The Royal Australian Air Forces’ Gp Cpt Jeff Stephenson on ‘Eyes in the Sky: drones, modern warfare and psychological wellbeing’.t.
Gp Cpt Stephenson’s opening message was clear: drones are have dramatically changed the face of modern warfare, and with it the nature and mechanisms of physical and psychological casualty care. “Drones are a weapon of terror’, he said, and the typical ‘Golden Hour’ of post-incident casualty care has changed enormously.
A leading expert in aerospace medicine, Gp Cpt Stephenson currently serves as Clinical Director Primary Health Care Air Force Health Reserves, in the Royal Australian Air Force. He has deployed to East Timor, Banda Aceh and the Middle East and performed aeromedical evacuations from most countries in our Pacific arc, as well as from the Middle East and Europe. In 2008, he was awarded an Order of Australia for Meritorious Service in the fields of Operational and Garrison Health. His current focus is on shaping Australian Defence Health to align with the current strategic environment.
“Drones are a weapon of terror. The Golden Hour has gone”.
– Gp Cpt Jeff Stephenson
Whilst unmanned vehicles have been used for many years, the conflict in Ukraine has seen the mainstreaming and widening of the use of air, land and sea unmanned vehicles. According to Gp Cpt Stephenson, in 2022 there were seven manufacturers of drones in Ukraine. Within two years, this has risen to 200, with more than 3 million produced annually. Small, bespoke or modified commercial aerial drones are now capable of delivering dynamic, lethal force, at scale. With operator training taking between two days and a month, they are also cost and time effective. Cheap, multiple-use systems are the key to winning the adaptation battle, he argues.
The proliferation of unmanned offensive drones has huge potential implications for both those in the firing line, and operators. For those under the drones’ eye, escape is extremely difficult. “You can try to hide, you can harden your defences, or you can run like hell,” he said. All are unlikely – modern technologies mean operators can see their targets with increasing ease, three metres of concrete is the typical minimum protection needed, and with speeds of up to 60 km/hr capable, the distances to run to safety are around 5km. Electronic jamming countermeasures are not always effective.
For those injured on the front lines, traditional airborne medical evacuation is no longer possible as multi-person medical teams in helicopters themselves become targets for drone attacks. Although international defence companies are developing ground-based and aerial evacuation drones, they too risk being targeted due to their speed, conspicuousness and lack of protection. Medevac drones also have limited capacity, and so who is triaged as being viable for medical evacuation changes. Those on the battlefield are potentially increasingly alone.
“Force preparation is key,” Gp Cpt Stephenson said when it comes to training combatants for what to now expect on the frontline and ensuring they know that traditional expectation for air support in times of medical emergency are no longer always viable. As a result, medical training and intervention needs to pivot to buddy-buddy and self-care.
Psychologically, the toll of hunter versus hunted is potentially stark on both sides of the operating console. “Drones enable a relentless first-person viewer of hunting people,” he said. Unlike manned flights, Gp Cpt Stephenson said that for drone operators the experience is more personal with the “pursuit likely not as bad for someone [operating an aircraft] at high altitude and not being nearby”. Operational tempo too, is potentially different as he recounted that some of the most skilled Ukrainian drone operators (who previously worked as wedding photographers), operated upwards of seven missions a day.
“There are moral injury implications for drone operators,” he said. “It’s going to be a major issue… people are downplaying it at this point, but it will be a big problem”. As drones continue to change the nature of warfare, the shape of the long tail of the potential psychological consequences will start becoming clear.
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