Heather Roff2013-05-22T20:22:18-04:00Heather Roffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=heather-roffCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Heather RoffGood old fashioned elbow grease.Foust's Liberal Case for Drones or Wishful Thinking?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32931372013-05-17T12:59:37-04:002013-05-17T17:35:31-04:00Heather Roffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-roff/Foreign Policy magazine wrote a piece titled "The Liberal Case for Drones." In it, he outlined why the "phantom" fear of autonomy in weapons is overblown and that we should pretty much just embrace the use of unmanned aerial vehicles and increased autonomous weapons. Citing the U.S. Navy's successful launch of the X-47B stealth unmanned fighter jet as a portent of the future, then moving quickly into whether such portents are good or bad things, Foust eschews the debate about autonomy entirely and whitewashes the Pentagon's plans for creating and fielding autonomous weapons.
Aside from vacillating between claiming that increased autonomy is the future and claiming that complex autonomous weapons are not going to be developed (which is a blatant misreading of Directive 3000.09), Foust's entire argument falls flat. First, the experts who worry about increased autonomy in weapons systems worry about weapons that have the ability to target and fire without a human beings' direction. For the most part, they are not concerned with weapons that involve a human operator or even most "fire and forget" weapons. Yet Foust's attempt to make a "liberal case" (whatever that means) for drones is to claim that they will be more discriminating than human soldiers when it comes to obeying the laws of war and protecting the lives of civilians. This is the common mantra though. A machine isn't fatigued, it doesn't need bathroom breaks, and it isn't emotionally involved when it sees a fellow machine (or human) blown up by an adversary. Thus all of the emotional failings are avoided and the machine can act better than a human. Which is why he concludes that "the concern [over autonomous lethal robots] seems rooted in a moral objection to the use of machines per se: that when a machine uses force, it is somehow more horrible, less legitimate, and less ethical than when a human uses force. It isn't a complaint fully grounded in how machines, computers, and robots actually function."
But that is not the moral objection. The moral objection, at least from this "expert" is the one he raises in the very next paragraph -- responsibility. A machine that does not obey the laws of war and annihilates an entire village leaves us with a variety of questions on who to hold responsible. If this were a human soldier, with all of his moral failings, we'd point the finger at him and prosecute him. We'd blame him. But how do you blame a machine? It is like blaming your toaster for burning you, and saying you want to hold your toaster accountable for battery. Sure we can say that we could create new laws to deal with this situation, but those laws might threaten to undermine the existing laws regarding responsibility and liability for harm. Especially when we say that we've created an artificially intelligent agent capable of learning and acting in the world, capable of making life or death decisions, but not really bound by laws or norms or any of those "emotions" that are so pesky that they stop us, most of the time, from committing atrocious violations of law and morality. Thus Foust's case for drones actually falls apart; he gives the game away when he concedes that accountability for the actions of such weapons is "tricky." It is more than tricky, it is central to the entire notion of fighting war in any rule or law governed way.]]>How Automated Wars Rob Us Of Humanitytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.31637202013-04-30T12:03:52-04:002013-04-30T12:08:33-04:00Heather Roffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-roff/
We are at a similar juncture with regards to a "lack of thinking." In our case, however, it is in regards to the delegation of thinking to a machine, and a lethal machine in particular. What I mean here is that militaries, and the U.S. military in particular, envisions a future where weapons do the thinking -- that is, planning, target selection and engagement. Already the U.S. military services have capabilities that enable weapons to seek out and queue targets, such as the F-35 joint fighter and some targeting software platforms on tanks, like the M1 Abrams, as well as seeking out targets and automatically engaging them, like Phalanx or Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar (CRAM) systems.
The U.S.' decision to rely on unmanned aerial vehicles, or "drones," admits to the appeal of fighting at a distance with the use of automated technology. The current drones in combat operations, such as the Predator and Reaper, show the ease with which killing by remote can be accomplished. While drones are certainly problematic, from a legal and moral standpoint in regards to targeted killings, human beings still ultimately control this type of technology. Human pilots are in the "cockpit," and for better (or worse) there are human beings making targeting decisions.
The worry, however, is that militaries are planning to push autonomy further than the F-35 joint striker (which is far more autonomous than the Predator or Reaper) to "fully autonomous" weapons. Moreover, while we might try to push this worry aside and claim that it is a long way off, or too futuristic, we cannot deny the middle term between now and "fully autonomous" weapons. In this middle term, the warfighter will become increasingly dependent upon such technologies to fight. Indeed, we already see this in "automation bias" (or the over-reliance on information generated by an automated process as a replacement for vigilant information seeking and processing). With increased dependence on the technology, this automation bias will only increase and thus will lead to a degeneration of not only strategic thinking in the services, but like the case of Eichmann, a lack of thinking more generally.
The evil here is that through the banality of autonomy, we risk not only creating a class of unthinking warfighters, but that the entire business of making war becomes so removed from human judgment and critical thinking that it too becomes commonplace. In fact, it might become so banal, so removed from human agency, that even the word "war" starts to lose meaning. For what would we call a conflict where one side, or both, hands over the "thinking" to a machine, doesn't risk its soldiers' lives, and perhaps doesn't even place human beings outside of its own borders to fight? "War" does not really seem to capture what is going on here.
The danger, of course, is that conflicts of this type might not only perpetuate asymmetric violence, but that it further erodes the very foundations of humanity. In other words, if we are not careful about the increasing push towards autonomous weapons, we risk vitiating the thinking, judging and thus rational capacity of humanity. What was once merely automation bias becomes the banality of autonomy, and in an ironic twist, humans lose their own ability to be "autonomous."
The human warfighter is now the drone.
]]>Reigning in the Killer Robot? The DoD's Directive on Autonomous Weaponstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30946752013-04-16T18:31:26-04:002013-04-16T18:35:56-04:00Heather Roffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-roff/DoD Directive 3000.09, addressing autonomy in weapons systems. The Directive is a first slice at framing policy prescriptions and demarcating lines of responsibility for the (future) creation and use of semi-autonomous, "human supervised" autonomous and fully autonomous weapons systems. In layman's terms, it attempts to answer the who, what, when, where and how of autonomous systems in military combat.
As many, myself included, have worried over the attribution of responsibility for such systems in the case of what the report titles "unintended engagement," the Directive is a welcomed first step. Why is this so? Because, it lays out clear lines of responsibility for creating guidelines for system development, testing and evaluation, equipment/weapons training, as well as developing doctrine, tactics, techniques and procedures. Indeed, the explicit purpose of the Directive is to establish such guidelines to "minimize the probability and consequences of failures in autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons systems that could lead to unintended engagements." These "unintended engagements" refer to "the use of force resulting in damage to persons or objects that human operators did not intend to be the targets of U.S. military operations, including unacceptable levels of collateral damage beyond those consistent with the law of war, ROE, and commander's intent." Thus it appears that this report will assuage not merely my mind, but those in and outside the beltway, as well as those in and outside of the ivory tower.
Unfortunately, it does not. In fact, it only fosters more questions and worry. The principal cause of such worry: overriding all of the guidelines and policy put forth in this 15 page directive. How is this done? Well, the Directive basically states that there is a legal loop-hole allowing the overriding of said policies when two Undersecretaries of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff deem it so. In short, when there is a quorum of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, then these three can skirt the very "safeguards" that the Directive lays down as DoD policy. This is disconcerting because the fielding of autonomous weapons then does not even raise to the level of the Secretary of Defense, let alone the president. Indeed, the potential for such "unintended engagements" does not even reach level 1 cabinet level decision making. Whether this is done for expediency or political cover is open to question, but what is not, is how such a policy undermines not only U.S. strategic command (as it removes two of the most crucial players in the persons of the Secretary of Defense and the president), but also erodes the very notion of "proper authority" in the jus ad bellum considerations for just war. Thus while we might, upon first glance, welcome the Directive, we should instead be highly critical of it, and further press the Pentagon to align itself with the laws of war and requisites thereof.]]>The Distinguished Warfare Medal: A Sign of the Changing Timestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.26897972013-02-22T10:03:51-05:002013-04-24T05:12:01-04:00Heather Roffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-roff/announced the creation of the "the Distinguished Warfare Medal" to recognize outstanding achievements by unmanned aerial vehicle pilots. The new medal will rank above the Bronze Star with Valor and just below the Distinguished Flying Cross. This is an interesting twist of events in military culture, as medals and honors are traditionally bestowed upon individuals whose acts of bravery and valor, in the face of grave physical danger, go above the call of duty. The entire notion behind bestowing such recognitions is that a service member has put acted selflessly, facing danger and possible death, for the sake of his comrades, the mission, or country. These medals are tokens and symbols of the military virtue par excellence: courage.
Yet how can one evaluate acts in war when the fighter is not on the battlefield and is in no physical (or even imminent) danger? Panetta's feelings on the matter are quite clear: "I've always felt, having seen the great work that they do, day in and day out, that those who performed in an outstanding manner should be recognized. Unfortunately, medals that they otherwise might be eligible for simply did not recognize that kind of -- of contribution." While such a sentiment is thoughtful, it is misplaced. "Doing great work" is fundamentally different than acting courageous. For instance, Aristotle reminds us that the virtue of courage is best understood as a "mean concerning matters that inspire confidence and fear," where one acts in the right way, at the right time and with the right motivations in the face of such fear. Combat and war, are of course, the primary theaters of fear. Yet unmanned aerial vehicle pilots are not, in any way, in danger and thus do not face the types of "fear" that traditional manned aircraft pilots or any combat soldiers face. While they are technically engaging in "combat" operations, they are not in the theater of combat.
Panetta seems to recognize this when he claims that "the medal provides distinct, department wide recognition for the extraordinary achievements that directly impact on combat operations, but that do not involve acts of valor or physical risk that combat entails." But why, then, even incorporate such acts into a system of recognition based on courage? Indeed, one must ask what the purpose of a medal for UAV pilots serves. If it is "department wide recognition," then some other sort of merit scheme that does not presuppose valor or courage on the battlefield could achieve this. Of course, it could be that the fear is that not recognizing such achievements threatens to create two classes of soldiers.
Or, perhaps more tellingly, the entire notion that we must determine how to assign merit to UAV pilots -- or perhaps future "cyber warriors" points to a different set of questions (and problems) in contemporary war-fighting. In other words, what is the nature of war and "courage" in such wars, when either one side (or both), is no longer in any sort of danger? Can we even begin to call these acts war, or are they only "war" for those experiencing violence? War is a conflict between two or more parties carried on with a "force of arms," yet the entire purpose of the use of such force is to make one side capitulate the demands of the other, usually for some political purpose. The coercion employed is to be costly on both sides of equation, which is why there is typically reticence to embroil oneself in such conflict. Though, in this new terrain of warfare, the costs appear -- for at least one side -- to be only monetary. Blood is not spilt, only equipment (or property) is damaged.
Another way of thinking about the new nature of war and how this new medal fits into recognizing a new generation of warriors is from the opposite end of the spectrum: cowardice. If we believe that we can attribute acts of courage and valor to soldiers whose actions achieve "extraordinary... impact on combat operations" though those actions involve no physical risk, how might we think of the opposite? What would constitute an act of UAV pilot cowardice? Is it even conceivable? If it is not, then we have something very telling about the new nature of war. For if soldiers cannot act cowardly in battle, then they also cannot act courageously, and so cannot be awarded medals based on those assumptions.]]>The Short Slide From Drones to Despotismtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.26466532013-02-11T00:28:28-05:002013-04-12T05:12:01-04:00Heather Roffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-roff/came to light. The brief, titled "Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qaida or an Associated Force" discusses how the Obama administration might find legal support for what appears on first glance as a patently illegal act.
The paper argues that the extrajudicial killing of US citizens does not violate citizens' 5th Amendment rights to due process, nor does it violate 4th Amendment rights to unreasonable searches and seizures. What's more, the paper even goes so far as to claim that the policy of targeted assassination of suspected members of Al-Qa'ida (AQ) does not violate US federal bans on unlawful killings in Title 18 or Executive Order 12333, which bans assassinations. In other words, the policy denies that government does any sort of wrong by acting outside of a body of constitutional and federal law that states the contrary.
Yet how does this happen? The magic bullet in the Department of Justice's argument is its definition of "imminence." Because most law states that in cases where the state's interest is in tension with the individual rights holder's interest, a "balancing" test should occur. This balancing ought to weigh things like national interest, defense, public welfare, etc., against the individual's claims to freedom, protection under the rule of law, and justice. In the case of extrajudicial killing of American citizens identified as "senior operational leaders of Al Qa'ida or an associated force", the government argues that the state's interest outweighs that of the individual because the state is in a publicly declared state of war with the group and its affiliates. Therefore, the US is acting in self-defense, and under commonsense and legal reasoning, if one is facing an imminent threat, one may act in self-defense pre-emptively to thwart that attack.
This all seems like a tidy legal argument to make. However, upon closer examination it is at best a legal farce and at worst detrimental to the rule of law in the US (and possibly elsewhere). The government's definition of "imminence" in this instance is not the normal usage, where we typically mean something temporally impending. The DoJ actually denies that the temporal element should even be part of the definition of "imminence' in this matter.
Rather, the DoJ argues that "imminent "is a matter of three features: continually planning to attack the US, the feasibility of capture, and the value of deterrence. That a US citizen abroad is determined to be part of AQ and its affiliates means, therefore, that he automatically satisfies the first condition, for the argument runs that AQ has declared war on the US. This might hold some (though little) traction, but the two other features are bizarre additions.
The "feasibility" of capture means that it is impractical to enter into a foreign country and extract the person for legal trial. This is for two reasons. The first is that the foreign country denies its consent to allow US troops into its sovereign territory to engage in a capture operation. The second is that such an operation, even if consented to, might be too risky to the operatives. How then might the US kill such a person if it is unfeasible to capture him (assuming all of the legal arguments are sound)? Enter the drones.
While the DoJ's white paper does not explicitly claim that unmanned aerial vehicles are the weapons of choice to assassinate these targets, it does state that it is not "impermissible" to use them. In other words, when a foreign state, like Pakistan or Yemen, harbors "senior operational leaders" of AQ, the US reserves a right to act in self-defense by killing those individuals because those individuals, at some point, plan to attack the US. If the foreign country denies access to US forces, the US believes it can send drones into the country's air space (and thus sovereign territory), and carry out a kill operation. Which is somewhat odd, as if the foreign state denies consent to put boots on its ground, then how would it feel about violations of air space? Moreover, by continually engaging such threats with lethal force, the "imminence" argument goes, there will be a deterrent effect (but for whom is left unclear).
But who determines whether an individual is a senior operational leader of AQ or its affiliates? Who decides whether a caption mission is unfeasible? Who decides to send in the drones? Again, the paper is rather vague, using only the language of "an informed high level official of the US government." This "high level official" is able to act outside of judicial review, as involving the courts would be onerous and threaten to encroach upon the Executive's power and judgment in performing his tasks as the Commander in Chief.
But such an argument tears away the very bedrock of US constitutional law. This "high level official" acts as judge, jury and executioner of US citizens. The rule of law becomes nothing more than something convenient to justify such acts, but when the law contradicts executing individuals without trial, evidentiary procedures or protections, then the law is overridden with a justification of "state's interests." What's more, if this white paper is any indication of the Obama administration's viewpoint on the legal justification of a targeted killing program, then it views its actions as fully congruent with US legal principles. Because the government is a "public authority" it can, basically, do no wrong. Anyone it decides to target automatically becomes the subject of a lawful killing.
What does all this ultimately mean? It means that if you find yourself in the unfortunate position to be deemed a "senior operational leader", you have no recourse through the rule of law, no protection from execution, and even your status as an "enemy force" offers you no protection (for belligerents in conflict also have rights). Moreover, the US saddles up its moral high horse and claims that its actions do not threaten the bedrock of individual rights and freedoms, but are done for the greater good.
If constitutional law can be stretched to such an extreme, if the executive can amass even more power into its hands, then there is a risk that such power can be used in the future to further erode the rights of US citizens -- perhaps not abroad but at home -- if the "high level official" deems it so. The result? This "high level official" starts more and more to look like an authoritarian monarch rather than a person representing one function in a system designed to guard against such despotism.
The drafters of the US constitution constructed a federated system with checks and balances to guard against this result. It seems now, with an increase in executive power and a new technology that attempts to sanitize war (on our side), such constructions might no longer be sufficient to guard rights.
]]>A Q&A on Syria: How Strong is Assad?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21231342012-11-16T08:49:32-05:002013-01-16T05:12:01-05:00Heather Roffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-roff/
Here are the list of questions with my answers :
Question: The leader of Syria's newly united opposition is heading to Arab League headquarters in Cairo to push for diplomatic recognition (in the same way Libya's opposition looked to outside powers for recognition). Is this a good idea? How representative is this new body, particularly since the West was becoming disenchanted with the Syrian opposition in exile and on the ground?
Answer: The first step forward for the opposition is to find diplomatic recognition from international powers. They have to do this if they are going to received aid -- either military or non. In terms of a "good idea," one has to ask "good for whom." If we are talking about the international powers getting an idea of what this united opposition is going to look like, what their platforms are going to be, and "who" they are -- then yes. It is a good idea. If we are talking about for the rebels, then it may be another instance of infighting and a cause for fractionalization and dissent. That, of course, would not be very good.
They would further entrench the view that they are an unknown and volatile entity. If we are referring to the Assad regime, well, then again, the answer is probably "no." Assad is digging in his heels and refuses to come to a negotiation table. A unified opposition receiving diplomatic recognition from the international powers would further undercut his grip on power.
Question: Has the West and its regional proxies given up on a military-humanitarian intervention?
Answer: I do not think that the U.S. has given up any of its options. Currently, the assessment is that diplomatic action is the way forward, but that is because of the fractionalization of the opposition, the tactical landscape on the ground, and the fear of political fallout from Syria's allies.
However, should the crisis continue to escalate -- with Israel and Turkey being continually drawn into the fray -- then military intervention is not off the table. It might not be justified on humanitarian grounds, but it would have obvious humanitarian impacts.
Blog continues below slideshow...
Question: Just how strong is Assad? He has weathered 20 months of war and he is still standing.
Again, I think we have to ask what the metric of "strength" is here. Assad is intransigent. He has continually manipulated the international powers by agreeing to ceasefires, or negotiations, only to backtrack. Moreover, he has continually pressed his military capability and advantage on the rebels, by using fixed wing aircraft to cluster bomb civilian centers, attempting to either kill off or demoralize the opposition.
He has made this conflict a zero-sum game -- either he wins and the rebels lose (via total defeat or death), or he loses -- (via total defeat or death). There is no middle ground for him. Thus we might say that he has a strength of will, and currently, he has the monopoly on coercive force -- due to the regime's weapons cache. However, should there be a third-party intervention, that balance of forces could change and he finds himself no longer in a stronger military capability position.
In foreign policy terms, Assad is in a domain of losses, that is he is losing in terms of legitimacy, and the rebels are refusing to capitulate. He is therefore "upping the ante" at each stage, trying to regain control and power -- but by continually targeting noncombatants and perpetrating war crimes, he is looking for a bigger and bigger pay off. Ultimately, that may not happen. It is like someone gambling -- the more one loses, the more one wants to bet in order to regain one's losses.
Question: Agree or disagree? If Washington has a genuine national interest that is at stake in Syria, it would be that the country stay united and stable to keep it from becoming the latest playground for Jihadi warriors.
Answer: In the simplest terms -- yes. The state of Syria is populated with many different sects of people, and all of them are worried about the others taking power. Assad's family has instituted a system of privilege for some, and a system of oppression for others. Thus those who are privileged fear that the oppressed will become oppressors if they take power.
Thus it is in the United States' interests to keep the state at peace, and negotiate with a new democratic leadership. The US wants peace -- it does not want to see the Middle East engulfed in a regional war. Moreover, that there is a fear of extremists coming to power is a real one. It is in America's national interest to have regimes friendly to it, not vice versa.
Question: War fatigue equals disenchantment with the opposition? In Syria, people are beginning to say, echoing what was said in similar conflicts, that "the fighters say they are dying for the people, but it is the people who are dying for the fighters."
Answer: I think that we cannot adequately assess this at the moment. The situation is very complex, and there are a variety of rebel groups and fighters under differing commands. Thus the answer is somewhere along the lines of: where you stand depends upon where you sit. The civilian population in areas of Syria hardest hit, probably feel this way, as they have been at the receiving end of this war for 20 months.
However, areas to the East have not been engulfed in fighting, and so they are not as disenchanted. Moreover, I think that Secretary of State Clinton's call for a more inclusive and united opposition is to get away from this very worry. Her call was to include fighters from on the ground inside Syria, so that there was a sense of those fighting and dying included in the dialogue and debate at the higher levels. The decisions for Syria cannot be made by those who do not live there, or who have never helped or fought for the people.
Perhaps this might give some insight into this ongoing and highly fragile situation.]]>The Politics of Interventiontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20253052012-10-29T17:30:43-04:002012-12-29T05:12:02-05:00Heather Roffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-roff/four-day ceasefire between the Syrian government and rebels, but the four-day negotiated agreement lasted more like four hours.
It is now time, once again, that we take stock of this situation. On one side of the argument are the interventionists, and these do not merely contain liberal "hawks." Recently, the editors at the more conservative-leaning Economist called for a limited intervention in Syria. Their contention is that the conflict is going to turn into an entrenched high casualty fight for years to come.
Moreover, Paul Ryan, the GOP's vice presidential candidate is also calling for intervention. On the other side sit those calling for calm and further diplomatic maneuvers. Former Secretary General and Special Representative Kofi Annan most aptly represents this side.
Annan's position is that a peaceful solution is the most ideal situation, and that escalating violence will only make the conflict worse. What he calls the "mosaic of Syrian society" requires a diplomatic solution where all people's interests are taken into account and protected.
Yet I think we must face the facts of the current situation and not be blinded by what foreign policy scholars call "wishful thinking biases." Milosovic played a similar (yet much longer) game in the 1990s when he continued to agree to diplomatic solutions and maneuvers, only to backtrack or distance himself once "gains" were made. Ultimately, that ended in humiliation for the UN (and Annan), and with the 1999 intervention in Kosovo. Now, to be sure, the two cases are not identical, but the argument about diplomacy seems to be analogous. The question, then, is whether and to what extent a military option is available.
Turkey has staked out its position quite clearly, and other powers in the region have as well. But unless the big power players in the system decide to act, nothing will happen. The U.S. is quietly positioning small forces into the region, and is rumored to be providing small arms to the rebels. It is unclear, however, whether other regional powers, such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia are providing heavier artillery.
Wherever the rebels are gaining their weapons, it is clear that such support will only prolong the conflict -- as the Economist article notes -- because Assad's use of cluster bombs cannot be stopped with small arms. Heavier firepower and the imposition of a no-fly zone is the only way to stop these types of attacks.
We might have waited with baited breath to see if the four-day ceasefire over the Eid al-Adha holiday actually held, thus providing some hope for a peaceful resolution. Unfortunately, it is evident that neither side wants a negotiated peace. Assad is willing to do whatever is necessary to hold onto power, and the rebels are also violating human rights at an alarming rate.
The solution, then, to this bloody problem is not easily apparent. To be sure, the possibility that Syria's civil war will spread to the region is real, and the effects of hundreds of thousands of immigrants are being felt in neighboring Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Turkey. We are standing on the precipice of requesting intervention -- not for humanitarian purposes -- but for reasons of international peace and security under the umbrella of the UN's Chapter VII powers. It is time to start rethinking our options.
Arab consensus on a no-fly zone, or for a more entrenched intervention, would be the first requirement. Moreover, it might be time to bolster Turkey's position as the head of a possible intervening coalition backed by NATO. While Western boots might not be popular, Turkey's position as a NATO ally might be utilized in this matter. Russia and China's intransigence on the Security Council has only further highlighted the shortcomings of the UN and the Responsibility to Protect doctrine (as executable only through the Security Council), and it is looking increasingly more like a time when an "illegal" but "legitimate" intervention might need to take place. None of this can happen, however, without serious support from the Arab community.
If, however, the major powers and the regional Arab states agree to a military response, then they must simultaneously agree to a post-conflict reconstruction plan. Assad's forces have already leveled much of the country, and so not only will those cities require physical reconstruction, but political and constitutional reconstruction is also a must. That Syria's population is such a "mosaic" of cultural and religious groups presents a challenge to a fair, equitable and effective way forward. However, such a post-conflict plan is necessary. Neighboring countries and allies would have to pledge monetary support and aid, and there should be pushes to inject foreign direct investment in the post-conflict country. Thus the question: What should we do about Syria? Can only be answered in the broadest possible terms: stop the killing, rebuild the state, ensure justice.
I wrote, almost one year ago to the day, that Syria will never be Libya due to tactical considerations. My predictions, sadly, are true, but I hope that we can, as a world community, come together to halt these brutal killings and human rights violations, tactics aside.]]>A Brave New World of War: Cyber Warfare & Defense in Depthtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19685202012-10-15T17:59:56-04:002012-12-15T05:12:01-05:00Heather Roffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-roff/cyber "Pearl Harbor" attack on the U.S. He called attention to a new battle space: cyberspace.
This speech appeared to have several targets and we can draw several conclusions from it. First, and easiest to discern, is that Panetta is rousing the U.S. Congress to take concrete action and pass into law rules and regulations governing the sharing of information between private enterprises and the government. Many might recall the protests this last spring over the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CIPSA), and this clarion call from Panetta appears to be harkening back to these same issues. Indeed, this is probably why he explicitly notes that the President is likely to issue an Executive Order should Congress fail to act.
The second target is the American, and perhaps international, audience. With much speculation about the U.S.' potential cyber threat and its response capability, it is high time someone higher up actually address it. While the White House has most certainly put forth documentation regarding its position regarding cyber security, little from the defense community has been forthcoming. Panetta's speech, therefore, unveiled many more specifics than the U.S.' International Cyber Security Strategy, which for the most part aims at such lofty goals as providing for the free flow of information while simultaneously ensuring security of networks.
The final, and to me the largest, target is the potential cyber adversary. Since much pertaining to cyber capability and warfare is classified, the decision for Panetta to show the U.S.' hand is telling. Allow me to explain. Much ink has been spilt over the "attribution problem." This problem states that cyber attacks are very difficult to trace with absolute certainty, and so attributing responsibility to one or more parties is more of a guessing game than anything. Because the issue of attribution calls into question whether we can know with 100% certainty whether an attack came from, say Russia, China, Iran, Lichtenstein, or the Moon, any attempt to either retaliate in self-defense or punish for deterrent effects will be problematic at best. What if we picked the wrong state? What if the cyber-warriors were so talented that they made it appear that it was China attacking and really it was Botswana? We might end up attacking an innocent third party, thereby becoming an aggressor ourselves. But Panetta's speech clears away the uncertainty surrounding the attribution problem. He stated that the "United States has the capacity to locate [the aggressors] and to hold them accountable for their actions." Wow. That is some serious stuff.
What it means is that the U.S. has very good cyber forensic capabilities and that it has probably procured enough consensus from private internet providers to share critical information regarding cyber attacks. What this also means is that the U.S. will not only know who attacked it, but it will use any means it sees fit to either preempt the attack or act to deter potential attackers in the future. That means both cyber and traditional (or sometimes called 'kinetic') warfare is on the table. Most telling still is that the U.S. has marked out three areas where it will act if provoked or attacked: the nation, the national interest, and allies.
Acting to defend the nation is rather unsurprising. Acting to defend national interest(s) is also, given U.S. military and foreign policy history, unsurprising. What does seem surprising, though, is the bit about the allies. The potential here is that if a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally is attacked by a cyber weapon, then the U.S. might retaliate with either cyber or traditional weapons on the ally's behalf. This statement appears to contradict, or at least militate against, earlier NATO findings about cyber attacks against Estonia in 2007.
All in all, Panetta's statement is a clear warning: cyber war is here and the U.S. is prepared to enter the fray with whatever means necessary. The questions for us, now, are what should we do about it? Certainly public rules of engagement should be made available, but more than that, transparency in the policy and governance processes is also a must. It is a must because the greatest weapon a cyber warrior has is a weakness in computer code. If there is no weakness, then there can be no attack. If we make cyber security a common good -- governed by the commons -- than we have more minds at work to secure networks, and this can only be done outside of the shadows.]]>When U.S. Weapons are Autonomous, Who is Responsible?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19106082012-09-27T12:04:14-04:002012-11-27T05:12:01-05:00Heather Roffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-roff/report on increased autonomy in DoD weapons systems to understand what role, problems and benefits will come with the expanded use of self-directed weapons.
We are all familiar with the U.S.'s reliance on "drones" for surveillance and reconnaissance missions, as well as their use in targeting and killing suspected terrorists in countries like Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan. What is not typically noted is that the current autonomous weapons systems do not present any new legal or ethical problems.
Distanced killing or surveillance is functionally no different than sending a Tomahawk missile from an aircraft carrier or snooping from satellites in space. Questions of how they are used to kill American citizens abroad, or suspected terrorists in another country's borders are, of course, a separate matter. This most recent report, however, is not about the current technology, but the proposed trajectory for automation and the DoD's attempts to assuage the fears of those of us following its course.
Unsurprisingly, the DoD wants to enlarge the U.S. military's reliance on autonomous (i.e. self-directed) weapons in conflict, to advance the level of autonomous action capabilities of existing weapons and to create new autonomous systems. What is surprising is that the DoD realizes that the public and the weapons operators are uncomfortable with the goals of increasing autonomy.
So its new tactic is to shift the terms of the debate. It now claims that traditional definitions of autonomy as "self-directed" are "unhelpful," and that "autonomy is better understood as a capability (or set of capabilities) that enables the larger human-machine system to accomplish a given mission." What the DoD is doing is changing the discussion of increased autonomy of weapons to the "mission" and the "mission autonomy" (whatever that means). Previous attempts by various service branches to roadmap future levels of autonomy in weapons systems is, according to this new report, "counter-productive," as it only heightens the Terminator-style fears.
Even further still, though, the DoD claims that:
"casting the goal as creating sophisticated functions (i.e. more self-directedness) -- rather than creating a joint human-machine cognitive system -- reinforces the fears of unbounded autonomy and does not prepare commanders to factor their understanding of unmanned vehicle use that there exist no fully autonomous systems, just as there are no fully autonomous soldiers, sailors, airmen or Marines."
This position presents a nice little loophole with which to stop debate about increased autonomy in weapons systems. The critic says, "we worry about attributing responsibility to a weapon that decides to fire on a target by itself." The DoD responds "there is a human-machine cognitive system, and so don't worry, there is a human there!" But the question remains: where? How far removed is this person? The commander? The General? The President?
Moreover, as the above quote illustrates, this semantic slight of hand blurs the lines of moral and legal responsibility for killing in war, given that the DoD believes that no soldiers, sailors, airmen or Marines are fully autonomous. This only makes sense, if we work from a definition where the mission is the primary focus and that autonomy is defined purely in terms of the "capability" of fulfilling said mission.
Yet this is not what is usually meant by autonomy in everyday or philosophical use, nor how millennia of moral and legal systems have taken it to mean. Traditionally, we think of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines as autonomous because they are persons. That is, they have the capability for self-directed action. When they use this capability to choose their own course of action, and say break the laws of war, we hold them accountable for their actions (legally as well as morally).
The idea that these persons are not fully autonomous, says first that they cannot be held fully accountable. But second, it implies the systems that the DoD wants to exploit are also (if we read between the lines) incapable of responsibility attribution. We are not concerned with the system, or even the software designer or the commander; we are concerned with the "mission." A mission is not a person, it is a thing, and things cannot be held morally responsible. It is like saying that you want to hold your car responsible for breaking down on the way to work. You wouldn't say that your car "wronged" you, and you wouldn't seek to punish your car.
The result of all of this is that the DoD is attempting to side-step questions of morality and responsibility. It does not appear to endorse the programming of weapons with "ethical governors," that is rules that would prohibit these weapons from, say, targeting a civilian. Rather, it is endeavouring to redefine the notion of autonomy, and this confuses an already convoluted topic.
Case in point, the report further states:
"Treating unmanned systems as if they had sufficient independent agency to reason about morality distracts from designing appropriate rules of engagement and ensuring operational morality. Operational morality is concerned with the professional ethics in design, deployment and handling of robots. Many companies and program managers appear to treat autonomy as exempt from operational responsibilities."
Are we concerned with weapons obeying the laws of war (and morality) as we traditionally think of it, or are we concerned with software designers upholding a (rather nonexistent) professional ethics in design? By the by, such a professional ethics would basically amount to the software designer taking precautions against knowingly designing or fielding a product that would cause harm.
Now, these weapons are designed to harm, but the type of harm to be avoided would be negligent harm. Such a position on the ethics of autonomous systems not only reduces any questions of morality or responsibility to tort law and issues of liability, but it has the potential to divorce the idea of morality from the discussion. For instance, we might say that there is a professional ethics amongst a band of thieves, but we would not say that the activities of band of thieves are moral. To claim that the DoD, and thus the U.S. military, should focus on "operational" responsibility is like claiming that the band of thieves ought to focus on not ratting each other out.
Of course, we could be charitable to those inside the Beltway and claim that the DoD is sensitive to issues of ethics, and that by claiming that operational morality is important addresses the point. Those in charge of design, deployment and handling of robots are the ones who must act ethically, and who will be held accountable. But this just kicks the can again. It puts us back to our original question of who is actually responsible, how far removed that person is from the deployment of weapons that have the potential of making their own targeting decisions. This is so because, if we take the DoD at its word that not even persons are fully autonomous, then we are again back to the problem of definition and whether anyone can ever be held responsible for the use (or abuse) of these weapons.
Ultimately it appears that the DoD is not only going to try to exploit every opportunity to use unmanned systems, but it is also implicitly skirting the legal and moral questions raised by the deployment of such weapons by redefining what "autonomy" actually means and relying on "codes" of ethics that are not what we traditionally think of as ethical. It amounts to political prestidigitation and the DoD as rewriting ethical code on more than one level.]]>Who Is Responsible for Syrian Refugees?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18504252012-09-07T00:00:12-04:002012-11-06T05:12:01-05:00Heather Roffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-roff/recently pleaded before the U.N. Security Council to support such a move; unfortunately it received little backing.
Even most Western powers were cautious, citing "considerable difficulties" with any such plan. Yet the sad fact remains that Turkey and other neighbouring countries are shouldering a heavy burden. Already 80,000 refugees have poured into Turkey's refugee camps, with an estimated 4,000 arriving daily and 10,000 more still waiting along the frontier. The question becomes, though, what happens when the neighboring countries reach an unsustainable capacity?
Turkey claims that it can only handle 100,000 total refugees, while neighboring Jordan has estimated that 81,000 refugees have already crossed into its borders. Can we hold that these states have a duty to accept more fleeing Syrians? This is a tough call, as the international community is not helping the situation in any certain terms.
If we look to, say, the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and his arguments about the necessary requirements for peaceful relations amongst states, we see that one of the prerequisites for such peace is what he terms "a universal right of hospitality." What does this mean? Well, generally it means that all persons have a right to visit various countries and associate with other people. But Kant's caveat is this: you cannot turn a person away if it means his certain destruction. In other words, refugees that face death in their own country have a right -- a moral right -- to go elsewhere.
It is not clear whether Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq have fulfilled their duties by allowing the Syrian people refuge within their borders. What does seem clear, at least in the moral term, is that the international community is manifestly failing in fulfilling its duty to uphold the Syrian people's universal right of hospitality. The U.N. Security Council's continued obstinacy in undertaking any concrete action only further erodes the moral, as well as the very weak legal, rights that the Syrian people have.
But the Security Council is not the only obstacle to protecting the Syrian people. The new UN envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, has now publicly stated that military "interference" is not an "available option." We might read Brahimi's statement one of two ways: either that he would not endorse a military intervention or that the Security Council will never pass a resolution authorizing intervention. I tend to believe he intended it the first way, and if that is the case, this presents further problems for protecting the Syrian people. Either way, though, Kofi Annan's successor is reifying the UN's position as an impotent international organization.
Yet the UN is not the only problem. We have another -- the continued reticence of many liberal politicians and pundits to do much more than wag their fingers at Assad. I myself have written that intervention in Syria would not happen the way it did in Libya, but that is not to say that something shouldn't be done. Many are too quick to dismiss enforcing no fly zones or creating safe havens, claiming that "humanitarian pretexts" cannot hide what amount to ineffectual power plays.
Undoubtedly no-fly zones and safe havens require military power, boots on the ground and sorties in the sky. The question is not whether military might is required, but when or how to deploy it. If we are going to claim that people have human rights, and that the international community is governed by norms, rules or laws, then those laws and rights must have the correlative enforcement mechanism to ensure that they are upheld. Without it, the international legal regime is nothing more than a phantom, and the politicians and pundits who vacillate on the enforcement of such rights perpetuate the illusion of international law and morality.
Until we recognize that "a community widely prevails among the Earth's peoples, [and] a transgression of the rights in one place in the world is felt everywhere" international law and what Kant terms "cosmopolitan right" is merely "fantastic and exaggerated."]]>Why Syria Will Never Be Libyatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10302582011-10-26T09:05:29-04:002011-12-26T05:12:01-05:00Heather Roffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-roff/emboldened and empowered by Moammar Gaddafi's death, stepping up their protests against the Assad regime while flashing signs asking for NATO to intervene as it did in Libya. And yet they and the Syrian opposition, which has asked for drones and aid to be sent in, have seen no real response to their calls for foreign protection and support. Why? In large part, the answer is tactical, not political.
First, we must consider the geographic differences between the two countries. Much of Libya's population resides along the northern coast with its relatively flat coastal plains. There are few mountain ranges to hide in or to complicate bombing strategies. (Also, NATO forces were able to fly sorties from nearby European bases.) Syria's population, by contrast, is tucked in or alongside mountainous terrain, complicating any tactical strategy. Air power could be effective, although it would come with higher costs, as we have seen in Afghanistan.
Libya is also less densely populated when compared with Syria's cities, where much of the resistance has taken place. Urban centres such as Homs, Hama, Rastan and Idlib present a set of challenges for intervenors looking to minimize civilian casualties and collateral damage. As for the sheer size of Syria's population -- 22.5 million to Libya's 6.6 million -- it adds a related challenge: balance of forces.
Syria's military is more than eight times what Col. Gaddafi's was. Raw numbers show Syria's airpower twice the strength of Libya's former air force. President Bashar al-Assad has nine times the number of operable tanks, almost four times the amount of land weapons and three times the amount of towed artillery. There is, frankly, much more to contend with in terms of manpower and military capability.
This is not to say that a NATO-led invasion could not face the Syrian forces and deal them a potentially crushing blow. But it would come with significantly higher costs. Indeed, it is estimated that only about 40 per cent of Syrians oppose the Assad regime. Thus any intervening force would contend, possibly, with 60 per cent of the population viewing such an intervention as an act of aggression. That is, 13.5 million Syrians would oppose the foreign military campaign -- twice the number of all Libyans combined.
Yet, the crucial difference between the decision to intervene in Libya and merely expressing diplomatic disapproval over Syria is that there is no identifiable rebel group occupying and controlling territory. The politics in Damascus are quite different. The "on the ground" protest groups, the Local Coordination Committees, are leaderless and anonymous, with most members forced into hiding. Opposition within Syria is understandably timid, and they have shied away from anything more than declaratory statements. The newly formed Syrian National Council is divided among liberals, Islamists and secularists across the globe. There is no clear opposition force and protesters do not, under international law, have the status of belligerents -- which would make further violence done to them a war crime under the International Criminal Court.
In contrast, Libya's rebel army was able to gather support and maintain control in the second-largest city of Benghazi, prompting Col. Gaddafi to use air power against the rebels and their supporters. This move by Col. Gaddafi is what ultimately pushed NATO to impose a no-fly zone. Syria's president has not used air strikes against his own people. Instead, he has pursued a campaign of violence, coercion and threats to intimidate the opposition. It's estimated that more than 3,000 protesters have been killed. While this is a clear violation of human rights, it would be very difficult to end it without putting boots on the ground. And this would be tactically undesirable since few foreign powers could justify such action to their own constituencies, especially given the likelihood that body bags would start arriving back home.
A final note on tactics: legitimacy is seen as a trump card in any offensive campaign.
In the case of Libya, Col. Gaddafi's statements, actions and past behaviour generated a very quick response from the international community. Not only did the UN Security Council agree to impose a no-fly zone to protect the rebels, it also voted to recommend a case of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity to The Hague. This dual action of creating a legal mandate and recommending prosecution for violation of international law gave NATO a mantle of legitimacy.
Unlike Libya, Syria can't gain this same status. Unless Mr. al-Assad commits, with clear evidence, crimes against humanity as defined by the Rome Statutes, the ICC has no hope of jurisdiction. This is due to the fact that Syria is not a signatory to the ICC. The only other available option is for the Security Council to recommend action against the Assad regime. And this is highly unlikely given its performance earlier this month with a failed vote to impose even targeted sanctions on Syria.
Unless Western powers, and not a ragtag group of rebels, are prepared for an on-the-ground invasion, we will continue to merely deplore what the Syrian regime is doing against its people. The principle of responsibility to protect was easily invoked in Libya's case, but it is not so easily defended in Syria's. Politics aside, intervening in Syria would be tactically challenging.
This article first appeared in The Globe and Mail.]]>