Rohan Ramesh

It is no secret that future wars will be fought by machines controlled by men. Technology is likely to take out humans from battlefields and dangerous operations. In fact, we could be seeing machines under control by humans doing the bulk of the fighting. That, of course, is still some time away, but we are already seeing some glimpses of the future in the present.

Atlas Elektronik Seacat

The rather attractive advantage of using machines to fight our wars is right now uppermost in the minds of military planners, generals, and captains of arms industry. The benefits, at least on paper, are immense. Some of these include lack of need to expose soldiers to direct conflict and potentially dangerous situations, the lack of the need to provide creature comforts in war machines for human crews, and of course, low cost.

Already, armed US unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), or drones in common parlance, commanded by controllers sitting hundreds and even thousands of miles away, are taking part in war theatres in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. Dozens of Taliban warlords have been taken out by Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAVs) such as MQ1 Predator and MQ9 Reapers. In fact, air forces the world over are rejoicing over the possibility of acquiring such drones because they obviate the risks associated with using advanced fighter planes flown by pilots – such as pilot loss or capture and loss of extremely expensive hardware that the fighters are. Also, UCAVs present a lesser radar signature, unlike the fighters or bombers. UCAVs are the new sunrise military industry with virtually every country with a military production system worth the name jumping int