Except during take-off and landing, military drones are not controlled from their bases in Afghanistan, but by pilots in the United States. Yet, there is a growing belief that these pilots face combat stress like their comrades in the warzone. Last week, Spiegel posted an online interview with robotic war expert P.W. Singer in which he discussed (among other things) the stress of drone wars.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: One drone pilot told SPIEGEL ONLINE that they suffer from just as much stress and trauma.
Singer: Yes, all this doesn’t mean we’re not seeing all sorts of new stressers. In the beginning we feared that drones may make the operators not really care about what they’re doing. But the opposite has turned out to be true. They may almost care too much. We’re seeing higher levels of combat stress among remote units than among some units in Afghanistan. We found significantly increased fatigue, emotional exhaustion and burnout. Drone operators are more likely to suffer impaired domestic relationships, too.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What explains this stress?
Singer: There are different theories as to why. Traditional bomber pilots don’t see their targets. A remote operator sees the target up close, he sees what happens to it during the explosion and the aftermath. You’re further away physically but you see more. Also, the drone war takes place 24/7, 365 days a year. The war doesn’t stop on Christmas. It’s like being a fireman when there’s a fire every single day, day after day after day. That’s emotionally and physically taxing. On top of that, many units are understaffed.
Singer does not mention another likely cause of the stress, the so-called “whiplash transition“. Many suspect that the very ability of these drone pilots to live at home with their families and “commute” to the warzone everyday is taking its toll on the mental health of the pilots. Drone pilots could conduct a deadly airstrike in Northern Afghanistan, and attend their kids soccer game an hour later. This stress (as Singer points out) is likely heightened by the high-def nature of drone warfare:
In a fighter jet, “when you come in at 500-600 mph, drop a 500-pound bomb and then fly away, you don’t see what happens,” said Col. Albert K. Aimar, who is commander of the 163rd Reconnaissance Wing here and has a bachelor’s degree in psychology. But when a Predator fires a missile, “you watch it all the way to impact, and I mean it’s very vivid, it’s right there and personal. So it does stay in people’s minds for a long time.”
However, despite all the talk about drone pilot stress, I find it unlikely the stress is at levels comparable to those physically present in the warzone. I suspect the latter is more akin to the stress problems of police and firemen than servicemen on long-term deployment.
Christopher Albon is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in armed conflict, public health, human security, and health diplomacy.
Want more? Subscribe to Conflict Health through RSS or email.
{ 3 comments }
As I started reading this the first thing I thought of was exactly what Col. Aimar notes; though these pilots might not be “in it” over in the box day in and day out their daily routine of watching the destruction live on camera will eventually take its toll. I would also have to agree with you Chris that it may not be as stressful- but going to bed at night in your own bed with the images they have burned into their minds can’t be a picnic either. Just my early morning thought.
Agreed Ryan. The mental health literature on emergency services personnel probably has some good insights.
I was thinking of what the other Peter Singer (the philosopher) might say about this. In our evolutionary past, the only means of killing another person would have been up close and personal, and would have had a great psychological impact. On the other hand, impersonal killing from great distances via projectiles allows a degree of separation and is an extremely new phenomenon, falling outside the purview of our innate moral grammar (1). It seems to me that drone pilots seem more like the first type of killing (direct and personal). By watching their targets, pilots can see some aspect of their personalities, and may be unable to psychologically distance themselves, as Col. Aimar suggested. It would be fascinating to see how blood pressure or stress hormone levels fluctuate in drone pilots over the course of a day. Just a thought.
1) http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/publications/recent/HauserNurtureNotNature.pdf
Comments on this entry are closed.