13-15 at Georgetown University called The Walsh Exchange, which bills itself as the first undergraduate research conference devoted solely to undergraduates studying international relations (I don’t fact check). You (or your students) should apply!

The Walsh Exchange will provide students the opportunity to gain wider exposure for their work as well as the experience of presenting their work in a formal conference setting. It’s being organized by a group of Georgetown undergraduate students with the support of several organizations within the university. The conference will follow the format of a professional research conference, with students presenting their work and receiving feedback from Georgetown faculty members. Also there’ll be a keynote speaker and a reception.

Also, they’ve got free coffee.

So if you or somebody you know is a PoliSci-esque undergrad with a research project, this sounds like a really cool opportunity. Any questions should be directed to the academic coordinators, Alex Henderson and Elizabeth Saam, at [email protected]

Event Description:

The Walsh Exchange is the first undergraduate research conference dedicated to international relations. The inaugural conference this spring will focus on papers that fall into one of three categories: international institutions, international politics and security, and area studies.

Schedule:

Students should arrive on Friday, April 13 for dinner and an informal social. Saturday will include presentations of papers and panel discussions, as well as a keynote speech and reception dinner. On Sunday awards will be given and students will be sent off.

Final schedule details will be forthcoming.

Submission Deadline: March 5, 2012.

Submissions should be between 25-45 pages (longer works may be adapted to fit the requirement), double-spaced, and typed in 12-point Times New Roman font. We are also happy to accept theses or works in progress, provided you can give explanation for where your research is headed. Please send submissions formatted for blind review (attach a cover sheet with your contact information but remove anything from the paper containing your name or school affiliation) to [email protected].

In coordination with Georgetown’s International Relations Club and the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs.

[note: G&L isn't actually affiliated with the Walsh Exchange - we just think undergrads are cool and should have as many opportunities to share their work as possible. And their Comms Director asked us to post this. And we are nothing if not obliging.]

Posted in Academia | Leave a comment

Thinking About Thinking About War

by Diana Wueger Posted on February 21, 2012

I spent January listening to the first half of Barbara Tuchman’s Guns of August, in which she dissects the run-up to World War I. Tuchman describes conversations taking place across Europe in which generals and politicians alike are all, “We’re absolutely going to be home by Christmas. There is no possible way that couldn’t happen. The other side? Pushovers. Probably won’t even show up to fight. Also this is totally a great idea and we will get everything we want out of this war. EVERYTHING.”

We all know how well that worked out.

Reading the heated op-eds about the necessity of war with Iran and/or Syria, it strikes me that they’re nothing new. The strange overconfidence on display in the 1910s - that war would be quick, easy, and end favorably - was echoed in the run up to Iraq and is being rehashed today. This reminded me of the Rubicon Theory of War, a barely-noted article from last summer’s issue of International Security that offers valuable food for thought, particularly for those charged with thinking or writing about war. The authors address the overconfidence conundrum, namely, that people who should know better than to think war will be quick and easy often act like this is their first rodeo. The authors conclude:

When people believe they have crossed a psychological Rubicon and perceive war to be imminent, they switch from what psychologists call a “deliberative” to an “implemental” mind-set, triggering a number of psychological biases, most notably overconfidence. These biases can cause an increase in aggressive or risky military planning. Furthermore, if actors believe that war is imminent when it is not in fact certain to occur, the switch to implemental mind-sets can be a causal factor in the outbreak of war, by raising the perceived probability of military victory and encouraging hawkish and provocative policies.

Their research suggests humans are only rational actors until we make a decision - cross the Rubicon - at which point our mental apparatus will go through whatever logical leaps necessary to avoid questioning that decision. The authors frame this idea in terms of mind-sets - deliberative vs. implemental - to account for the full range of attendant biases, which they’ve laid out in a helpful table:

Essentially, when we’ve crossed the Rubicon, we are less likely to accept information that does not support our decision, and we’re more likely to believe we will be successful regardless of evidence to the contrary. This overconfidence leads to riskier war plans and a higher likelihood of going to war. As for the standard rational actor model, the authors suggest that rationality goes out the window once a decision is taken:

Early on in the decisionmaking process, a leader is more likely to be in a deliberative mind-set and may approximate a rational actor. Later during the crisis, the same leader is more likely to be in an implemental mind-set, and may display a range of biases that deviate from rationality.

This phenomenon affects the general public as well. Take Iraq:

For example, in 2003, regime change in Iraq might have been relatively straightforward, but postwar stabilization was likely to be difficult and protracted. Nevertheless, as the invasion drew near, Americans concluded that success in both of these objectives would be swift. … In the months leading up to the conflict, a majority expected “a long and costly involvement” in Iraq. But judgments switched immediately before the war, such that a majority now expected “a fairly quick and successful effort.”

Again, we know how well that turned out.

It should be noted that this decision needn’t be a conscious one, nor is it necessarily predicated upon a rational cost/benefit analysis. However, when one writes that the alternatives are narrowing, as Elliot Abrams did, and that some action must be taken, and then concludes that action must be military in nature, we can assume the die’s been cast:

If success were made of speeches and sanctions the Obama policy would be marvelous — and adequate. The problem is that Syria is at war, and one side or the other will win that war. It will be the Assad/Russia/Iran/Hezbollah side, or the popular uprising with its European, American, and Arab support. A deus ex machina ending is possible, wherein some Syrian Army generals push Assad out and agree to a transition away from Assad and Alawite rule. But such a step by the generals is far more likely if they conclude that Assad’s war is lost.

So we must make sure he loses. Directly or indirectly, the next step is to provide plenty of money and arms, training, and intelligence to the Free Syrian Army and other opponents of the Assads.

Abrams notes that there could be problems down the road, but dismisses them with a handwave: “All those questions will come with victory against the bad guys — but only with victory.” As though the path to victory will have no bearing on the eventual outcomes. As though arming the opposition is a surefire way to win this war. As though there’s no way it won’t be over in days, not weeks or years.

An attack on Iran’s nuclear sites would also be challenging - which hasn’t hampered calls to go ahead and get on with it already. Polling suggests that Americans are in favor of military strikes if it meant preventing a nuclear Iran. Troublingly, the repetition of the expectation that strikes are imminent means we’re more likely to believe that it is true (psychological biases again), which sets up a feedback loop in which we perceive war as imminent - and thus cross the Rubicon.

Whether we should get into a war with/in Iran/Syria is outside the scope of this blog post. Rather, I want to make clear that there are unconscious psychological biases that come along with the acceptance of war that make it difficult to maintain objectivity and rationality - and that we must be on our guard against sloppy thinking. Once we’ve committed to the idea, we begin to assume things will go our way, and we avoid thinking about - and planning for - negative outcomes. If the actual decision about going to war is a determinant of our ideas about how that war will play out - and not, say, intelligence about an opponent’s military preparedness, or the potential negative consequences of war, or even the difficulty of executing the war - it’s crucial that we guard against overconfidence. And it’s not like we can’t fight against that inclination; it’s just that we often don’t.

At the end of every war, somebody says, “This. This is the end of war. Now, finally, it’s too expensive/too stupid/too wasteful/too destructive.” And indeed, it seems like the costs of war are rising and the benefits shrinking. But we seem incapable of the necessary in-the-moment questioning our cognitive processes to determine whether this war, just this one, will actually be easy, cheap, and rewarding, or if we just really want it to be.

It’s critical for leaders, intellectuals, the media, and the general public alike to understand consciously what mind set we are in and the attendant cognitive biases that brings. These sort of metacognitive tasks are admittedly difficult - our knowledge about how and what we think is limited, and gaining greater control over those processes is challenging (read Thinking, Fast and Slow for some great - and disturbing - examples of this). But it’s not impossible, and given the stakes, I’d argue that we are all responsible for knowing when we’ve cast our lots. Without the self-awareness and intellectual honesty to recognize when we’ve switched to an implemental mindset - and to then guard against the resultant surge of overconfidence - we’re doomed to the same debates and the same outcomes.

****

Post script: It was while chewing over all that that I made those sarcastic Go The Fuck To War prints. I’ve never been good at artist statements, so I’m going to assume y’all understand what they mean (to wit: once you start thinking war is an okay idea, you’re probably gonna be a little too enthusiastic about it). Anyway, I forgot that I was supposed to give two of them away last week, so! You get another chance: head over to this post and comment and you’ll be entered to win. Manage your expectations.

Posted in Analysis, War | 12 Comments

Leave the A-10, Take the Cannoli

by Diana Wueger Posted on February 10, 2012

To celebrate our relaunch, everybody’s favorite Unmanned Alcoholic Vehicle @drunkenpredator is back! On second thought, maybe we shouldn’t be so excited about that…

The A-10 Warthog: The Vito Corleone of CAS

I am going to do something for which I feel very bad; bang an additional nail into the coffin of the A-10 Warthog. I feel bad about this because I hold a deep affinity in my robotic heart for this unspeakably ugly aircraft, an aircraft which has put so many warheads on so many deserving foreheads over this last decade. But the A-10, the Vito Corleone of the manned-strike CAS family, is not long for this world. I’m not of the manned-strike CAS family, but I’m close to it, perhaps like Tom Hagen, and my duty as consigliere compels me to offer my thoughts.

As you may know, the Air Force recently announced it was eliminating or reorganizing a number of A-10 squadrons, cutting the operating A-10 fleet by 34%. This was met by a chorus of boos from across the American military and the aviation community in general. The Warthog (whose actual name, the Thunderbolt II, is so inconsistent with the A-10’s ugly-duckling persona that it’s hardly ever used) has served a vital close-air support (CAS) role in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Its primary selling points are its ability to haul truckloads of ordnance, deliver them accurately, absorb preposterous amounts of ground fire and return home more or less intact.

The Air Force plans to use the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) to supplant the A-10, and probably the F-15E Strike Eagle, in the manned CAS role. The USAF seems convinced that the JSF is Sonny Corleone; powerful, versatile, groomed from birth to take over all aspects of the family business. But let’s be honest. The JSF’s cost overruns, troubled development history, political problems, and safety oopsies (who really needs an ejection seat ‘chute anyway?) are making it look a whole lot more like Fredo.

So why kill off the Godfather? We could conceivably keep the production line going. A durable, survivable ground-attack asset doesn’t need to be built from scratch to work. Witness, for example, the AC-130 Spectre gunship. Beyond switching from a C-47 airframe to a C-130, Ol’ Spooky pretty much hasn’t changed since the days of Vietnam. Load a cargo plane with artillery. Add targeting equipment. Fly in circles. Rain death. Rinse. Repeat. Couldn’t the A-10 just keep the party going, like a CAS version of the Grateful Dead on perpetual tour?

To answer this question, it is instructive examine the birth of the A-10. The aircraft was designed as part of an Army/Air Force turf war; the Air Force fielded a low-altitude, heavily-armored CAS/anti-armor bird to guard against losing funding and prestige to the Army’s competing Cheyenne attack helicopter program. The Cheyenne lost, the Warthog won, the rest is history. Badass, badass history: it can lug up to eight tons of weaponry, packs a 30mm cannon, and carries almost 1,200 pounds of armor.

But the A-10 was built to wreck Soviet tanks on the plains of Eastern Europe during the opening round of World War III. That beastly payload capacity, heavy armor, and BFG under the nose are helpful in our current low-intensity conflicts, but not exactly built for them. Witness the rise of the Scorpion small missile; we’re more interested in surgical strikes than in melting an armor column. And it takes a lot of fuel to keep this flying tank in the air, drastically limiting its time on station (though it depends on distance from home base, a loaded A-10 can rarely spend more than forty minutes over a target area without refueling). The A-10 is becoming increasingly incongruous in an operating environment where lighter footprints are an imperative.

Even if the JSF deploys as intended - please suppress your laughter - it’s going to have a tough time doing the kind of CAS job the Godfather did. The F-35 is a zoomie trying to do a grunt’s job. It carries less ammunition, less fuel, lacks the armored “bathtub” around its pilot, and needs to move a lot faster to stay in the air. As Andrew Exum of the Center for a New American Security sarcastically tweeted, “I’m sure an F-35 going 800mph with just 182 rounds of 25mm is going to be a super CAS platform.”

Vito is on the way out, and Sonny Corleone is looking a lot more like Fredo. So where is the Michael Corleone, the unexpected candidate who rises to power and solves the family’s problems? The drone, paesan. Drones are the future of CAS. You can keep an A-10 on-station for 30-40 minutes, but a loaded Reaper can hang out for up to 28 hours. Part of that long loiter time stems from the lack of armor around the pilot, or more accurately, the lack of any pilot whatsoever. Not to mention that most armed UAVs hang out at an altitude beyond the range of most small arms and are a lot better-protected from MANPADS by their size and distance than a big heat-generating ‘Hog cruising 700 feet off the deck.

Sure, UAVs lack a big bad chain gun, and sure, we lack the ability to bring a Texas Wal-Mart’s worth of weaponry to the fight. But I submit to you that in current and near-future conflicts persistent surveillance paired with fewer, more precise munitions will be of the most help, to the most warfighters, most of the time. Anyone getting shot at will clearly want to have more bombs available, not less. But the advent of precision-guided munitions, the integration of the enemy into the civilian population, and an ever-shrinking tolerance for collateral damage put the current Godfather of CAS at a serious disadvantage. (And good luck getting much useful ISR from a Warthog, whose 120-knot stall speed is more than twice mine.)

It’s unlikely that we’ll find ourselves in the kind of contested airspace that’d require a fast-moving CAS asset like an A-10, although perhaps the “near-peer” competitor is an argument for retaining it. Yes, drones like me get shot quickly out of the sky by manned fighters (even the Iraqi Air Force pulled that off). But a recent Defense Technology International piece by Paul McLeary illustrated how UAV manufacturers are rapidly integrating low-observable technologies and increasing survivability. Note the recent successful test-flight of the second Avenger, my third-generation Predator cousin that boasts a zippy jet engine, a stealthy internal cargo bay, and - get this - pretty much the same targeting equipment carried by the JSF. (And I’ll add that carrying a human pilot has never done anything good for a plane’s radar cross section.)

And even if you don’t use drones for the manned anti-armor CAS mission, you’re crazy to think that we’re losing some unique capacity. The A-10 was developed years before the advent of the Hellfire missile; sometimes I think we forget that the Hellfire was first developed to bust tanks and not terrorists. But we’ve latched the Hellfire onto everything from Humvees to Apaches, to Predators and hell, even to C-130 Hercules variants (Harvest Hawk, anybody?). Tank-busting, if we have to do it again sometime, no longer requires a cannon firing bullets the size of milk cartons.

In conclusion, the world around us is changing, much like the world of Vito Corleone was changing. We don’t just need raw hitting power; we need accurate hitting power paired with effective ISR. In the first Gulf War, a single F-117A could take out a target that would have required a fleet of World War II bombers to eliminate. While our need for CAS hasn’t changed, our demand for ISR to go with it has skyrocketed. That is well worth trading some Cold War-era perks for vastly longer endurance, pinpoint surveillance, and a lighter logistical footprint.

Drones like me…we’ve got the ISR game sewn up. We’re taking over logistical missions for remote combat outposts. Congress just approved expanding our usage back in CONUS. And as I watch the A-10 fly into the sunset, and the JSF continue to flounder, I know it to be true- I’m the Michael Corleone here. I didn’t want to be the next Godfather of CAS, but I must. It’s strictly business.

Out of respect, I will close with a YouTube video of A-10s blowing shit up to AC/DC.

Posted in Slightly Larger Arms, The Acronym Game! | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

G&L v2.0: Better Faster Stronger

by Diana Wueger Posted on February 10, 2012

I’ve been biting my virtual tongue all week, trying to contain myself, but finally! The new, better, faster, stronger Gunpowder & Lead is here - cleaner look, better subscription services, and big plans for the near future.

And if that weren’t exciting enough, I’m thrilled to announce the newest addition to the G&L crew: Dan Trombly! He’s a scholar and a gentleman and if you haven’t been following his work at Slouching Towards Columbia, you don’t know what you’re missing. Fortunately, you’ve got a weekend to catch up - should be just enough time to get through the most recent post. If you read quickly.

Honestly, I cannot adequately express my gratitude for my co-bloggers or for you, our readers. I never expected to get this much enjoyment out of this blog, so thank you for making this so worthwhile. I have a quick favor to ask - can you go update your blogrolls and email subscriptions and RSS feeds right now please? I know it’s a pain, but I promise we won’t do this to you again. We’re here to stay.

In fact, to make up for the outrage, I’m giving away two Go The Fuck To War prints*! (because that’s how birthdays and blogging work, right? I give you stuff? … wait.)

They're only 9 x 11. They look bigger. Don't be fooled.

To enter for a chance to win, just leave a comment on this post with a suggestion for blog features / post topics / sarcastic warmongering artwork you’d like to see. Deadline to enter is Wednesday, February 15 at 7:00 EST. One winner will be chosen at random and announced sometime on Thursday.

* There’s some explaining to be done around these, but in short: no, I’m not really mongering for war through art. More TK.

Posted in Metablogging | 26 Comments

Rape Is Not An Inevitability of War

by Diana Wueger Posted on February 8, 2012

Does your Wednesday needs some sobering research on rape as a tool of war? Well! The Women Under Siege Project launched today. I’m proud to have contributed some research on the Libyan conflict to this incredibly important endeavor, and I’d highly recommend you take some time to browse the site. Women Under Siege looks at the use of sexualized violence* in a range of conflicts in order to understand the commonalities and the prevalence – and it is horribly, horribly prevalent.

The employment of sexualized violence in conflict is often a choice and an explicitly or implicitly endorsed policy, not just a random crime. It is used intentionally to punish families and communities, not just individual women. And I mean, nobody’s laboring under some delusion that war’s suddenly going to get safer for women and children because we did some research. I get that bad things happen in war, but the intentionality is what gets me, and why I think this project is so important. Without attention, without outrage, without documentation, decisionmakers in conflict situations will continue to think they can get away with using rape as though it’s a legitimate use of force under the laws of war.

And I’ll be honest – I really struggled with the whole “what’s the point?” of this project. It feels Sisyphean – stopping sexualized violence in war? Really? But Gloria Steinem puts it in context in a Q&A:

LW: Does your work in the women’s movement give you encouragement that we can make headway on sexualized violence in conflict?

GS: Yes, absolutely. In my lifetime, we’ve shown that rape is not sex but violence, and changed the laws that required a virginal victim and a bystander willing to testify. In my high school, boys used to say there was no such thing as rape, that “you can’t thread a needle unless the needle holds still.” They’re not saying that anymore. Actually, I get letters from men in prison who really understand rape because, in the absence of women, they’ve been used as women. Sexualized violence, in and out of conflict, has been named and punishments codified. Now we have to get this off paper and into life.

LW: Do you think it’s ever possible to bring these atrocities to an end or at least significantly curb them?

GS: Yes, I do. To say otherwise would be to excuse them as human nature. We know there have been societies in which such crimes were rare or absent; they are not human nature. And even if they were, the most significant characteristic of humans—the one that allows our species to survive—is that we’re adaptable. Violence in the home normalizes violence in the street and in foreign policy. Because we genderize the study of childrearing as “feminine” and the study of conflict and foreign policy as “masculine,” we rarely see that the first causes the second. Of course, the goal is to stop war altogether. If we raised even one generation of children without violence and shaming, we have no idea what might be possible. But at least we can limit war to those who want to fight it.

So read. Be outraged. Be horrified. Don’t think it’s somebody else’s problem and it doesn’t affect you. Your silence makes it worse.

* I feel like I need to get into definitions here, but at minimum, we’re all clear that rape/sexual assault is about violence and control and really has nothing to do with sex, right? I use the term “sexualized violence” because that’s what Gloria Steinem uses. She explains why in the above-referenced Q&A.

Posted in Gender, War | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Twice the First Time

by Diana Wueger Posted on January 1, 2012

I just finished Will McCants’ lovely little book, Founding Gods, Inventing Nations (not to be confused with his earlier work, Much Ado About Prom Night) (okay, so that’s probably a different Will McCants) (or maybe that’s just what he wants us to think?).

Anyway! I think Caitlin’s planning on a real review, which is good, because one of us has studied religion and history extensively and one of us is me. And Founding Gods deserves a real review, which this isn’t. Instead, I’d like to offer some disjointed thoughts and modern parallels that I’m sure Will did not intend anybody to make. Sorry, friend. You should’ve known better.

Caveat lector of this blog post: I’ve taken a lot of cold medicine just before writing this. Caveat lector of Founding Gods: you need a dictionary handy should you wish to read this (which I recommend you do!) - there are many, many Big Words, some of which Will probably made up. You may wish to have Wikipedia close by as well, unless you’re very familiar with the histories of most early civilizations. Also, I recommend reading this backwards - read the book’s conclusion first, then go back to Chapter 1 and read the conclusion of that, then read the full chapter, etc. Founding Gods is short but dense, and it’s easy to get caught up in the details and lose sight of the broader arguments. This is not the Will McCants who rides around in a banana - this is Serious Academic Will McCants, though he does use the phrase “new kids on the Mediterranean block” and makes a sly reference to “winter is coming” (p. 15) (apparently the ancient conception of that idea requires people to build greenhouses, not armies and fortresses - see, you’ll learn things!).

Will’s central idea - that elites used their interpretations of the origins of culture and civilization to shape their political, social, and intellectual environment - seems fundamentally reasonable. I have no basis of knowledge from which to evaluate his scholarship or evidence as presented, but if the origins of a cultural artifact or technai matter, then it’s logical to assume that elites will interpret or modify those origins to suit their needs. In antiquity, the question of whether a technology or type of knowledge was human-derived (and therefore less acceptable and possibly sinful) or taught to humans by a divine being (and therefore assumed to be beneficial to humanity) was worthy of debate, because the origin of the technology determined the acceptability of its pursuit or study.

There’s certainly modern evidence that origins matter. We’re unlikely to debate the divinity of the origins of modern technology now, of course, but the question of etiology, or origination, remains salient. While I don’t wish to engage in the specific debate, the recent back-and-forth between Andrew Sullivan and Ta-Nehisi Coates over the origins and use of intelligence research (1 2 3 4 5 6 7) seems to parallel ancient debates over the acceptability of the use of certain forms of knowledge. While antiquity dealt with more abstract and undocumented innovations such as the invention of clothing, in the Sullivan-Coates debate, the specific question of whence arose research into human intelligence is knowable. For Coates, the ahistoricity of Sullivan’s initial argument is abhorrent, because the history of the research is, broadly speaking, evil - its originators pursued it for racist ends to determine who is considered worthy of society’s resources, and by that token future research into the subject should be pursued carefully, with deep sensitivity to who it impacts. For Sullivan, the history should be noted but should not be allowed to preclude further research. The origins of this research are less important to him, but by engaging and ultimately dismissing Coates’ argument that the research was initially undertaken with evil intent, Sullivan demonstrates the importance of etiology.

Maybe there’s another modern parallel in genetically modified food; there are differing opinions on its origins - OMG Monsanto is evil! v. OMG Monsanto will save the world! - and there are legitimate debates to be had about its use and the implications thereof, which may also feed into value judgements about its origins. In addition to the exchange-of-information value of these debates, they also serve to locate the debaters within their own communities, and to define and reinforce said communities as they jockey for position within broader society and culture.

In short, humans care where their knowledge comes from, and therefore will use the origins of knowledge to for their own ends. That may seem prosaic, and it is, but contrast this with, say, great apes’ use of tools - this is also a technological innovation, but apes seem oddly unconcerned with where, how, or why they gained this knowledge, and do not use the origins of tool-use to promote, say, chimpanzee culture over orangutan culture. I should’ve stopped a paragraph ago, huh?

Switching trains of thought entirely, I found particularly fascinating the ancient ambivalence towards ironsmithing and metallurgy as expressed through cultural ascription of its origins to either a god, an angel, or a human. In a section discussing the Qur’anic depiction of David as a divinely-inspired creator of armor-smithing culture, Will explains how this departed from pre-Islamic understanding of smithcraft:

… This is not something early Jewish and Christian scripture would attribute to God or to a biblical hero. God has nothing to do with iron, and those who originate smithcraft are sinful; moreover, the application of this technology to the crafting of weapons and armor leads to bloodshed and ruin.

The suspicion of smithcraft and of those who practice it went beyond Judaism and Christianity, as may be inferred from Hesiod’s linkage of the deteriorating of the five races and the development of ironsmithing. It was, as Fritz Graf points out, a suspicion held by many in the ancient Mediterranean world. … Prefiguring Qur’an 57:25, Pliny remarks, “Iron is an excellent or detrimental instrument for human life, according to the use we put it to.” But elsewhere he focuses on the destructive results of matellurgy: “Nothing [is] more pernicious (than iron) for it is employed in making swords, javelins, spears, pikes, arrows - weapons by which men are wounded and die, and which causes slaughter, robbery and wars.”

I find it comforting that there’s nothing new to our debates about whether particular technologies or uses thereof are good or bad; in some ways we’re just continuing a long tradition of disagreement (hey, I take comfort where I can get it). Too, norms change; even as smiths were reviled and feared in ancient culture, in colonial America, gunsmiths were prized for their rarity and their talent. In Alexander Rose’s American Rifle, he relates an anecdote from Lewis and Clark’s expedition to the Pacific in which “Le Borgne, a one-eyed Indian chief, threatened to massacre the Corps of Discovery but said he would make an exception for ‘the worker of iron and the mender of guns.’”

To the extent there’s any larger point to be made out of this, it might be that as a unit of culture or technology matures, its origins become less important and its applications matter more. We don’t care who invented ironsmithing anymore; we do care to what use we put said iron. Or maybe the point is just that you should pick up a copy of Founding Gods, Inventing Nations. It’s not an easy read, but it’s rewarding. Yeah, let’s go with that one.

Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment

Drone, Drone on the Range

by Diana Wueger Posted on December 16, 2011
Ed: Today’s guest post is by blogfriend and raging alcoholic Drunken Predator Drone. And if he wrote this drunk, I don’t want to know what he can do sober. I really, really don’t.

So as some of you may know, I’m a Predator drone. I watch things and people, occasionally blow them up, and drink heavily. Not always in that order. And while this qualifies me to be an expert on many topics, civil liberties and privacy aren’t usually on that list. However, the American Civil Liberties Union recently published “Protecting Privacy from Aerial Surveillance: Recommendations for Government Use of Drone Aircraft.” Having read it, flooded my MIRC chat with expletives, and generally lost situational awareness in this aggrieved emotional state, I am compelled to break orbit and share with you a few… concerns.

Spoiler alert- I actually agree with almost all of the ACLU’s recommendations. No, seriously. They propose common-sense measures that would improve government accountability on UAV issues without seriously hampering law enforcement operations. For example, if police gather overhead imagery of innocent bystanders with no connection to their case, they recommend deleting those pictures. They think law enforcement should publicly communicate the purposes and missions for which they do and do not use drones. And the ACLU wants cops to measure UAV performance, tracking effectiveness, safety and return on investment, so the public can decide whether ceding this measure of privacy is really worth it. Why would you argue against any of that? I certainly wouldn’t, and hell, I’m a flying robot.

However, I will argue - strenuously - against the claims on which they rely to reach those conclusions. Despite its reasonable end result, the ACLU’s report rests on assumptions, case law, extrapolations and anecdotes that range from the totally irrelevant to the flat-out goofy (hint: ROOFTOP SEX.) Let’s examine a few of them.

The Hellfire effect. People are scared of drones. And that’s fair. We are scary. UAVs occupy a spot in our cultural Venn diagram overlapped by the Terminator, James Bond, the HAL 9000 and Gene Hackman’s character from “The Conversation.” We can watch you, listen to you, learn about you and kill you from 10,000 feet.

But sadly, we aren’t coming to American skies, at least not in significant numbers. Yes, DHS Predators have indeed helped local cops in North Dakota, but that’s an exception that proves the rule. A medium-altitude, long-endurance drone like a Reaper or Predator needs plenty of airspace without too much “clutter” on the ground below to justify its Homeland Security-sized maintenance and operations budget. Great for the border, but the vast majority of Americans live in urban or suburban areas, and the few urban law enforcement agencies that could afford Predators (cough NYPD) might not find them so helpful over a hyper-dense city with consistently congested airspace.

Most cops will find far more tactical utility in small drones like the Raven or the ugly-duckling T-Hawk than in a Predator, a Reaper, or (God help us) a colossal Israeli Heron TP like the ACLU report cites. That’s like comparing your mountain bike to a tank - an especially apt comparison when you consider that a paltry number of police drones are even big enough to carry weapons, and the few that are actually under consideration for arming would pack less-lethal systems.

Military and CIA drones like me are bad-ass, Hellfire-launching robotic killing machines, and a handful of our unarmed pals hang out around the periphery of America. But the overwhelming majority of our little brothers in American law enforcement are basically mall security cameras with wings. It makes one wonder if the writers of the report are deliberately trying to conflate easily-recognized, much-feared combat aircraft with barely - or totally - unarmed surveillance bots a fraction of the size of a Predator.

The FAA as privacy guardian. The report posits that since the Federal Aviation Administration has statutory authority to keep people on the ground safe from aircraft, they must also have the authority to safeguard the Fourth Amendment rights of the same people. The problem is, they don’t. FAA is a safety regulator, plain and simple. When they got into making grants and doing aviation industry promotion, the NTSB linked confusion over that ancillary mission to the ValuJet crash and Congress shut it down. Just look at FAA’s mission statement; it is “to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system.” No mention of privacy. In fact, FAA’s singleminded pursuit of that mission extended to flagrantly violating privacy laws by publicizing the HIV status of pilots as part of a safety push. And they haven’t even been able to write coherent safety rules for integrating UAVs into the National Airspace System; that effort has been plagued with delays for years.

The real question here is using UAVs to gather evidence, not safely flying or maintaining them. Aviation safety belongs in the hands of the FAA; rules of evidence collection are a question for state and federal legislators. And since we’re talking drone safety, one of the ACLU study’s authors mentioned that the drone crash rate for DHS’s Predators is 353 times higher than commercial aviation. First, that figure was distorted by a tiny sample size and a rash of accidents clustered around the first few years of operations, attributable primarily to inexperienced human flight crews. And by the way, the crash rate for general aviation (think little Cessnas and Piper Cubs) happens to be 82 times higher than commercial aviation, so let’s not go thinking that having a human pilot onboard is some kind of magic bullet.

Don’t say goodbye to helicopters just yet. The ACLU report, and a lot of conventional wisdom, expect drones to replace manned police helicopters. Why not? Drones are cheaper, less expensive to maintain, and can “hover and stare” longer and more surreptitiously than whirlybirds. But drones can only fulfill one of the many roles of a domestic law enforcement helicopter. Try dropping off a SWAT team, transporting a VIP, carrying firefighting equipment or conducting an extended-range pursuit with ANY drone, let alone the small ones available on a police budget. For now, police drones will supplement police aircraft and take over some missions, not supplant them wholesale. And many of the same “natural limits” that constrain manned flight affect unmanned flight too; crew availability, maintenance downtime and budgetary constraints spring to mind. Maybe in 25 years we’ll see true multi-role UAVs that can completely replace police helicopters, but for now, Detective McNulty will still be calling for Foxtrot, not for me.

Sophisticated we ain’t. The ACLU cites the limited body of Supreme Court case law relevant to drone surveillance, but in doing so they badly undercut their own argument. The Supreme Court only requires law enforcement to get a warrant for aerial evidence-gathering if they plan to use “highly-sophisticated surveillance equipment not generally available to the public.” And a vast community of hobbyists, using open-source hardware and off-the-shelf electronics, have created all manner of do-it-yourself drones (for examples of their ingenuity, check out www.diydrones.com.) These home-brewed UAVs boast capabilities comparable, or in some cases superior to those purchased by law enforcement. A cop can buy a small drone to track bad guys, but that drone may never get over the mountain of bureaucracy necessary to obtain an FAA Certificate of Authorization. Yet the same cop can buy the same UAV off the shelf and fly it on her personal time, as a hobbyist, with only the barest of restrictions. Police officers are waiting for months or years for clearance to deploy the most basic of UAVs while high school kids build them for the damn science fair.

Reasonable expectations. The ACLU is concerned that the “reasonable expectation of privacy” commonly derived from the Fourth Amendment would be further eroded by a proliferation of drones “fill[ing] the skies over a town.” Ignoring the fact that hardly any police agency has the people or the IT architecture to monitor such a sewer pipe-load of data, the ACLU points to a case in New York City. In 2004, a police helicopter crew used their cameras to watch a couple having sex on a rooftop balcony, and the ACLU’s report claims the couple had “every expectation” of privacy. Seriously, ACLU?! There was no privacy there whatsoever! THAT’S WHY PEOPLE HAVE SEX ON ROOFTOPS.

In a less scandalous example, most people carry cell phones with GPS locators. Cops need a warrant to follow that data, but on the other hand, we willingly publicize it on FourSquare so we can become Mayor of our local Starbuck’s and get thirty cents off our next coffee. Whether it’s rooftop exhibitionism or sharing more personal information online, the line between the public and private spheres grows increasingly blurry based on our personal choices. Hamstringing law enforcement from lawfully using modern technology, solely on the basis of vague “if current trends continue” extrapolations is unwise. It’s time to stop pretending that this technology is magical, unique or new.

But that’s my gripe. The ACLU doesn’t advocate wide-ranging restrictions on police drone usage. It doesn’t encourage us to roll back the clock, pass new laws or bury our heads in the sand. Instead, it advocates reasonable checks and balances on a potentially transformational new technology, the kind of measures that could do real good for both people and robots like me. But in the process, the ACLU muddies the waters of a legitimate policy debate with hyperbole, incomplete information and unrealistic extrapolations of future trends. This drives me nuts; it’s like they showed up at my doorstep with pizza and beer, but they ran over my dog and parked on my front lawn while doing so.

There’s plenty of room in American public discourse for us to decide how best to use disruptive technologies while preserving our values and liberties. We can have that discussion without the kind of hyperbole one would expect from a merger of Skynet and Big Brother.

Besides, Skynet’s got things covered all on its own.

Trust me.

Posted in Slightly Larger Arms, War | 1 Comment