Unscorable at 12: Technically Correct, but Misses the Mark

In “Will the Drone Always Get Through? Offensive Myths and Defensive Realities,” Antonio Calcara and coauthors open the article with: “Do emerging and disruptive technologies yield an offensive advantage?”1 To answer this ambitious question, they look at one highly scoped segment of unmanned or autonomous technology: Medium-Altitude Long-Endurance and High-Altitude Long-Endurance armed remotely piloted aircraft.2 The authors then use the article’s body to detail why these platforms cannot survive against modern integrated air defense systems by either avoiding detection or saturating air defenses, concluding that emerging technologies, therefore, do not necessarily lead to an offensive advantage.3 Although the article’s technical analysis is reasonably correct, in creating a straw man argument about the impetus and purpose of a rather narrow category of autonomous systems, its conclusions ultimately miss the mark. For all the technical detail, the authors miss the potential impact of autonomy on future air campaigns, a phenomenon that American pilots in training would call “unscorable at 12”—a term used when a bomb is dropped within correct parameters and yet fails to land near the impact zone.4