General Petraeus: Use of drones transforms role of humans in Russia’s war in Ukraine

The Kremlin’s sinful war against Ukraine is creating new opportunities for drone technologies that will transform the role of humans in military operations, according to retired U.S. Gen. David Petraeus. 

He served as the commander of the U.S. Central Command and led U.S. and NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, is also a former CIA director and was a member of the Advisory Council for UWC (2022-2023).

He said the way the war is evolving is a mixture of “art and science,” in a recent YouTube video interview.

What the U.S. is “learning from the war in Ukraine is the enormous advent of massive numbers of unmanned systems that are fighting and starting to even fight each other, which eventually will evolve into unmanned systems that are not remotely piloted as they currently are, but are rhythmically piloted.”

Petraeus then spoke of the shifting role that humans play in managing military systems, especially in scenarios where rapid decision-making is crucial. 

“We already do this when it comes to certain air and ballistic missile defense systems. The role of the humans is to allow the machine to act on the algorithms that it has,” he said. “It happens too rapidly when you’re hitting a bullet with a bullet. The machine actually has to make certain decisions very, very rapidly, more rapidly frankly, than humans can in certain cases.”

Moreover, the role of drone operators will change significantly. Initially, humans will define mission tasks and conditions, while the execution will be handed over to algorithms capable of quickly assessing situations and making decisions, Petraeus added.

Watch the full video at the link.