[nextw33k]

A pragmatist would say that you are right. However ethics teaches us that you are wrong.

Remotely destroying things is not going to help us as a race. Keeping the human in the danger zone helps prevent violence, everybody has something to lose.

[Htsthbjig]

"However ethics teaches us that you are wrong."

Well, there is nothing ethical about war. People in horses killed easily those not in horses. Then people in horses were killed easily with artillery as it improved.

The same happened with ships, making boarding unnecessary.

You know what they said about tanks when they appeared: they were not ethical. Then planes made possible to shoot someone kilometers away with heavy artillery(that before planes could not see far away). Not ethical at all.

Then came air bombers, the nuclear bomb. Today the US kills 10.000 people in Iraq annually with air drones just pushing buttons thousands of miles away.

It is already happening on one side. The only difference is when the other side starts using it too. Then we will consider it unethical(after decades using it on others).

[DanielBMarkham]

When the machine gun was invented, Europeans congratulated themselves that they were the only ones with machine guns. After all, such a nasty weapon of mass death wouldn't be something that Europeans would ethically use on other Europeans.

That didn't last long.

[cheald]

There is a reason that we fight our battles with guns and bombs rather than swords and shields; removing the soldier from danger insofar as is feasible while maintaining combat superiority has been the aim of most all warfare technology developments since the dawn of time.

While you can most certainly argue against the ethics of war, if you're going to permit war as a reality of human existence, then I'd say it's quite unethical to insist on waging said war with technologies that put your soldiers at any further risk than necessary.

It's not like we aim to fight fair wars.

[cromwellian]

In practice, in recent battles, the US quickly gains air superiority and US fighter pilots face little if any challenge or danger. I'm not sure it's much of prevention.

Before manned US fighters enter a war zone, cruise missile attacks, HARM missiles, and stealth bombers usually take out the air defense system and bomb runways. The US really hasn't faced a challenge to air superiority in decades.

I'd prefer we find other ways to keep out of war rather than a few hundred pilots at negligible risk.

[notahacker]

On a micro level the opposite is true. The worst that's going to happen to a drone operator for not firing first is a reprimand for losing the equipment.

On a policymaking level, I can't think of too many air strikes called off from fear of the airmen's lives. Fear of terrorist reprisals, foreign policy debacles and ending up with people on the ground are far bigger issues to be considered which won't go away with drones.