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Yesterday, I asked about a supposedly new device, deployed on U.S. unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), that reportedly helped turn the tide in Iraq and may to be facilitating an increase in drone-delivered missile strikes along the Afghan-Pakistan border. As cryptically described in the Los Angeles Times, the system enables "the tracking of human targets even when they are inside buildings or otherwise hidden from Predator surveillance cameras." It "gives remote pilots a means beyond images from the Predator's lens of confirming a target's identity and precise location."
Is this technology for real? If so, what is it? Since the government isn't telling, I poked around a bit and asked readers for ideas.
Here are some possible leads. First, Slate reader mark_925 flags a list posted Friday on Aviation Week's Ares blog. The list includes several technologies that have improved U.S. efficiency at hunting and killing adversaries in Iraq. They include:
- Communications intercept sensors "so sensitive that they can pick up the low-power emissions of handheld cell phones."
- A targeting system called NCCT, which "instantaneously links the intelligence taken from several aircraft, ships or UAVs at once to locate, identify and target electronic emissions, including communications, and associate them with air, ground and sea radar targets."
- An "IDM communications module" that links communications signals to visible sources, such as cars.
- Software that facilitates "change detection" from spy aircraft.
- Helmet sights that immediately translate a physically viewed object into spatial coordinates that enable fast targeting and destruction.
Second: Walter Pincus of the Washington Post flags an article in the U.S. military journal Joint Force Quarterly, written by the general who, as of today, is replacing David Petraeus as commander of multinational forces in Iraq. It credits the upturn in Iraq in part to a "surge of ... full motion video (FMV) assets." Early in the war, "Commanders were rarely allocated more than an hour of FMV a week," says the article. "Since 2003-2004, FMV within the corps has increased tenfold. ... Today, the corps can count on daily support from at least 12 FMV systems," and each brigade combat team "has an organic tactical UAV platoon that provides 18 hours of FMV coverage a day." Drones are dramatically improving military performance, not by doing the killing themselves, but by providing instant, on-demand customized intelligence to ground forces.
Third: Pincus reports that last week, a Senate subcommittee appropriated $750 million for "intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance initiatives." This compounds a $1.3 billion shift of money to ISR programs, approved by the Pentagon in July. According to Defense News, the programs include:
- "$262.6 million to buy digital data links for Raven UAVs, data links and laser designators for Hunter unmanned aircraft, and various improvements for other unmanned aircraft."
- "$168.5 million to buy eight Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance airborne systems, including with $52 million for three new Constant Hawk airborne surveillance and target acquisition systems."
- "$17 million to extend a contract for Scan Eagle UAV services, $15 million to buy a new Northrop Grumman-made Global Hawk UAV and associated gear and services, $26 million to purchase four Boeing-made Scan Eagles."
- Imaging systems and "sensor packages" for the Air Force.
So there are some possible clues to the recent turnaround in Iraq and the more recent escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan: more UAV deployment and video, faster integration of UAV data into ground operations, more acute communications sensors, and instant targeting data on visible objects. Some combination of these technologies might account for the key breakthrough attributed to the devices now being deployed to Afghanistan: nonvisual identification and tracking of targets. Or not.
Over to you, Danger Room.
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Speaking of Terminators: The drone war over Pakistan is escalating.
Boom. Sept. 4: Seven people killed in a strike on Chaar Kehl, near the Afghan border.
Boom. Sept. 5: Six to 12 more killed in a hit on Al Must.
Boom. Sept. 8: 23 dead and at least 18 wounded in a five-missile barrage on Daande Darpkhel.
Boom. Sept. 12: Twelve more dead in an attack on Tole Khel.
That's about 50 fatalities in four strikes in a single week, all at the hands of unmanned vehicles. An impressive warning from the bloodless killers of tomorrow. Even before the hit on Tole Khel, the Washington Post reported, "The number of Hellfire missile attacks by Predators in Pakistan has more than tripled, with 11 strikes reported by Pakistani officials this year compared with three in 2007." According to the Wall Street Journal, "One official in Afghanistan estimated that drone usage in Pakistan has doubled since the summer, and he said missiles are now being fired at Pakistani targets virtually every day."
Why the increase? Media reports from the ground and military sources indicate several factors: 1) Pakistan isn't really helping, so we've taken the killing into our own hands. 2) We don't want to literally use our own hands, since our ground forces might be captured. So, where possible, we're using drones instead. 3) Drone attacks cause less friction with Pakistan than ground incursions do, since U.S. personnel are never at the scene. 4) We're sick of our troops being picked off in Afghanistan, so we're using drones to even the score. 5) We're relying more on drones to spy in Pakistan because we've failed to develop informants on the ground. 6) Or maybe we're getting better ground intelligence, which is giving us more hot targets to shoot at.
The most intriguing factor, however, seems to be an upgrade in drone technology. In Friday's Los Angeles Times, Greg Miller and Julian Barnes report that Predator drones "above the tribal belt along Afghanistan's eastern border" are now "equipped with sophisticated new surveillance systems." The new systems permit
the tracking of human targets even when they are inside buildings or otherwise hidden from Predator surveillance cameras. Equally important, officials said, the systems have significantly speeded up decisions on when to strike. The technology gives remote pilots a means beyond images from the Predator's lens of confirming a target's identity and precise location. ... The technology allows suspects to be identified quickly. "All I have to do is point the sensor at him," said a military officer familiar with the system, "and a missile can be off the rail in seconds." The devices are roughly the size of an automobile battery, but are heavy enough that outfitted Predators in some cases carry only one Hellfire missile instead of two.
Tracking invisible targets? Nonvisual identification? Miller and Barnes don't explain how the system works. All they disclose is that it "was developed as part of a special project within the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology." But if U.S. drone managers are willing to shed 50 percent of their missiles to make room for these target trackers, they must be pretty valuable.
The arrival of these devices in Afghanistan is only half the story. The other half is where they're coming from. They've been "instrumental in crippling the insurgency in Iraq," according to Miller and Barnes:
A military official familiar with the systems said they had a profound effect, both militarily and psychologically, on the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq. "It is like they are living with a red dot on their head," said a former U.S. military official familiar with the technology who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity because it has been secret. ... Officials said introduction of the devices coincided with the 2007 U.S. troop buildup in Iraq, and was an important, but hitherto unknown, factor in the subsequent drop in violence in that country.
How much of the credit we've given to the troop surge in Iraq actually belongs to these devices? Are they working some similar magic now in Afghanistan and Pakistan? And, if so, what the heck are they? I don't know, and the U.S. government doesn't want to tell us, but I'll keep looking for answers with my primitive human eyes. In the meantime, if you've got any good intel on them, let's hear it.
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If you get the Human Nature RSS feed but don't check the Slate home page, you may have missed an article worth reading: How seniors became cyborgs. It's about the mechanical and electronic components we've been putting into old people to replace failing body parts. It's part of our "Geezers" issue. Take a look.
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