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Book Review: On Killing Remotely: The Psychology of Killing with Drones

02 Mar 2023
Reviewed by Andrew Maher

It is easy to think and talk about drones and warfare in terms of distances and lives saved. This volume demonstrates that for those in command of remotely piloted aircraft, the outcomes are as real and life-threatening as they are for soldiers on the ground. 

Joseph watched as a “technical” vehicle (a Toyota truck with a large machine gun mounted on its back) maneuvered around the city, fired at friendly forces, and then ducked into a garage… Due to the urban canyon nature of the city, the missile had to travel down the middle of a very narrow road the length of several city blocks before it reached the technical. Needless to say, it was a very complex shot from nine kilometres away that ended with a destroyed technical vehicle and dead enemy fighters who had been firing at friendly troops all day… Joseph’s sequence of physiological responses to killing remotely: heavy breathing, elevated heart rate, adrenaline rush, shaky hands, disruption of breath, tunnel vision, diminished sound, joy, and elation… As discussed in On Combat, these physiological responses are similar to those experienced by a warrior in a face-to-face shooting incident. That these responses transfer to someone killing from maximum range demonstrates two important points: the mind does not distinguish the event mediated through a screen as happening seven thousand miles away and, clearly, there can be an emotional and physical reaction to killing, regardless of distance.

With this vignette, Lieutenant Colonel Wayne Phelps invites the reader into the mission control rooms that have increasingly used remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) to prosecute the shadowy “War on Terror.” In so doing, he destroys several myths about such platforms, the men and women who operate them, and the way that they prosecute their targets. On Killing Remotely: The Psychology of Killing with Drones, is a must-read for the Defence practitioner. Seldom does the warrior community share its raw, confronting experience of combat. We should listen when they do.

Examining lessons from the combat employment of RPAs is undoubtedly a prescient need. The research for this book involved interviews with over 250 US and foreign service personnel involved with operating such platforms – an indicator of the already widespread use of RPAs in conflict. Despite the recent cancellation of Project AIR7003 (the acquisition of armed Medium Altitude Long Endurance RPAs), it seems most unlikely that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) will not acquire some types of armed unmanned capabilities in the foreseeable future. Indeed, it is important to note that within the coalition environment, Australian service men and women now have significant experience planning, operating, and integrating armed RPA capabilities through service in Iraq and/or Afghanistan.

The hidden costs of these recent wars are being examined in Australia by the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. But it is important to recognise that psychological costs are not borne exclusively by those traditional warriors that meet their enemy face-to-face. Phelps quotes an interview with an experienced female Air Force Intelligence analyst whose experience demonstrates that the costs of combat manifest in unexpected ways:

At the time, there was no help available, and the sentiment in the community was “if you can’t handle it, get the hell out of here,” and they were shamed out of the community. Initially, nobody would talk about killing… What I found critical to helping the crews was sharing the “why” each HVI [High-Value Individual] was being targeted. Sharing information built trust between the crew and intelligence… I enjoyed my time working with RPAs, but it wasn’t without a price. At one point, I showed up on an ISIS hit list for the work I did.

Such stories provide the ADF opportunity to avoid similar mistakes in the way we might employ, train, and protect our future RPA operators, intelligence personnel, and military leaders.

Avoidance of such mistakes requires cultural change associated with the fielding of new technologies. From his extensive interviews, Phelps constructs the profile of “Joe” – the average RPA pilot. “The first time Joe killed with an RPA he had a negative response to it. He did not feel as though his training mentally prepared him for the moment.”  Following this initial trauma, the RPA operator experienced a lifestyle that might be described as “Forever Deployed.” Phelps explains:

When traditional warriors deploy to a foreign country for combat, they must physically and mentally transition twice… Now imagine rather than two transitions per deployment, two transitions per day. Drive to work, get ready for combat, fly a combat mission, mentally prepare to transition back to family life, and then drive home… for four straight years.

An interesting facet of this book is its examination of a debate regarding the fielding of RPAs; are they an evolutionary or revolutionary development in warfare? On one hand, Phelps charts the journey from bows and arrows, through beyond-line-of-sight artillery, to now RPAs. This line of thinking suggests an evolutionary journey, the next step in range and lethality for which militaries are culturally well-positioned. On the other hand, Phelps identifies that half of those surveyed thought that RPAs have changed the nature of war; in other words, they are revolutionary. This claim is less about the military than it is about political oversight and command of the military.

A sizable proportion of the RPA community believes that “violence is too easy… the lower risk to forces makes an easy sell to utilise the RPA versus putting actual troops in harm’s way… [and] the barriers to kinetic operations are decreased through remote operations.” This is a perceptive observation regarding the way nations have recently approached the decision to employ lethal force, possibly beginning with cruise missile strikes against Al-Qaeda training camps in 1998 (Operation Infinite Reach). Limited public concerns regarding the legitimacy of RPA strikes, may be combining with a lower political risk (compared to other forms of military intervention), to make RPA strikes an attractive policy option.

To conclude, the RPA is here to stay – an observation that has only been exacerbated by the lessons of the recent Nagorno-Karabakh and Russo-Ukrainian conflicts. An increasing ubiquity in RPA use is a result of the lowering costs to entry, as commercial, off-the-shelf adaptations allow any combatant to now field some form of armed surveillance capability. Phelps’ work covers such ground, yet also reminds us of the enduring human nature of conflict. Indeed, he importantly recognises, “The RPA is the tool. It is the crew who is at war, regardless of physical location.” On Killing Remotely gives this personal face to an otherwise veiled form of warfighting.

This is a review of Lt. Col. Wayne Phelps, On Killing Remotely: The Psychology of Killing with Drones (Little, Brown and Company, 2021). ISBN: 9780316628297 (Hardcopy)

Andrew Maher served for over twenty years in the Australian Army and now is completing a PhD on proxy warfare with the University of New South Wales, Canberra. He has lectured and written on irregular warfare over multiple years, is a Professor of Practice with Arizona State University, a non-resident fellow with the Modern War Institute and the Joint Special Operations University, and volunteers for the Irregular Warfare Initiative.

This review is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution