Title: Scripps News Tonight - Drone Warfare Pt. 1
Description: Join Chance Seales and Christian Bryant, plus a team of Scripps News reporters, for a deep dive into the news of the day.
Transcript Generated by SnapStream Enterprise TV Search
before. >> James Packer for us live in la Tonight. James, thank you very much. There is no question drone warfare is here to stay. So what needs to change in terms of our defense policy? The Senate Colonel Paul Lukashenko. Excuse me is the director of special operations and then associate professor at the U.S. Army War And by the way, he literally wrote the book on the subject. In this case, the book is entitled The Legitimacy of Drone Warfare. Paul, let's start with size. Everything from that backyard drone, the
[00:00:30]
drops bombs to the predator that we have. 55 foot wingspan as a friend of mine who deals in this industry wants said the little also that nobody knows about. Tell me about this technology and how quickly it is changing. >> Well, changing rapidly. And I think you do a good job of trying to differentiate between what we call armed and network drones such as the Mq 9 Reaper and the smaller variant which are commercially available, easily weaponized and used politically across
[00:01:00]
the battlefield. Certainly and Ukraine to great tactical effect. >> Well, I found out that the Predator was dating back to 1980, and I remember because as I said, I have a friend that worked on that program and he couldn't talk about it for years and to most of the systems were declassified. But if that was 1980, if that was 40 years ago, what we have now. >> So we rapidly advancing capability and I at most these are semi autonomous capabilities that are still
[00:01:32]
controlled and it was seen by humans. But big fear among experts and practitioners and this space is that we're going to use artificial intelligence to result in fully autonomous capabilities that are capable, identify tracking and targeting. Also asserting that works or personnel even on your own. >> Well, I don't want to get sci-fi, but isn't that what everybody has been afraid of? Autonomous armies with autonomous drones and autonomous soldiers. In this case, drones.
[00:02:03]
>> That's right. But I think what we're at right now is an inflection point in the development of artificial intelligence making this a real possibility, not just in the near future, right now. And so there are emerging reports out of Ukraine, especially that Ukrainian military as well as Russian militaries. Have you used commercially available drones and not just on their own accord, you wanted to but also what we call swarming formations of multiple drones. That could be interconnected. It up on the software to strike a target.
[00:02:35]
>> In fact, there's that report from Bard College. It says. Since 2020, I think more than 100 countries have some type of military drone. Do you see drone warfare playing out in future conflicts? >> Absolutely. And so since own well-being, when United States adopted the first modern Armed network drunk at the time, it was end to predator. We've seen globally for Asian, to what we call a free for all. And that's just not among the 100 or so countries that you're a French. But more importantly,
[00:03:06]
among myriad non-state actors to include these as well continued has law within Iraq. And so I think to the extent where she didn't Asian for warfare, it's more terms of how we're using the capability, what we call the character of war versus the nature of war, which is still very politicized. A clash of union wills, if you will. >> Surprised about this. The United States no longer the world's top exporter of drones for the military. China now has that top spot we saw during the pandemic that there
[00:03:37]
is a problem when so much that we depend on, especially for defense is tied to China, especially when China actor that we're concerned about. How concerned should we be? >> Very concerned because these countries to include the United States and Turkey along with China are the most polluting countries in the world. Capabilities, in fact, the unusually Toyota Corolla of drones, the ak 47, if you will, is the Turkish. Many TV too, guitar. And to the extent
[00:04:10]
we had any international governance to what we call the missile technology control regime. But what we found is is highly effective based upon variation and oversight levy by different countries to include the top tier leaders of China, Turkey and United States. At this point they spend on that drone. What exactly does it look like? What does it do? >> So TV to Derek Carr is is report before handing relatively cheap capability, which is still armed and
[00:04:40]
network. I characterize is a mid tear drop and what that means practical terms, it doesn't have the operational reach. You may get with the Mq 9 Reaper manufactured by United States. And furthermore, it doesn't have the payload. And then finally what it means for operators is that you can do a quick training regime to learn how to use the capability and then apply within a couple weeks of having acquired it from Turkey. That is quite
[00:05:12]
different from property. But United States, which is fairly intensive for that right up for the maintenance and for the deployment abroad. >> Is this true that we are the Mercedes-Benz and other countries are the Volkswagens. And as a result, we're paying more because in Yemen, drones represent that war of attrition. They launch of $2000 drone. We shoot them down with the Mitchell missile that actually cost 5.10 times as much. >> I think that's fair characterization. If we talk about the supply and demand drones, but will your question
[00:05:44]
deals how do we counter these capabilities in conflict right now? The U.S. Approach is to adopt a right of launch counter drone strategy, which is to say we're going to try to intercept these drones on final descent to a target. I think the more prudent course of action is to adopt muffed, launch course of action, which is to say, let's try to get the chain that going into building these capabilities and that in the first place S**** out the capability of
[00:06:14]
the manufacturing plant. If we can do that, they will reduce the amount of money we're spending on these missiles to intercept a commercially available Chinese manufacturer dji Drone which is pending Balls. >> Lieutenant Colonel Publishing Co stay with us because we've got a lot more questions for you because when we come back, we're going to talk about the United States responding to the deaths of those 3 U.S. Troops in Jordan who died from a drone strike. A strike. By the way, this time on our part against leaders of an Iranian backed
[00:06:45]
militia. Tonight we have new evidence emerging about the secret weapon that the U.S. Used to pull that off. Stay with us.