July 23, 2012
First published by Mobilizing Ideas
The 10-year anniversary for the movement that sprung up against the war in Iraq is on the horizon, and it presents an opportune time to reflect on its progress, and more importantly, the lessons that can be learned from its shortcomings.
While activists were busy organizing in the fall of 2002, the dramatic debut of the movement’s true size and global dimensions took place on February 15, 2003. On that historic date, millions took to the streets around the world in the largest antiwar protest in history. Two days later, Patrick Tyler wrote in The New York Times that there were now perhaps “two superpowers on the planet—the United States, and worldwide public opinion.”
This was no doubt an impressive show of force, but it ultimately did not faze President Bush, who quipped that letting the protests influence his decision to invade Iraq would be like saying “I’m going to decide policy based upon a focus group.” This brazen retort from the president wasn’t mere posturing. A little more than a month later, bombs started raining down on Baghdad once again.
Today, I was on “Your Call,” an hour-long call-in program on KALW 91.7 FM, the local Public Radio station in San Francisco, to talk about the impact of drones and robotics on war. To listen to show, click 
With little public scrutiny, robotics is quickly revolutionizing not only how war is fought, but who fights in war. While the U.S. military first began to experiment with remote-controlled weapons during World War I, the Pentagon had no robots on the ground when it invaded Iraq in 2003, and only a handful of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the air. Today, according to P.W. Singer, author of Wired for War and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, the U.S. military has some 7,000 UAVs in operation – more than double the number of manned aircraft in its arsenal - and more than 12,000 robots on the ground in Iraq alone.
The Pentagon’s dream of a techno army is doomed to fail.
Currently fitted with an M249 machine gun that fires 750 rounds per minute, the robot can accommodate other powerful weapons, including a 40 mm grenade launcher or an M202 rocket launcher.
Peter W. Singer is not your typical “military expert.” At 33 years old, he is the director of the Brookings Institution’s 21st Century Defense Initiative and the youngest senior fellow in the think tank’s 90-year history. In 2003, his book Corporate Warriors chronicled the rise of the privatized military industry; Children at War, released in 2005, examined the tragic phenomenon of child soldiers. He also served as the coordinator of President Barack Obama’s defense policy task force during Obama’s campaign—a role he took on after consulting for The West Wing.
