The title of this article is a quote from a Ukrainian drone operator whom a news crew interviewed in a video documentary from one of the Ukrainian drone units.[1] It is also the title of a news article describing how the war in Ukraine is a mix of inventions from different centuries.[2] It is not just another pop culture reference in this war; there have been plenty, but rather a sober observation of how the ongoing war in Ukraine has evolved. An unknown number of internet users have identified the dystopian similarities between the trench warfare fought now and the trench warfare that soldiers fought in 1916 at the Somme. The main difference is that the imagery of dying soldiers, decaying corpses, and burning carcasses is broadcast rapidly into the world, accompanied by electronic music and animated graphics, further adding to the aesthetic of a world where “futuristic” technology is intertwined with the worst that humanity has to offer. The “clean drone war” is by no means cleaner than any other previous war.
I have now, for more than a year, had the pleasure and privilege of writing articles on this blog about unmanned technology, how soldiers utilise it on the battlefield, and what potential it holds for the future. I have been focusing on the technological and, to some extent, methodological aspects, describing a clinically clean reality where drones either provide data or have an impact on the battlefield. What I have not written about, and a topic that I think is rarely discussed outside of the OSINT community, is how this warfare looks and sounds, and what toll that might have on intelligence personnel who are continuously viewing videos, analysing the content and trying to make sense of a warzone where rules, ethics, and humanity often seems absent in a way many may not have seen, yet experienced in a lifetime. Work that is sometimes conducted under stress and with no feasible way to vent to family or friends.
Although studies have been conducted on the well-being of intelligence analysts and drone operators,[3] working with digital material at this scale is an understudied area. The training of intelligence personnel, at least within a Swedish context, has yet to address the psychological strain that this kind of battlefield transparency may have on individuals in the future and how to train resilient personnel to cope with it. The training is still very much focused on a clinical warfare where the analyst is purely subjected to text. A legacy from the “old days”, where imagery either was an exclusive asset or could not be transmitted fast enough to be included in the daily processing of information. The 21st century has changed that on all levels. Information technology has enabled the unit intelligence specialist to be connected to a data flow that was previously reserved for higher echelons, resulting in greater exposure to distressing videos that were previously limited to subject matter experts.
However, I am not arguing that intelligence personnel should be shielded from graphic content. Contrary to some beliefs, “protecting” individuals from certain content may have a reverse effect on resilience, coping mechanisms, and building an overall understanding of the realities of war. What we need is a training methodology that prepares our intelligence personnel not only for future wars but also for how warfare is conducted today.
While the amount of information overflow has been identified by scholars and the military alike as a limiting factor, or even a risk, for military intelligence, it would seem that we have lost ourselves in the hunt for a technological solution (specifically artificial intelligence) and forgotten the human aspect, with that, the potential mental health benefits to intelligence professionals. Even though AI support comes with the risk of travelling further down the dystopian cyberpunk path, where the violent death of humans becomes data points processed by a computer, one could argue that it would be no different compared to an analyst processing casualty numbers on a piece of paper during any other war. The benefit would be that individuals would not have to expose themselves to more graphic imagery than necessary and risk becoming desensitised.
Ukraine, Gaza, Syria and Sudan. Today’s wars are visualised, in part because it is how we consume information nowadays, and that it can trigger emotions —an unholy match with social media applications. Even if we do not actively follow accounts that share images and videos of war, the war somehow always finds its way into our feeds. Many countries are focusing on developing various types of sensor capabilities to detect enemy forces. As such, I would predict that future wars will be depicted less in text and more through visual means; therefore, we need to come prepared to the fight.