France Weighs Arming UAVs

Unlike this U.S. Air Force Reaper, French air force UAVs do not carry weapons and operate reconnaissance missions only. Credit: General Atomics

The French government is carefully avoiding raising ethical objections to the French air force’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), including General Atomics MQ-9 Reapers acquired from the U.S. and recently delivered to the 1/33 Sqdn. French authorities believe UAV reconnaissance capabilities -offer unprecedented advantages, while weapons continue to be carried only by manned combat aircraft such as Dassault -Mirage 2000Ds and Rafales.

Official comments on France’s employment of UAVs are rare and cautiously focus on their complementary role. “They are not expected to replace aircraft; they don’t cover the complete spectrum of operational needs,” says Col. Christophe Fontaine, head of the 1/33 Sqdn. “They complement other capabilities.”
The French forces, which long delayed expressing a clear policy on UAV use, have been operating limited numbers of EADS Harfangs and General Atomics MQ-1 Predators in the last few years and selected the Reaper in the absence of a satisfactory domestic candidate. The U.S. UAV entered service in France recently, and two have already accumulated 700 flight hours across several theaters of operation. The French air force plans to order a total of 12 Reapers, which are capable of carrying weapons—although only with Pentagon approval. To date, Washington has been reluctant to allow even allies such as France or Italy to arm the UAVs it sells them.

In the longer term, France is tentatively expected to acquire a European counterpart—that it could weaponize—developed by a French manufacturer or European consortium. But the acquisition plan has yet to be determined.In contrast to other Western nations, French military policy makers have not publicly discussed objections to the use of armed UAVs, perhaps partly because of the dearth of options for operating them. Fontaine, who doesn’t discuss the topic, simply says the Reaper is a remotely piloted aircraft. “There is nothing more manned than an unmanned system,” he asserts. French experts add that the U.S. seeks to characterize UAVs as “remotely piloted aircraft,” stressing that “man” remains very much part of the -“unmanned” system.

The French don’t take into consideration the appearance of psychological conflicts and so-called asymmetrical warfare, implicitly rejecting that “there is a worry that UAV could lead to autonomous weapons that make lethal decisions on their own,” a warning expressed in the Journal of Military Ethics by Bradley Jay Strawser, philosophy professor at the University of Connecticut. While UAVs were initially conceived as reconnaissance systems and some later were fitted with a variety of arms, they have always required pilots to be very much in the loop, if frequently based thousands of miles from the theater of operations.France of course was monitoring ethics-related issues long before UAVs entered its air force inventory. A comprehensive study published last summer by Gregoire Chamayou of the national center for scientific research (CNRS) states that armed UAVs can produce mass terror and petrify people and suggests that killing the enemy from a distant location is the height of dishonor and cowardliness.

The French armed forces have discussed collateral damage caused by armed UAVs, even though they haven’t been operating them. And French policy makers privately note that collateral damage must be tolerated if nothing can be done to avoid it, as long as it is in proportion to the target’s value. But they say remote warfare is “immoral” and add that “there is some Machiavelli” in armed UAV operations. Meanwhile, aerospace industry officials are disappointed by the French military’s slowness in deciding to procure more UAVs it can arm, which would pave the way for national programs. The air force’s UAV inventory remains minimal and no follow-on orders are planned beyond the 12 Reapers. Similarly, the European Neuron program, currently in the flight-test phase, is no more than a promising technology demonstrator. Dassault Aviation, the cross-border program’s prime contractor, has demonstrated that a production derivative could be easily developed. But no such plan is being considered for the near future.

Moreover, in the last few days, the government of Prime Minister Manuel Valls has denied there is a tentative plan to cut defense spending further in an additional effort to slash public deficits. But that danger is looming and could impact research and development funding.


http://aviationweek.com/defense/opinion-france-weighs-arming-uavs