Reaper Force - Inside Britain's Drone Wars. Peter Lee M.

keep the crosshairs on that car,’ he tells me, pointing at the screen. ‘It’s perfectly safe,’ he adds, reading my mind. I am sure I hear a chuckle from the pilot or MIC, but I am about to show them some moves. Some really bad moves, as it turns out – at least initially. The left and right movement is quite straightforward, but the up and down control seems to be the wrong way round. Worse, the joystick seems unusually big and clunky and not nearly as good as some on computer games. When I mention this later I am told that the manufacturers used old F-16 controls that were surplus to their requirements. And I believe it.

      If I was laser-guiding a missile at this point, the safest place in the world would be in the car that was now dancing all over the screen. Everywhere except near the crosshairs. In my defence, the problem was made worse by the one to two second time delay between me moving the control in Creech and the satellite delivering the signal to the aircraft. It took a couple of minutes for me to start to coordinate the moving, time-delayed, three-dimensional challenge in front of me. It took roughly the same time for the others to stop laughing.

      Before I know it my familiarisation exercise is over as the flex crew arrives to take over temporarily and give the duty crew a break. The delayed start of the mission means we are not yet into the designated operating area. The Reaper will get there by the time we have eaten and return.

      The Squadron Commander reverts back from SO to Boss mode. He goes to confirm with the Auth that the ‘satnav’ capability has returned as anticipated, and to find out what caused the problem.

      A short walk and a couple of security barriers away is the chow hall, or what the British call the mess or canteen. Hot and cold food is available twenty-four hours a day. It is a barn of a building that can feed hundreds of people at a sitting, at tables that are laid out in precise rows. Americans are often criticised for their diet and I am impressed to see some crisp salad in the fridges alongside the cheesecake, opposite the counter where burgers, steak, pizza and other local delicacies are churned out. Just as I am about to rewrite my prejudices about Americans and food, a young airman comes over and grabs a handful of salad to add some colour and texture to his massive double burger and cheese. Or perhaps to help his stomach process the pound of beef that is coming its way. From his physique I do not have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out that this is his standard diet.

      My two hosts from 39 Squadron regale me with tales about the merits of living and operating at Creech. It boils down to this: Creech is a base that is at war and everything is available twenty-four hours a day to support that effort. I will get to experience what happens at RAF Waddington in a few weeks’ time.

      Re-entering the GCS, each of the crew gets a quiet update from their counterpart in the flex crew as they settle back in for the next few hours.

      ‘Eyes on!’ The change in the pilot’s tone is enough to tell me that the transit is over and we – or at least the Reaper that the crew is flying – are overhead today’s Named Area of Interest. For my benefit he adds, ‘This is a Daesh area.’ The use of the official UK term – Daesh – does not escape my notice. It feels out of place, forced, like middle-aged parents using text-speak to – LOL – get down with the kids.

From the rear of the GCS, the MIC outlines the latest intelligence picture as he absorbs the information from multiple inputs, from text chatrooms to visuals and direct audio instruction. These include the observation priorities from the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The CAOC provides command and control for all air assets – the different kinds of aircraft – operating in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.10

      There are two immediate priorities, though if emergencies arise those priorities can change at any time. The first is to check the site of yesterday’s missile and bomb strike against IS to see if activity has resumed in the location. The second is to search for a couple of IS technicals that have been seen in the area. These mobile weapon-carriers can have anything from 0.50in-calibre machine guns whose rounds can penetrate concrete, to larger and more devastating anti-aircraft guns. I don’t need to spell out their primary job but they also make very effective and fast-moving artillery. Hit, run and hide is the maxim. They conduct the rapid, aggressive manoeuvre warfare that IS used so effectively to seize as much ground as it did in the early stages of its offensive. That was before Western air power joined the fray, especially the Reaper with its exceptionally long loiter times, surveillance capability and weapons.

      The screens before me show slow-moving images of bleak, sandy countryside, punctuated with random houses, settlements and towns. When we arrive at the scene of yesterday’s strike, it seems clear to me that there is nothing going on. Maybe I just have a low boredom threshold but I would have been away from that area in two minutes flat. Rubble is rubble and the damaged building nearby looks uninhabitable. But then, perhaps, my idea of uninhabitable is different to those who are fighting a war for which they are ready to die.

      The self-sacrificial element of what the IS fighters are doing is difficult to ignore and even more difficult to understand. Dying for one’s cause is the ultimate commitment. There’s also what they do to innocent civilians and to Muslims from different historical traditions. And this brings me to a curious corner of the public drone debate and a word that regularly crops up in discussions about drones: ‘fair’. As in, ‘Is it fair to use remotely piloted Reapers against jihadists who can’t strike back at them?’ Hilarious. The notion of war as a fair fight has emerged somewhere in recent arguments against the use of Reaper. Since the time of the Chinese military theorist Sun Tzu more than 2,000 years ago – and probably before – the idea has always been to make war as unfair on your enemy as possible. The advantages offered by RPA are not a violation of traditional military strategy – it is what militaries have been after for centuries. If activists want to use drones as a kind of lightning rod for anti-Western, anti-technology, anti-globalisation, anti-government criticism they should just say so. Instead, they can drown out the dedicated, informed scholars, activists and journalists who work to hold governments to account over their use of Reaper and other RPA.

      Here’s a test. Look at wars throughout history. Start listing the ones where political or battlefield leaders deliberately surrendered a distinct advantage to give their enemy a fair chance of winning. It will not take you long. (And no, I am not talking about the occasional act of chivalry or compassion on the battlefield.)

      Anyway, back to the screens. Yesterday’s reconnaissance of the area had been limited by strong winds and the sand it dispersed in the air. Today, in contrast, there are crystal clear skies and maximum visibility. The thorough examination of yesterday’s strike site yields no indication of life and activity. Everyone agrees that the job is completed. The MIC receives a new tasking, or task, and gives the pilot a bearing and destination. But the pilot does a curious thing. The direction indicator on the screen shows that the Reaper has responded to his joystick. Specifically, I can tell that he has gone into a left turn. In an aircraft cockpit in flight, gravity and centrifugal forces combine to cause the crew to lean into the turn. Despite this particular cockpit being a shipping container that is firmly anchored to a concrete base in the middle of the Nevada desert, the pilot still leans left into the turn. I don’t know if his brain is telling the rest of his body to move that way, or whether he is using his body as a means of understanding the movement of the distant aircraft. Either way, it looks weird.

      Almost immediately the SO spots something and zooms in the camera on his pod. A technical fills the screen. It is a quad cab pick-up truck and the MIC identifies a 0.50in-calibre machine gun on the back. Nobody seems especially interested or excited about this development. The SO explains: ‘This is not a Daesh-held area so it is unlikely that this will be one of their vehicles out on its own. We are just working out who it does belong to.’

      The three crew members each contribute description and analysis of the image on the screen. Even I can tell that the markings do not belong to IS. The MIC breaks away from the conversation to check on the several intelligence chatrooms he has running on his screen. He types in a description of what they are seeing and where it is. The MIC is not just a recipient of intelligence, he is also contributing to the overall intelligence picture of the area. Some quick cross-checking