National Policies for Military Unmanned Systems that Implement Joint Fires Missions: Aircraft Systems, Armed Drones, Research Priorities, Historical Analogies, Strategic Options for Counterterrorism

This report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. Since September 11, 2001, the United States has used unmanned systems extensively around the world. These were primarily unmanned aircraft systems, but in the same years the technologies for ground and maritime (both surface and sub-surface) systems also matured significantly. In the coming years, unmanned systems with tremendous capabilities will be readily available in all of these areas. Technological advances in unmanned systems have expanded existing military capabilities. Despite the adoption of these technologies for military applications, policy guidance for U.S. national decisionmakers has lagged the introduction of new capabilities. This thesis examines the current national-level policy guidance that exists for military unmanned systems capable of implementing joint fires missions (both kinetic and non-kinetic), and identifies policy gaps based on the planned capabilities of unmanned systems. This thesis asserts that U.S. policies to constrain autonomy have been developed; however, there are limits to the guidance provided for responses to aggression against U.S. unmanned systems or the use of adversary unmanned systems. It further asserts that policies should be publicly declared to signal U.S. intent, and that this guidance should include ground and maritime unmanned systems, not just airborne, as they are just as likely to affect U.S. international affairs.

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION * Identifying the Problem * Recent History * Significance of the Problem * Research Questions * Assumptions * Definition of Terms * Scope * Limitations * Delimitations * Conclusion * CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW * Significant Literature for Understanding Issues Related to Unmanned Systems * Media Commentary on Existing Policies for Unmanned Systems * Research Institutes and Academic Publications on Unmanned Systems Policies * Common Themes in Existing Literature * Significance of Thesis in Relation to Existing Literature * CHAPTER 3 - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY * Phase 1: Identification of Capabilities that could Require Policy Guidance * Phase 2: Review of Existing, Publicly-Declared Unmanned Systems Policies * Phase 3: Comparison of Policy Requirements to Historical Analogies * The Three-phase Research Methodology Addresses the Research Questions * Further Considerations * CHAPTER 4 - ANALYSIS * Phase 1-1: DOD Research Priorities as Indicators of Near-future Capabilities * Phase 1-2: Addressing New or Greatly Expanded Capabilities of Unmanned Systems * Phase 2-1: Analysis of Existing Policies on the Use of Military Unmanned Systems * Phase 2-2: Aspects of New Capabilities not Addressed by Policies * Phase 3: Historical Analogies that can Provide Insight on Unmanned Systems Issues * Results of Research Methodology * CHAPTER 5 - CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS * Revisiting the Research Questions * Conclusions * Recommendations. Areas of Further Research