Every independent investigation of the strikes has found far more civilian casualties than administration officials admit. Gradually, it has become clear that when operators in Nevada fire missiles into remote tribal territories on the other side of the world, they often do not know who they are killing, but are making an imperfect best guess.
In the trade-off between sending troop units of any size or their client-state proxies in, drones provide fewer overall casualties; but of course killing even one person whether good/bad is a pacifist's shibboleth. But it is the luxury of advanced technology and an MIC that has given us wars the length of Vietnam with much fewer casualties.
Good news for everybody out there who’s been paralyzed by fear of a robot takeover in the not too distant future. You know that last resort weapon in The Matrix, the one that Keanu Reeves or whoever activates when those stingray-looking robots are eating through the ship’s hull? And then the robots just fall down, their electronic guts fried and useless? Well, we built one. And strapped it to a drone.
A recent weapons flight test in the Utah desert may change future warfare after the missile successfully defeated electronic targets with little to no collateral damage.
Boeing and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., successfully tested the Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) during a flight over the Utah Test and Training Range.
CHAMP, which renders electronic targets useless, is a non-kinetic alternative to traditional explosive weapons that use the energy of motion to defeat a target.
Power is cut to a room of computers after being hit by a high-powered microwave pulse from a Counter-electronics High-powered Advanced Missile Project.
During the test, the CHAMP missile navigated a pre-programmed flight plan and emitted bursts of high-powered energy, effectively knocking out the target's data and electronic subsystems. CHAMP allows for selective high-frequency radio wave strikes against numerous targets during a single mission.
"This technology marks a new era in modern-day warfare," said Keith Coleman, CHAMP program manager for Boeing Phantom Works. "In the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy’s electronic and data systems useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive.