The UN’s Robotic Peacekeepers

1st flight of unarmed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in DR Congo, help @MONUSCO fulfill mandate to protect civilians #DRC http://t.co/MVzOcFoZdb—
UN Peacekeeping (@UNPeacekeeping) December 03, 2013

The UN launched its first drones on Tuesday to aid in surveillance as part of its peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Allen McDuffee covers on the development:

“It is another validator of the new ‘normal’ of this technology and its use,” said Peter Singer, director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at the Brookings Institution. ”Some 87 countries are using military robotics of some sort, so why should we be stunned that the organization they are members of and supply its forces would use them too?”

“Drones are a technology that are here to stay,” said Singer. “There are so many ‘debates’ now where the people call themselves ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ drone, which is like being pro or anti computers, quaint but irrelevant. Its all about how you use the technology, not the widget itself.”

The drones are unarmed, but Adam Clark Estes calls the move “a bit of an about face”:

Despite having expressed skepticism over some countries’ use of drones—albeit often the ones used for targeted killings—the UN now feels like the technology is necessary. “This is a first in the history of the United Nations that such an advanced technological tool has been used in peacekeeping mission,” Hervé Ladsous, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, said at the unveiling. “The UN needs to use these kinds of tools to better perform its mandate.”

Simon Allison has mixed feelings about the announcement:

Deploying drones in the DRC does make a good deal of common sense. In the areas where the drones are to be deployed, roads are poor or non-existent; the terrain affords plenty of cover; and foreign peacekeepers trying to gather information don’t exactly blend in. This makes it exceptionally difficult to gather accurate information – a problem that drones, with their all-seeing monitors, could solve, or at least alleviate. …

It’s difficult, however, not to feel some unease at the introduction of a new and possibly dangerous element into the Congolese conflict, which has reached a (still very tentative) détente over the last couple of months. ‘Surveillance’ sounds relatively innocuous, but that’s exactly how America’s drone warfare program started life. It’s worth remembering what that has become: a widespread, unaccountable series of targeted killings (some would say assassinations) in foreign countries, responsible for the deaths of at least 2,227 people in Pakistan alone.