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Disarmament and International Security Committee (DISEC)

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Meet the Chair

Hello DISEC delegates,

It’s a delight to have you all in this DISEC committee at SouthMUNC IV. My name is

Mahish Kewalramani and I am genuinely excited to be your head chair for this committee. When

coming up with this committee’s topic I thought about my past experience with general assembly

committee’s and how I had always felt they were so repetitive. Solutions from one conference

could be copied and pasted with a few word changes and no one would blink an eye. This is why

I decided that the committee topic be about robotics for national security. Not only is this a fun

topic to discuss, but it is also very important to talk about now as this is where the future of

warfare and internal security is headed.

Outside of Model UN I love to watch and play soccer. I have followed the sport for as

long as I could remember and have played on the school’s varsity team. Along with this I have

done a lot of work in STEM-oriented fields such as working with computer learning systems just

this past summer, which showed me the power that technology has today, which gave me the

idea to have this topic for the committee. Finally, I have participated in model UN since I was a

freshman, and treasure the experiences and knowledge that I have acquired through the club over

the past four years. Good luck researching guys, and I’m looking forward to seeing all of you in

committee.



Warm Regards,

Mahish Kewalramani

Tenets of DISEC

DISEC is the principle global forum for countries to address issues of war, armed conflict

and armaments. It deals with some of the same issues as the Security Council, but works more

broadly to set global disarmament priorities, policies and goals. DISEC resolutions are politically

and morally binding, not legally. It can request and appeal for state action. Unlike the Security

Council it cannot demand action. As the technology of war evolves, DISEC targets global

attention on the weapons and policies it thinks most dangerous and destabilizing. Some

governments are convinced that nuclear disarmament is overwhelming and must come before

any other action. Others want to focus on more immediate killers like landmines and cluster

munitions. Some believe only threats from states are the business of the UN system, others think

terrorism is equally important.



Regulation and Use of Robots for National Security

Background

Something big is going on in war today, and maybe even in the history of humanity

today. According to an Air Force three-

star general, where the US is headed

very soon is tens of thousands of robots

operating in our conflicts. These



numbers are huge, considering that the robots that will be sent out into the battlefield will not be

today’s robots, but tens of thousands of prototypes and tomorrows robots, which if Moore’s law

holds true for the technology of robots, will mean that in 25 years these robots will be close to a

billion times more powerful in their computing than the robots are today. This means that the

kind of things that we used to only talk about in science fiction conventions like Comic-Con will

have to be talked about in committees much like this one. When historians look at this period,

they’re going to conclude that war is undergoing a revolution, much like how the invention of

the atomic bomb revolutionized fighting. While this is true the introduction of robots into the

military is going to change much more in warfare as they aren’t just changing the firepower of an

army, but they are going to change who is fighting these wars on its fundamental level. Soon we

will be going to war with soldiers whose hardware was made in china and whose software was

written in India. The future of war will feature a new type of warrior, which will redefine the

experience of going to war. They will be cubicle warriors. A predator drone pilot described his

experience in Iraq War while never leaving Nevada. “You’re going to war for 12 hours, shooting

weapons at targets, directing kill on enemy combatants, and then you get in the car and drive

home and within 20 minutes, you’re sitting at the dinner table talking to your kids about their

homework.” The capabilities of robotics in war are vast, and we have only see glimpses of their

power, mostly in the use of drones. These drones have made war much safer for the country

using them however, we have already seen many problems in their use, for example, in striking

down people in other countries as there are countless cases in which a civilian has been killed by

one of these drones. Drones as mentioned earlier, are only a stepping stone, as these are still

weapons that people are controlling, even though it may be from a remote location. Fully

autonomous weapons however are not a fantasy, as the capability of producing prototypes of



these kinds of weapons has already been achieved. Robotics in the military is an amazing feat by

humans however it presents many problems that need to be solved before we can truly consider

these weapons lifesavers for soldiers risking their lives for their country each day as current laws

have not even completely caught up to drones, which are very popular on the battlefield today, so

obviously laws for up and coming technologies are virtually nonexistent. It will be your job as a

committee to come up with a set of guidelines that you guys think will help guide countries for

their international and national policies pertaining to the use of the military robots.

Potential Issues

Weapons Getting into the Wrong Hands

Much like how software has gone open-source, so has warfare. Unlike an aircraft carrier

or an atomic bomb, you don’t need a massive manufacturing system to build robotics. For

example, for a thousand dollars you can build yourself a raven drone equivalent to what the

soldiers use in Iraq. So while good guys might play around and work on these drones as a hobby,

bad guys could do. This cross between robotics and things like terrorism will be both disturbing

and fascinating, and we’ve already seen the

start of it. During the war between Israel and

Hezbollah, the terrorist organization non-state

actor flew four different drones against Israel.

There’s already a jihadi website that you can

go on and remotely detonate an IED



(Improvised Explosive Device) while sitting at your home computer. So two main trends will

take place. First, the power of individuals against governments will be reinforced, but also the

realm of terrorism will be expanded. Another way to think about it is that you don’t have to

convince a robot that their family will receive something in exchange for bombing a place.

Keeping these weapons out of terrorist hands have to be a priority for all countries as it will

make the world a safer place if they do not have access to these weapons. Steps much like the

ones taken by the United Nations in previous meetings to keep weapons like nuclear bombs out

of the hands of terrorists, however with the added problem of how easy these weapons are to

make new policies will have to be figured out. For example, when the US drone crashed into

central Israel, they were easily able to copy the technology seen within these weapons and make

a copy drone, so if terrorist organizations get their hands on a crashed robotic weapon they too

can copy the weapons. Both where these robots can be used and how much information on how

these robots are made be made public must be regulated in order to make sure that this happens.

Psychological Problems for Soldiers

A common misconception is that since soldiers are not physically going into war with the

use of controllable drones, they do not have the trauma and psychological problems commonly

associated with returning soldiers. But in fact, these soldiers actually have higher rates of PTSD

than many of the units that directly partake in war, a

study about the U.S war in Iraq has shown. Many

people however are worried that the disconnection

these drone pilots feel from the war while still being

able to affect its outcome makes the contemplation of



war crimes a lot easier when you have this distance. “It’s like a video game,” is what one young

pilot described to me of taking out enemy troops from afar. If you’ve ever played Grand Theft

Auto knows that we do things in the video game world that we wouldn’t do face to face. Things

like counseling and psychological help will need to be put into place for these soldiers in order to

protect them from things like this.

Controlling Robots

We all have “oops” moments within our lives, like procrastinating about doing work and

realizing you do not have time left to do your work. However, what do these “oops” moments

mean for autonomous robots in war? Sometimes they’re funny, like in the scene from the Eddie

Murphy movie “Best Defense” playing out in reality, where they tested a machine gun armed

robot, and during the demonstration it started spinning in a circle and pointed its machine gun at

the viewers of the product trial. Fortunately, the weapon wasn’t loaded and no one was hurt, but

other times “oops” moments can be tragic. For example, in South Africa, an anti-aircraft cannon

had a “software glitch” and actually did turn on people and fire, killing nine soldiers. This

presents new problems in the laws of war and accountability. Who de we reprimand for things

like unmanned slaughter? What can you quantify as unmanned slaughter? We have already had

three cases where a predator drone was shot at a place where the US thought a terrorist was

staying at, however that ended up not being the case and a civilian was killed. We are not even in

an era yet with autonomous robots and we are already seeing problems with things like this. How

do we limit the possibilities of these lethal weapons having a “software glitch” that could

potentially cause international incidents or kill a countries own denizen? Do we limit the type of

weapons that can be used to make sure no autonomous weapon ever sees the battlefield (at least



if countries follow this regulation), or do we have some test that robots have to pass in order to

let them fight on the battlefield?

Regulating These Weapons

One of the final main problems with these robotic weapons is how do we regulate them

within an international scope. Much like nuclear weapons, these robots are too strong to have no

restrictions so it begs the question what should these regulations be. Should they be regulated

based on their destructive capabilities (which can be measured on a scale that looks at the robots

specs)? Or, should certain types of robots be disallowed universally on the battle field (I.E.

autonomous robots)? These decisions will be up to you delegates to decide. However currently

there is a definitive need for regulations for these laws, as the current war laws are so old they

could qualify for Medicare.

Current Status

Currently robots are only seen in warfare in things like drones. These are robots

controlled by humans that give us the ability to affect the war from back home. They have saved

numerous amounts of soldiers through how we don’t have to use soldiers for some missions

anymore and, through being used as scouts to search for things like land mines. We have seen

them being used in national security matters during the Dallas shooter event in 2016, when a

lethal robot was used to kill the Dallas shooter effectively. The use of these robots however will

only grow as time goes on however and prototypes for many lethal robots are being made that



the military start using within the next 5 years. In order to avoid disaster like we saw with

nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where an atomic bomb was dropped before they

had regulations on atomic bombs. The hardest part of coming up with this policy as we don’t

know where these robots will be in 25 years, however we have a reasonable forecast for where it

will be in 5. The policy that I expect to see should be based on the role robots will play in the

future, not where they are now (although that would be a good place to start as even now we

have very little regulations).

Case Study: Dallas Shooter

July 7, 2016. Micah Xavier Johnson, a reserve for the Afghan War, ambushes a group of

police officers and civilians in Dallas, Texas. A trained sniper, Micah, known holding extreme

prejudices against white individuals, opens fire in an attempt to exterminate every single person

with a Caucasian complexion. After opening fire, the police and Johnson engage in a 45-minute

gun battle followed by two hours of negotiation. Two officers had already been killed and Police

Chief David Brown has his back against the wall. Does he risk the lives of his men by putting

them in the line of fire to attempt a takedown on this soldier? Chief Brown finally makes a call

and carries out a plan never seen before: Use a robot and more than a pound of c4 to take out the

sniper. Following some brief planning, the Dallas police department send in the robot and kill

Micah Xavier Johnson in the first instance of police using a lethal robot. Thanks to the keen mind

of Chief David Brown, Johnson lays dead and police officers get to go home. However, this is

not where our story ends. A host of new questions emerge after the killing of Johnson and

obvious problems with the regulation and use of the robots are highlighted. The first problem lies



in EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) robots as a whole. The model used in Dallas is the

Remotec Androx Mark V A-1 and has a variety of other mounts that can be attached other than a

piece of c4. The Remotec Androx Mark V A-1, priced at around $170,000 (a small price to pay

for the uses it has), has mounts including: a modified 12-gauge shotgun, a gas can dispenser, a

window breaker, drills and saws, x-ray machines, mounts to combine with l6, l8 37mm or 40mm

launcher weapons. The capabilities of this EOD obviously surpass what the entire world

witnessed on in Dallas.

Accountability of Current Developments

A number of robots, founded by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency),

fall under the aforementioned category of being able to use lethal force; however, these robots,

because they are not directly related to a weapon system, are given the green light with little to

no regulation. For example, one researcher was working under Navy contract to create a robot

that would play baseball, but being able

to track and intercept a fly ball is

analogous to tracking and intercepting a

missile. In another instance, a robot was

being built that could drive a car, climb

a ladder and even operate a jackhammer.

Peter Singer, an expert in this field,

explains that these types of robots “can manipulate an Ak-47…[those robots] can manipulate the

controls of all conventional military machines as well.” As these robots become able and adept,

it’s clear that we will soon cross a point in which the robots will decide to kill, not us. At this



point, if a robot like this made a mistake, who is to blame? Is it the programmer? The

manufacturer? The commander who launched it on its mission? The fact of the matter is that as

the robots become more accessible, more intelligent, more skilled, more prominent in today’s

society, regulations have to be put in place in order to ensure that any malpractice is corrected

and any ambiguity is extinguished.

Guiding Questions

• Are there different classifications of robots and, if so, would different classes of robots

prompt different regulations?

• How will we determine the destructive capability a robot has?



• How should nations be held accountable for their actions of their robots? Will “software

glitches” be given a pass as they aren’t the fault of a specific country or should they be

reprimanded?

• How will we keep these robots out of the hands of terrorist organizations?

• How can we come up with a system of guidelines to regulate the robots of tomorrow?

• Should we allow countries to utilize robots within their own borders?

• How can we make sure soldiers lose touch with reality when utilizing things like drones?

• Who within a nation should be held accountable for a wrongdoing a robot does?

Works Cited

Horowitz, Michael C., and Paul Scharre. "The Morality of Warfare." The New York Times.

N.p., 26 May 2015. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.



Lin, Patrick. "Robots, Ethics & War." Center for Internet and Society. Stanford, 15 Dec.

2010. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.

Sidner, Sarah, and Mallory Simon. "How Robot, Explosives Took out Dallas Sniper." CNN.

Cable News Network, 12 July 2016. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.

Singer, Peter Warren. "The Future of War Will Be Robotic." CNN. Cable News Network, 23

Feb. 2015. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.

Singer, P.W. "Military Robots and the Future of War." TED. N.p., Feb. 2009. Web. 16 Oct.

2016.


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