November/December 2021 11COURTESY U.S. NAVY (NSC-2, SEA HUNTER); GETTY IMAGES (MQ-1)
from the rival Haftar Affiliated Forces (HAF) with
Turkish-made Kargu-2 (“Hawk 2”) drones, mark-
ing the first reported time autonomous hunter
killer drones targeted human beings in a conf lict,
according to a United Nations report.
Unmanned combat aerial vehicles, loitering
munitions, and the Kargu-2 “hunted down and
remotely engaged” HAF logistics convoys and
retreating fighters, the UN report found. The
autonomous drones were programmed to attack
targets “without requiring data connectivity
between the operator and munition,” meaning they
located and attacked HAF forces independent of
any kind of pilot or control scheme.
The Kargu-2 is a quadcopter drone developed
by STM, a Turkish defense contractor. The drone
features sensors and an electronic brain, and is
designed to carr y a weapons payload. In marketing
materials, STM explicitly says Karg u-2 is capable of
carrying out an autonomous attack.
Here’s how it works: The drone operator loads
a set of target coordinates into the Kargu-2’s soft-
ware. The drone then takes off and travels to the
coordinates, searching for objects on the ground
that fit the profile of preferred targets. Once the
drone identifies a target, it swoops down on the
target at high speed and detonates an onboard
explosive package, with an effect similar to that of
a shotgun blast.
“The first use of autonomous weapons in war
won’t be heralded with a giant fireball in the sky,”
says Zachary Kallenborn, an official U.S. Army“Mad Scientist” and national security consultant.
“It may just look like an ordinary drone. The event
illustrates a key challenge in any attempt to regu-
late or ban autonomous weapons: How can we be
sure they were even used?”
One major difference between a remotely con-
trolled attack drone and an autonomous drone is
the software, which might be difficult to obtain
from scattered bits of plastic for forensic analysis.
The U.S. Army is working on autonomous drones,
including the Bell Textron M5 medium robotic com-
bat vehicle. The M5 is an uncrewed, 10-ton tracked
armored vehicle that looks like a miniature tank
and has a top speed of 40 miles per hour. It features
a 30-millimeter XM813 chain gun and is designed
to operate alone or as a wingman to M1A2 Abrams
tanks and M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles.
The key difference between the Army’s drones
and the Kargu-2, however, is that the Army insists
on a “human in the loop.” The drone might search
for targets autonomously, but it can only open fire
once a human operator gives permission. This
allows the operator to call off an attack if the drone
has mistaken a civilian for a soldier.
Some events in the histor y of mankind, like the
1945 atomic bomb test at the Alamogordo Bomb-
ing Range in New Mexico, are so profound, they
serve as a divider between one social, economic,
or military era and another. The events in Libya
may similarly divide the time when humans had
full control of weapons and a time when machines
make their own decisions to kill.THE
EVOLUTION
OF MILITARY
DRONES
CURTISS N2C-
FLEDGLING
In 1938, an unpiloted U.S.
Navy Curtiss N2C-2 Fledgling
dive-bombed the battleship
USS Utah. A human operator
observed the N2C-2 from a
distance and steered it using
radio signals.SEA HUNTER
In 2019, Sea Hunter became
the first sea drone to make the
trip from California to Hawaii
autonomously. Larger sea
drones equipped with dozens
of Mk. 41 missile silos will soon
sail alongside manned warships,
increasing their firepower.MQ-1 PREDATOR
In 2001, a Predator drone
successfully launched a Hellfire
anti-tank missile for the first
time. Because they can stay aloft
for 24 hours at a time, Predators
have helped the U.S. military
search for, identify, track, and
ultimately destroy targets.