I feel like the article is mostly empty scaremongering. Drones are inevitable, you can't stop technology marching forward. They may not be a bad thing, however. More drone warfare means fewer soldiers involved in conflict and fewer deaths. I think a lot of the handwringing over drones is just because it's OMG ROBOTS, rather than considering that these deaths would have happened anyway but would have also caused casualties and psychological damage to the troops that would have been in their place.
Drone operators work with less intel than boots on the ground, and have less ability to precisely target, so it's pretty much a given that there will be more civilian casualties, not less.
If drones didn't make it easier to kill, they wouldn't be used on such a massive scale (the US military now trains more drone operators than fighter pilots).
All weapons make it easier to kill. We have been on a steady march forward as far as the efficiency of killing goes. We have guns, bombs, etc. . . And the same arguments were made about planes, I'm sure. The pilots are too detached from what's happening on the ground, etc. . . However, the order to kill is going to happen regardless and drones are better than carpet bombing, let alone the Shock and Awe crap that we were doing in Iraq.
War is horrid. It's the worst thing we do as humans, but I can't see how drones really make it worse. Are they used to kill the wrong people sometimes? Yes. Are there civilian casualties? Yes. But that happens with all warfare. And as we've gotten more efficient at killing we've been doing less of it. Wars have become less brutal over time, not more and I don't see that trend changing.
War has become less brutal and more efficient, but it's very foolish to say that as a result, there are going to be fewer deaths. WW2 was more deadly than WW1, and if you look at the weapons we have available today, I don't know how anyone can think that WW3 is going to be _less_ deadly.
"I don't know what kind of weapons will be used in the third world war, assuming there will be a third world war. But I can tell you what the fourth world war will be fought with -- stone clubs."
The order to kill and the actual number of deaths resulting are a factor of how big the gun is and how easy to point. I'm sure airplanes did in fact cause an increase in civilian casualties. Better weapons mean more civilian deaths.
Also, i don't see were you get this notion that wars get less brutal. Is the rwandan genocide of a fifth of a country less brutal? Is the iraqi total of over 100.000 civilian casualties less brutal?
Improvements in effectiveness reduce deaths, too. For example, suppose you want to destroy a country's air-defense system. Which is the costlier way--in terms of loss of life--to do it: a conventional air engagement, shooting fighters and pilots in the air, and attacking missile defenses directly with bombers (and losing some)? Or evading defenses with a stealth bomber?
Better weapons enable you to do what you want to do. When what you want to do is eliminate leaders or destroy infrastructure, that's a good thing, from a humane perspective.
The criticism of drones isn't of the technology, but the attitude of those operating them. The article mentions that it doesn't put the operator's own people at risk, and is trying to point out that this creates a detachment from the consequences. Before, taking out a target required people on the ground in some capacity, actually carrying out the mission or just identifying the target. Drones undoubtably save the lives of troops on a per-engagement basis, but now that there isn't that risk, and without some process or oversight, it's becoming too easy to just pull the trigger and destroy some pixels on a screen.
I think it's actually the other way around. The stress of combat, the instinct to self-preservation, close contact with the horrors of war, and the loss of comrades likely makes troops on the ground more, not less, likely to commit atrocities or act callously towards civilians. Drone strikes are also easier to supervise and review.
I won't speak to the balance, as I have no idea what it is, never the less, I would tend to think that not being in immediate danger would allow for tracking and confirmation, whereas in conventional warfare, one might have acted a lot more on "gut feeling" (ie. that form running across the street is acting suspiciously and indeed seems threatening, it's either me or them.
Simpsons called it: "The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots."
