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Title: Newsbud Roundtable - Examining The Real Costs of Drone Warfare
Published: 2016-09-13
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLCHAeoXL3I
Title: Newsbud Roundtable - Examining The Real Costs of Drone Warfare
Published: 2016-09-13
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLCHAeoXL3I
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I've Spiro thanks for joining us on this episode of news buzz round table today we're joined by two guests we're head we have Eric Moshe with us who's a news but analyst and author an independent writer and Eric has served in the U. S. Air Force from two thousand nine to twenty thirteen and his writings focus on technology weapons of war and futurism and he's currently2/67
studying rhetoric at George Mason University we're also joined today by professor Abigail hill bloco how Blanco excuse me %HESITATION perch she's a professor and assistant professor of economics at the university of Tampa ensuring that academic paper there drones to the public interest public choice and the expansion of unmanned aerial vehicles she also co authored a highly informative paper with her colleague Christopher calling on the political3/67
economy of drones now you're going to start with you have a question here for you and your exclusive series for news but you have been writing and analyzing extensively on the various aspects of the drone industry tell us how and why you became so interested in this topic and your objective in providing these in depth and thank you spiral so I first got into researching drones4/67
I would say right about when I when I our volunteer to start running from one in foxholes it's such a great publication with so many distinguished voices and people who actually know how to make a difference you are you a journalist and you have a journalist who are who are actually involved with investigating real I will say culprits but real real figures with real power and5/67
that's very rare that's a very rare saying and then you have a an object like a drone a weapon which which has a profound effect on the world and it is used by numerous nations and all these complex ideas of war robotics even religion they they merge and they and they swarm this interesting this interesting paradigm where things need to be investigated make things need to6/67
be explored on numerous levels not just what you see but the three D. aspects of it so I like to I like to look at things like artificial intelligence which I'm not really sure I understand your and just just said the same thing is economics which I am admittedly a novice and but I had the curiosity in the drive to I'd say understand it so I7/67
take I take things I don't understand I try to challenge myself through my journalism and hopefully I can I can offer the viewers and the readers something that's but they can take away from it and think about an issue in a broader and more subjective substantial way well thank you Eric we're glad to have you on the news but team %HESITATION now question for professor Abigail8/67
hall Blanco %HESITATION you have been emphasizing the concept of public interest specifically talk about how the interest of the drone industry including their private government players and policy makers they're all at odds with each other and the right no excuse me they're at odds with the public interest %HESITATION please expand upon this and explain to our viewers this conflict of interest in layman's terms how these9/67
interests are at odds with odds with each other so when people typically talk about the drug industry and it's not just the drone industry its defense in general I'm people the general public political figures and even a lot of academics frankly assume that public actors and policy makers who are involved with drones and defense policy are working within the public interest now that basically means that10/67
they set aside their own incentives and instead work to fill some broader notion of public welfare so they're ignoring what's good for them instead trying to work to better off everyone however want to measure that up welfare function it well I am now this is an on assumption to make for an economist up because one of the things I teach my principal students on literally the11/67
first day of class is that economic actors respond to incentives we all respond to incentives and so what my work does is to try to look and see does this public interest assumption that tends to be the dominant narrative when talking about drones does that public interest assumption seem to do a good job of explaining what we've seen with regard to drugs and drug policy I'm12/67
based on my research that framework does not do a very good job and so the alternative to that is what's referred to as public choice other public choice framework again is a very simple economic framework which basically says the following individuals policymakers included they respond to incentives so you have people who are in Congress are you also a private actors so defense contractors and you have13/67
boaters all of these groups have something that they want whether it's to get reelected whether it's have favorable policies task will benefit their companies or to get a particular programs or benefits or something like that and they all have something that they can exchange to try to get those things so Congress can make laws a private interest can contribute campaign money or they can lobby and14/67
voters have votes US so my work tries to look at how those different groups interact with each other are to try to better explain what it is that we've seen with drones in the last I particularly post nine eleven period but even before that that's very nursing professor now the drone lobby in the mainstream media consistently claimed that producing drones is the most cost effective means15/67
of achieving U. S. objectives how would you counter this conjecture sold to the public is fact through the marketing arm of the military district complex in the U. S. media so there's a lot to be said there I mean there are a few different reasons that drones are often claim to be cheaper %HESITATION but in fact that's not really what we see if we look at16/67
the literature so the most favorable reports on drones give them a slight cost advantage over the man alternatives however you have this other body of literature which suggests that they are in fact I just as or more expensive than comparable manned aircraft there few different reasons for this are drones have a higher crash rate than manned aircraft which can be really important so it's cheaper but17/67
you're seeing are a variety of million plus dollar crashes that kind of tends to eat away your savings I another thing that we see is also a looking at cost in aggregate so the unit that drone that actually flies is just one part of what's needed in order for a draw to actually operate so when you take into account all the ground equipment all the micro18/67
electrical systems everything that goes along with that of the costs are actually a lot higher out one example that I used frequently as a particular drown known as the global hawk I it was intended to cost about twenty million dollars a unit which would make it significantly cheaper than a lot of manned aircraft however I what's actually happened is that it costs roughly two hundred and19/67
twenty million dollars a unit I which is obviously a lot more expensive than what was anticipated so what you're seeing on paper and what's actually happening in reality I don't quite go together well that's right oftentimes everything always looks good on paper %HESITATION now Eric you've been absolutely bring up the concept of perpetual wars in your series now you also mentioned the exclusive monthly DOD contract20/67
reports written by news bites Christian Sorenson and published at news but tell us how your series and new spots monthly DOD contract reports come together and provide a more macro view on the war industry and the unending wars of the United States great question Christian sourcing is a doing us all a great a great service by by compiling all those things I'm sure is very painstaking21/67
way so's the numbers in the amount of of US dollars pouring into the U. S. war machine whether or not each of these each of these funds is our is excessive or it's effective it's beside the point because if you've been on the U. S. that clock website I haven't checked it today but sometimes I go on there just amaze myself but it it's it's a22/67
very high number so I think my my series I so some type of technology is being developed or dance it's currently are on the rise in the market and did these things correlate when you look at the pay when you look at the pay stubs when you when you see the contracts that are being they're being paid for by by the American public and if it's23/67
if it benefits us in any way other than what they tell us through military publications they say all but dropped the drawings are drones are are changing the way the warfare is Jones draws are minimizing casualties they are making war more clean I think Abigail's paper demonstrates that this is not usually the case and what my work in Christian Sorenson and numerous others not to mention24/67
James on what a million mark you gotta give a shout out to my my friend over there and James Corbett isn't there there there's definitely a deep layered %HESITATION issue when it comes to military spending and %HESITATION the way nature works in general I will put %HESITATION now professor %HESITATION here's another false premise sold to the policy makers and the public how drones are more effective25/67
at reducing collateral damage minimizing civilian casualties and reducing the potential harms of troops %HESITATION too relative to %HESITATION alternate technologies is this a factual premise backed by the of all the available data and if not what would be your response so there are couple of different things there so we can take looking we can take civilian casualties and we can take our troops at our US26/67
troops aiming as being separate I am when doing this research this is actually the one I was most surprised because given the dominant narratives are you hot %HESITATION Eric holder for example who uses the phrase surgical like precision when talking about drones I think the specific quote goes something along the lines of drones can eliminate the tumor known as al Qaeda without destroying the surrounding tissue27/67
and that's the dominant narratives on but what we find however is that this does not appear to be the case you have a couple problems with current data first of all the data on casualties related to drone strikes is woefully incomplete %HESITATION you don't have people who are going on the ground after strikes doing an accurate recording of who was killed and he was not killed28/67
on if you look at US government documents they will talk about the number of civilian casualties is being very small part of that is probably a definitional problem because if you're a military age may all within a strike zone so this is between ages I think thirteen fourteen to in your sixties %HESITATION been you're considered a military target and so you're not counted as a civilian29/67
casualty I'm the best data that we have on this there are few different sources that are compiling best I indicate that at a minimum drones are not nearly as precise as we think they are now there is a study that we as lay people can't access because it's number classified data I'm but researchers for the center for naval analyses used classified data sat looking at drone30/67
strikes in Afghanistan for your long period and based on the interview with the author is what they found was a drone strikes for an order of magnitude more likely to result in civilian casualties than if you had a manned fighter where the pilot was given clear directives so that's ten times more likely to result in civilian casualties so at best dot narrative of surgical precision when31/67
it comes to civilian casualties is blurry at best at worst it's wrong when it comes to I U. S. military personnel again you see the narrative of we don't have boots on the ground there's not a pilot the cockpit so this has to be better for US military personnel what people don't know though is that up until very recently drones cannot be launched from an aircraft32/67
carrier most of them are still not so drones actually require more individuals to be operating closer to where the drone is going to be operating just usually high conflict areas of these drawings also have to be guarded when they're on the ground are drones make really nice targets when they're not flying so you wind up having %HESITATION yes I should say you what you wind up33/67
seeing is actually more danger to military personnel in that context and there's also a variety of literature coming out fairly recently which is looking at the psychological impact a drone warfare I in particular looking at things like post traumatic stress disorder our rates of suicide and depression among drone pilots because when you're a fighter pilot you fly over you fire you know Doug whatever I ammunition34/67
that you're carrying and then use layoffs but if you're drawn pilot you're watching this target sometimes for hours days or even longer at a time and after you hit the target Dan you are watching to see the aftermath because you're interested in the intelligence that may provide now a lot of these Germans are equipped with things like thorough sensor cameras and so one thing that you35/67
will hear from some drone pilots is still talk about seeing the targets before their head their body shop on the thermal cameras is being warm colors so red orange yellow but after the strike they watch as these individuals change from warm colors to cool colors and so on they talk that that may have since like what negative psychological impacts I was so again and passed the36/67
dominant narratives isn't quite right up and at worst it's flat out wrong now professor that you also bring up very porn issue the representation of very narrow interests through money and lobbying verses represent public at large and when it comes to policy making and implementation with this comes to mind the revolving door phenomena specifically between the government agencies in this case the department of defense and37/67
the big name representatives and the U. S. Congress and the military industrial complex please tell us about your take based on your own observation and study though I should say first of all that I'm there are my co author Chris Waite I'd he also writes with another individual named Thomas Duncan I may have a few different papers looking specifically at the military industrial complex in the38/67
revolving door as I would definitely direct people to write those papers if they're interested in this in particular well when it comes to drones are in my research I focused mainly on the Big Five drone manufacturers so that would be a Boeing Lockheed Martin Northrop Grumman General Dynamics in general Atomics I'm it will be precise numbers are skating at the moment a you definitely have what39/67
you see in a lot of different arenas when it comes to defense contracting set revolving door that you speak of basically means that you have individuals who are going back and forth between the military and private eye contractors or Congress and private contractors people who basically no different sides of the game so you have a lot of retiring generals for example who are retiring from the40/67
military and immediately taking positions with lobbying companies or with defense contractors with the idea that they'll be able to do things that be able to write %HESITATION request for things for example and put it in the language that makes it really easy for someone who is in the military to take that and then I easily submit so you definitely have this cross over going back and41/67
forth and people have suggested different ways that you might be able to mitigate some of that %HESITATION but at least currently that is definitely something to consider when talking about not only drones but any kind of %HESITATION defense contracting how Eric %HESITATION during your interview with professor hall Blanco you pose the fault you pose the following question what is your advice to the people who are42/67
just dipping their toes into the subject and may be overwhelmed by all the facts figures numbers balance sheets let's hear your answer on this area I can you provide our viewers with a few more suggestions or tips on where to start and where the most reliable sources are sure well I am Gilles website now I'm gonna on you you have to yesterday try to access university43/67
on because first of all I think I think peer reviewed papers are very underrated well people will simply just going to Google search and try to understand economics that way but I think that if you search for let's say economics for beginners or I left a bunch of links in the article as well that have that have our root root very like rudimentary techniques understand economics44/67
in the stock market especially when it comes like Lockheed Martin and how on their stocks for example are not very they don't change very much when it comes to the financial crisis I think there are other financial engineering as I've as I've read is it's very on point so to understand economics first of all I think that the good in math obviously our I'm taking math45/67
right now in college and struggling through it but I'll get there you just have to have the building blocks in place or else you're going to encounter things that you don't you don't quite understand so I think that to be humble first of all when you approach economics is to is to approach it with a good attitude because if you if you think it's a good46/67
just like honest and everything there are Nobel Prize winners there are there are people who are financed analyst for living in and they do this and there's not there's not much you can know about the money game within the pearls so I think they're starting with the pros Anna specifically with professors I for example like miss hall gonna go I saw a Bronco rather is just47/67
start with the professors which would be going through the peer reviewed literature and to be humble about it our professor Eric Mozhi pose this question to you %HESITATION do you see more awareness in the populace about the negative effects of compatible war now let's hear directly from you expanding upon this tell us about the role of the media and academia and increasing public awareness on this48/67
also tell us about the importance of social media and its role in all this so I think that social media has been really important in getting a lot of things out there up and not just problems related to the US are problems related to defense are the best example I can give is that my husband is actually from Venezuela and as many people know obviously does49/67
not having such a great time right now %HESITATION and not frequently close to him you know how this has gotten so bad at his response to me is usually well it's always been this bad people just haven't known about it now I don't know if it's always been quite as bad as it is now but his point is that we're so much more aware now than50/67
we were before and I think that that %HESITATION has a lot to do with things like social media now when it comes to the impacts of perpetual war so today is the fifteen year anniversary of nine eleven %HESITATION what's been the impact of US foreign policy post nine eleven a I would argue that it we're a lot last three and a lot less safe now than51/67
we were on nine eleven and that has nothing to do with the terrorist threat that has everything to do with government policy whether or not people are aware of that of that I'm not really sure %HESITATION it seems that a lot of people have a tendency to try to separate foreign policy and domestic policy so foreign policy what's happening over there people seem to think that52/67
that has absolutely no bearing on what happens here but one of the big points are my current research is looking at we can't make that clean distinction there is no clean break between foreign policy and domestic policy and things that happen abroad tend to come back in ten to happen here so things like surveillance things like the use of drugs which were used exclusively in the53/67
war on terror but are now being used by border patrol our domestic police departments are trying to use drones for a variety of different things those things tend come back home Ellen I think that people tend to start understanding %HESITATION the consequences policies when it starts to impact them directly so people for example tentacle like US drone policy abroad when you ask them would you be54/67
comfortable with your local police department using an operating drones they get really nervous they don't like that idea but they don't realize that that is a direct consequence of U. S. mourn policy %HESITATION but that said especially comes to something like drones you are seeing a push back against the domestic use of drones there is a controversy actually my neighborhood are not too long ago because55/67
we have a neighbor with a drone who wanted to fly it just to kind of keep an eye on the neighborhood and some people really liked that idea and some people were really uncomfortable and so I think that %HESITATION and I know it's kind of a non answer to the question but I think to some degree yes I'm but on the other hand while we're more56/67
aware I'm not sure that that ultimately on leads to a lot of action at least not yet I it's my hope that it will no thank you for that %HESITATION professor now Eric I personally enjoyed your drone series called reaper nomarchs how can you tell us Sir give us a little sneak peek of what you're gonna be working on next science sign speaks in cool is57/67
all we're going to be exploring in our next episode if you enjoy science fiction movies if you stand airforce advertisements and army advertisements marine over time as in you and you saw while they really know how to how to get recruits to sooner Roland %HESITATION in a military analyst then you're going to enjoy this this next upcoming article very much excellent now Eric do you have