By Mathew Kleinhans
Woodland, California

Imagine for a moment that you are in the military in the middle of a United States conflict against an opposing enemy country or countries. Your squad is spread thin; you have your own coordinate to protect and you’re on your own. You have been taking enemy fire all day and the unfortunate probability of being hit becomes a reality. Feeling a sharp burning sensation in your lower back, you know that you’ve been wounded. Once assessing the situation and realizing that it is not a lethal wound, you move on to the next step of protocol. “Medic!” you yell. Knowing that your voice is being heard by dozens of strategically placed sensors throughout the battlefield, you wait. Within a matter of seconds you begin to hear the sound of rubber tracks and electronic solenoids slowly progressing nearer. Without thinking twice, you are not alarmed because those sounds are coming from a different creation of ally soldier. That’s affirmative; a TAC — tactical autonomous combatant medic– is meters away from helping you. The TAC unit, with minimal sound, gently reaches its lifting mechanism under your back and legs in order to slide you into its armored “womb.” Once inside the armored machine you are on your way back to the BAS — battalion aid station. During transport there are hundreds of electronic eyes scanning your body and sending information regarding your wound back to post. This enables the doctors there to assess your situation prior to your arrival so your injury may be dealt with promptly and accurately.
That scenario is just an example of science fiction which is quickly morphing into science reality. In today’s day and age there are a wide range of technologies such as tactical autonomous combatants, along with many other positive technologies regarding military robotics which are being promoted and kicked into high gear faster than we all think. “Project alpha, a U.S. Joint Forces Command rapid idea analysis group, is in the midst of a study focusing on the concept of developing and employing robots that would be capable of replacing humans to perform many, if not most combat functions on the battlefield (Shafer).” Technologies such as these are already being tested with human soldiers and could eventually remove soldiers from the battlefield entirely, replacing them with robotic technology of the future. Of course, with such technologies come questions and worries, but any technology that can reduce our military’s wartime human casualties I am certainly a proponent of and it is also something that needs to be seriously considered amongst the rest of the nation. Technologies such as these can be nothing but positive for soldier’s families, friends and colleagues. To me, making life a little easier for our soldiers, who are willing to risk their lives for our freedom, is priority number one.

One alarming problem that I do see and understand is that the United States isn’t the only country “tinkering” in military robotics. Countries such as Korea, Russia, and Iran are also very involved in these technologies. Now this is typical and no different from any other arms race, but to me, I feel being first and the best in this race can be nothing but beneficial. As explained by Dr. Ross Richards, Project alpha director, “We can be at the vanguard, or we can lag behind and some day have to oppose a lethal robotic force. Better to be in the lead (Shafer).” It’ s our government’s responsibility to keep the United States in this technological race for the future safety of our soldiers. Because in my opinion, technologies such as military robotics will drastically change the ways that wars are initiated and possibly change the psychological aspect of war both on and off the battlefield. With that being said, the United States needs to lead the way.

One issue that opponents may use to sway backers of technologies like these would be hacking issues. We all know how easy it can be for a creep to hack into our PCs; so why should we believe that they won’t be able to hack into the robotic software? Although this is a good question, I find it hard to believe that our government would overlook something such as this and not address it is one of the number one possibilities for failure; thus concentrating extremely on preventing such occurrences.

What about the moral psychological value of war? Isn’t a key factor of war the fact that people lose their lives? Ultimately, isn’t that how we have won or lost battles over the years? These are good questions, yet these questions answered themselves. With no loss of human life and only substantial loss of funds, there would be know point to war. That is why I am a firm believer that infantry soldiers will have a place in our military for many years to come. Military robotics will simply make those years less troublesome and possibly more manageable for our soldiers.

I am a firm believer that the main objective in wartime science should be to reduce loss of human life within our Coalition. Robots are used increasingly in wartime situations to reduce human casualties, being used for a mix of both combat against the enemy and non-combat roles such as scouting and bomb disposal. Utilizing these robots also has an extreme financial benefit. “At present stages robot casualties are less financially damaging than human, most robotics taking $230,000 to produce while the average cost of a U.S. soldier from enlistment to internment is $4,000,000 (Bolstering…) .” It is sad to put a dollar sign on human life but we must face the fact that we are indeed living in a capitalistic world and society. It would be foolish and irresponsible for our government to not pursue the future of military robotics when the end result is possibly saving lives as well as money.

There are many advantages to robotic technology in warefare, as stated by Major Kenneth Rose of the US Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, “Machines don’t get tired. They don’t close their eyes. They don’t hide under trees when it rains and they don’t talk to their buddies … A human’s attention to detail on guard duty drops dramatically in the first 30 minutes … Machines know no fear (Vesely).” Military robotics will allow humans to be removed from jobs that are highly hazardous, exhausting or boring. For example, an operation such as clearing mines, packing gear or night watch. They will make it possible for one person, with the aid of robots, to do the work of several.

I fully understand that when you create something new and improved there is usually a consequence or something that you have to give up in return. One problem that may occur while probing into this technology is that a majority of these robots are being built and tested within laboratory confinements. It’s all very well getting a robot to work in the clean confines of a laboratory, but the outdoors poses huge problems for robots, as it does for ordinary soldiers. One thing that any tactical military robot will need to make use of will be complicated environment sensing. “Creating a robot to work in the water or even in the air is far simpler than creating something that will be able to deal with different terrains, weather conditions, temperatures and the various rigors of nature. We humans have been dealing with those things for millions of years. Military robots will have to learn it from scratch (Weiner).” Although that may be true, we would have to assume that with the funding the government is talking about, it would be senseless to believe that our United States military is going to put something into mass production that doesn’t have some kind of guarantee revolved around it.

War is always tragic and the loss of human life is always unbearable. Yet wars are also, sadly, a part of modern life. Ask yourself, could robots be used by the military to limit the loss of life? Military Robotics is becoming a reality and is no longer confined to the imagination and to fiction or comic books. Whether we like it or not, military robotics is a technology that is going to happen. Agreed, it will be expensive. But as Retired Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales stated, “Land warfare is no longer the cheap alternative.” Today soldiers do virtually all of the fighting and dying in Iraq. They deserve the best tools we can give them to insure that they will prevail on all future battlefields (Bolstering…).”