Recall Gen George Patton’s reported exhortation to his troops in Africa in 1943, about winning a war ‘by making some other dumb bastard die for his country’. Looks like the powers that be at the US Department of Defence (DoD) overlooked that memo…

On January 28, 2024, the Washington Post reported that three US soldiers in the US base in Jordan were killed and over 30 were wounded by an enemy drone attack. The next day it added:

‘American air defenses failed to intercept an attack drone that killed three American troops and wounded dozens in Jordan because the incoming aircraft was mistaken for a friendly drone returning to the base, officials said Monday as more detail emerged about the incident and the Biden administration deliberated how to respond.’

Many a death is senseless because of the circumstances – death by drugs, or drowning, or a vehicle out of control… However, when three soldiers are killed by a drone that should have been destroyed, their deaths are senseless – posing the question: Were they the result of an error of judgment or something more basic?

During the latter part of the second world war, some aircraft used a system known as Identification Friend or Foe (IFF). This enabled an aircraft to establish, in seconds, whether an approaching aircraft was friend or foe, because all aircraft of a country used the same interrogatory requiring the same response code from another aircraft’s transponder. The system required an aircraft to send an interrogatory to an unknown aircraft; if the latter responded with the code, that aircraft was friend. Non-response would be treated as foe.

In her article, IFF technology aims for a safer battlefield (Military Embedded Systems, May 6, 2021), Dawn Zoldi (Col, USAF, Retd), writes:

‘On February 5, 2021, the DoD AIMS Program Office issued the world’s first 17-1000 Mark XIIB certification to Sagetech for its MX12B micro Mode 5 IFF transponder. The small military-grade transponder weighs only 190 g, or slightly more than one-third of a pound. The MX12B also includes extra features, such as ADS-B In, that tracks as many as 400 cooperative targets simultaneously and displays them for the remote pilot in the command-and-control graphical user interface.’

The MX12B micro Mode 5 IFF transponder can be fitted to most drones and, according to Sagetech’s CEO, Tom Furey, an even smaller version can quickly be created to equip very small drones.

Defence forces of other countries were working on IFF systems for their drones and, according to Inder S Bisht, writing in The Defense Post on December 21, 2023, Russia develops Miniaturized drone-mounted ‘Friend or Foe’ system:

‘Russia’s RPC Pulsar has developed a drone-fitted Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) system to avoid friendly fire. The miniaturised transponder can identify a drone at an altitude of 5 kilometres (3 miles) and a range of 100 kilometres (62 miles), according to parent company Rostec.’

The DoD (Department of Defence) approval of the MX12B, meant that the US could fit IFFs to their drones operating in combat zones since around the end of 2021. And, as Ms Zoldi noted, the MX12Bs additional feature, ADS-B In, ‘meant that it could track as many as 400 cooperative targets simultaneously and display them for the remote pilot in the command-and-control graphical user interface’ (emphasis added). Although the cost of fitting IFFs to drones has eluded the writer, estimates costs in the range of American$2-3,000/drone. Even at US$5,000/drone, it would be nothing compared with the life of a US soldier.

Given the effectiveness of the MX12B, the average US citizen would expect US drones in combat zones such as the Middle East, including Jordan, to be fitted with IFF systems. This would have prevented the senseless deaths of the three US soldiers, because the returning US IFF fitted drone would have been identified as friend, leaving the other drone to be destroyed as foe. If the Post article about the incoming drone being mistaken or confused for a friendly drone returning to the base is accurate, the average US citizen would be entitled to draw the conclusion that the friendly drone was not fitted with IFF; or in the alternate, the practice is not common enough for soldiers to rely on the IFF system, for distinguishing friend from foe.

If the DoD had decided against fitting IFFs to their drones operating in combat zones, they should have done so after conducting a proper assessment of the risk of deaths and injuries to US soldiers from enemy drones that might, on occasion, operate alongside US drones.

Let’s consider just two risk scenarios in which US drones were not fitted with IFFs.

First, the above scenario in Jordan, where one of two drones returning or heading to base, was a US drone. Confusion reigned at the base because they could not identify friend from foe, and therefore permitted both drones to approach, resulting in three deaths and multiple injuries. Secondly, the scenario where two US drones are returning to base but, unknown to base, there is a third drone – an enemy drone – accompanying the two US drones. Before reaching base, one of the two US drones fails and drops to earth, leaving two drones heading to base – as expected by base – except that one is an enemy drone. Base believes that the two drones are friend, until the enemy drone unleashes its load of deaths and injuries.

In the first scenario, the risk assessment would require both drones to be destroyed as a safety measure. The loss of a drone was preferable to the loss of a single US soldier. However, with the second scenario, where the base is expecting two returning drones, the lack of IFF meant that they treated both drones as friend – with disastrous consequences. The consequences of the second scenario would have demonstrated that risk of death and injury could only be eliminated by fitting IFFs to all US drones in combat zones.

Clearly, the tragedy could have been avoided if the US drones had been fitted with IFF. Was the cause of the tragedy settled, when the powers that be decided to place the cost of IFF on drones, ahead of the lives of Patton’s ‘dumb’ soldiers, who place their lives on the line in fidelity to their oath – ‘To defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic …’

Capt. Glenn Mathias