
Some Cautionary Notes on the New ‘Knife Missile’ - smacktoward
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/05/some-cautionary-notes-new-knife-missile/156943/
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sundvor
Culture fans: These are not the knife missiles you were thinking about.

The topic of kinetic drone launched hellfire missiles seems highly
problematic. Usage scenarios are when there'd just be too much collateral
damage from explosive munitions, but where do you draw the line to something
that would do vastly more damage than a sniper rifle hit?

I guess it could help protect local intelligence assets who might be armed
with nothing but a cell phone.

(I have no real qualifications on this topic, but I do like to read about
military ops. And Iain Banks).

~~~
0_gravitas
> Culture fans: These are not the knife missiles you were thinking about.

Bummer

~~~
semi-extrinsic
If we were on a less civilised messaging board I would leave a comment noting
the (non-)coincidence that your username is in fact remarkably appropriate for
your comment.

~~~
tempguy9999
I think Banks might have been quite pleased with 'semi-extrinsic', actually.

~~~
hugofirth
I suspect you will thoroughly enjoy this twitter account:
[https://twitter.com/cultureshipname?lang=en](https://twitter.com/cultureshipname?lang=en)

~~~
sundvor
Subbed. One of my favourite fictive ship name would be an Adams one: GSV
Mostly Harmless.

Was great to see the replies, user names. :) Also the number of votes tells
there's a large number of people who must really miss Banks (RIP). It's been a
while so I will start re-reading the Culture series soon, chronologically this
time. A number were lost paperbacks, but will just add them to my Kindle
collection.

~~~
0_gravitas
If you hadn't yet, I recommend picking up his book of poetry that was
posthumously released along side his longtime friend Ken MacLeod's poems. A
lot of it is Banks to the core, including the humor. My favorite is cynically
titled "Love Poem":

Serene,

In a world full of troubles.

i.e. doing nothing about it.

------
_bohm
> _whereas a unit equipped with only explosive Hellfires would be forbidden
> from making strikes in, say, a very crowded city thoroughfare, the same
> environment might be open season for a team with the R9X._

Leads me to wonder what kind of psychological damage we will (and already do)
inflict upon populations with targets in their midst. Can you imagine living
in a scenario in which your community is regularly bombarded by explosives
falling from the sky, let loose by a supposed enemy which you will probably
never even see? Horrible.

~~~
tempguy9999
I'm no US apologist and thankfully I've never been in such situations but
civilians at risk of these might well be living in situations where they have
some very nasty, oppressive people mixed in with them and being an even
greater risk to them than such (supposedly) carefully used weapons.

In such cases they _might_ feel grateful that the US is doing this. Might.
Maybe. 'Terrorists' is such a useful word.

~~~
Juliate
That's not the point.

The point is, someone you don't know precisely about, neither their real
motivations, neither its actual consistency, has the actual ability to kill
anyone (more or less precisely) from a distance, as it decides, without
fearing any other obstacle than its own will.

Like, an imperfect yet powerful god.

You don't know how to "please it" or "have mercy", but by very proxy methods
that may not even apply consistently on the long term.

~~~
tempguy9999
Frankly it may not be the point, or it may be exactly the point. I don't know
as I've never lived in those situations, and I doubt you have.

I'm raising a possibility, not claiming a truth. You're denying that
possibility apparently based on gut feel.

Both my point and yours are ultimately worth exactly nothing. What would be
good is to have people there tell us how they feel. We need to hear their
voices. They deserve to be heard but for some reason I don't recall ever
hearing their opinion.

(Edit: jdietrich posted those opinions - reading now, thanks)

(Edit2: I'll leave this post rather than delete it, but consider it retracted;
there's plenty in jdietrich's links to make me change my mind)

~~~
Juliate
I mean, it's not the point, not to sound picky, because, the point is not to
know whether the action is justified or not, people are better off or not.

It's because people under this rule have no power, no influence, almost no
clue about it, because of the imbalance and the disconnect (of power, of
knowledge, of capacity).

Such as would any creature under a powerful god, would gods exist. But you at
least expect gods to have some sort of perfection or status or narrative that
could somehow justify their whereabouts.

But here, there's no god. Just imperfect, broken humans breaking other humans,
imperfectly, often for the wrong, or no reason at all.

That will never make something right. That will certainly entice more hate and
more evil.

That's why this kind of weapon should be banned by treaties as unconventional
(which they are).

This is not war. This is ruthless domination, for better or for worse (more
than often, worse).

~~~
tempguy9999
> the point is not to know whether the action is justified or not, people are
> better off or not

Really? You don't think that whether people are better off matters?

Or fundamentally, whether a thing is justified or not matters?

Now I'm curious as to the basis of your morality. Could you explain how you
would judge a thing to be right or not? (this sounds rather attacking, I'm
not, just really interested).

I expect I've got wires crossed but I'd like to uncross them.

~~~
Juliate
It does matter. Tremendously.

But the means to it matter as much, because they bring their own sets of
consequences with them (and that is more than often ignored or overlooked, for
"short term benefits").

The justification of an action is as much in the fruits, as in the roots. Both
come hand in hand ultimately.

(edit to add the following:)

Then, as to judge/discern, I can't say I have a definite, certain receipt. I
fear and keep away from those who say they do have one.

I don't mean to advertise the "basis of my morality". I'm not that good. I
have a set of principles, that come mostly from my (Catholic, practicing)
upbringing (but that don't match at all what most "Christians in the US"
showcase, if that can give an idea) + an inner desire for peace, balance and
truth (as hard and harsh it could be) that many take for naiveté, + an acute
critical look for bullshit, I guess. But that's not very telling, is it? :p

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huffmsa
It has been limited in use and will continue to be because it takes up
valuable pylon space for a single use.

Unless the MQ-1 is being deployed for a specific assassination, it makes sense
to equip it with the AP hellfire, so it can possibly take action against an
unexpected target of opportunity while loitering. You're probably not going to
fire one of these against a Toyota Hilux or APC.

~~~
frozen11b
Having served in the infantry in Afganistan you are dead wrong, and APC ot a
technical ( heavy machine gun mounted on a pickup, traditionally a Toyota
helix) a Helfire would definatly be fired at one.

~~~
ourmandave
There's a Knife Missile testing video and the target is a test dummy in a
remotely driven pickup on some strip of desert.

(I can't find a link. =( )

The missile goes through the driver's side roof and wedges out the passenger
side floor.

The pickup was driven at variable speeds and it was just a crazy accurate as a
standard hellfire.

~~~
6nf
Photos of a car supposedly hit by a knife missile in this video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMb-g5-aRjI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMb-g5-aRjI)

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fjsolwmv
Thank for the photos. That video and The Sun are horrible.

~~~
6nf
Yea sorry pay no attention to the audio.

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gmueckl
The fact that the US military has no qualms with killing random innocent
civilians - including children - in their strikes against (assumed) terrorists
is maddening to me. I understand that there are people who cannot be stopped
from harming others with non-violent means. But how does it justfy that extra
random murdering that the US military performs? At which point does this
become a war crime?

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mortehu
The other way to look at it is that enemy combatants have no problems using
innocent civilians as human shields. If US decided it would not harm human
shields, the world would find out, and US would never win another battle
again.

~~~
gmueckl
Please define human shield. Is it the family of the terrorist with whom he
lives? Friends invited over to spend time with? Where is the difference
between people being around coincidentally and people being kept around for
protection?

~~~
bobcostas55
To give just one prominent example: Hamas stores weapons in and fires rockets
from hospitals, there's no "coincidentally" \- these groups know exactly what
they're doing.

~~~
DSingularity
[https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/fallacy-israel-
hum...](https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/fallacy-israel-human-
shields-claims-gaza-180618085404724.html)

I wonder what kind of person pushes false narratives dehumanizing a people who
have been oppressed by a brutal occupation for decades.

~~~
sergioj97
I don't think there's a way to know for sure. I guess we could exchange links
that described opposite points of view all day long, but we wouldn't reach any
meaningful conclusions.

However I fail to understand why this human shield topic seems so unbelievable
to some people. Terrorist-like groups such as Hamas constantly show a very
explicit lack of respect for innocent lives (even for the lives of innocents
who share their same culture), the most clear example being attacks directed
exclusively towards civilians. You can say "similar" things about the US (and
other governments), but certainly not the same thing.

One of the obvious reasons for this is that a terrorist group usually faces an
extreme disadvantage when it comes to logistics and operational capabilities
in general, specially against the US military. Using civilian installations as
human shield seems to be in line with the way terrorist groups usually fight
back (using civilians lives as a mean to reach their goals).

I'm not saying that the fact that it's a plausible possibility makes it a
reality. It is a possibility (an unlikely one in my opinion) that a terrorist
group decides to avoid killing civilians (refusing also to use this human
shields) and tries to dominate the conflict spreading terror by any other
means. And it's certainly a possibility that Israel created this hoax, too.
I'm only saying it's not that strange seeing terrorist groups doing this kinds
of things, without the need to create any fictional narration.

