On Saturday of Labor Day Weekend 2020, a situation was rapidly deteriorating north of Fresno, California. Sometime around 6pm on September 5, the Creek Fire started, gained momentum, and burned north (Gabbert 2020a). The fast-moving fire blocked the road from campgrounds in the area, stranding hundreds of campers visiting Mammoth Pool Reservoir. Quietly circling overhead was an MQ-9 Reaper, observing the apocalyptic looking situation. The sensors attached to the bottom of the MQ-9 Reaper could see through the billowing clouds of smoke. The California Air National Guard crew flying the MQ-9 was looking for something: a landing spot for evacuations (Solman 2020).
Later that night, the Army National Guard landed Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters near a campground in Moose Lake, dramatically rescuing over two hundred people who were stranded by the fire raging in the hills around them (Gabbert 2020b; Solman 2020). The Guard would go on to evacuate over a hundred other hikers and campers from the areas around Edison Lakes and China Peaks in the next few days (Gabbert 2020b).
As global warming-fueled storms become more commonplace, local first responders are increasingly looking for help from the powerful technologies currently in use by the Air National Guard and National Guard. And while the domestic presence of military technology may strike some as a new harbinger of a dystopic future, participating in stateside efforts has long been part of the Guard’s mission. However, my research at an Air National Guard base suggests the use of technologies like the MQ-9 within the U.S. may become more commonplace in coming years. As the federal use of drones for overseas war efforts has (at least seemingly) decreased since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq, there appears to be a corresponding interest in how these technologies could be used domestically, especially for disaster response. In part, this interest may be driven by a concern for preserving local jobs for members of the Guard or for those looking to transition from active military to the Guard. Yet my research with members of the Guard suggests that this interest may also reflect a shift in how Guard members understand what it means to serve their country and what they find appealing about their work. This is all, however, backgrounded by the fact that the military is one of the largest consumers of energy in the world, contributing to the worsening storms that their technologies now help to combat (Light 2015).
What is the Air National Guard?
The Air National Guard, or the Air Guard, is a reserve force for the Air Force that, uniquely, can be activated at the state or federal level. The Air Guard was established to decrease the footprint and budgetary needs of the active-duty Air Force, while maintaining a ready and trained force. Personnel live off-base with their families, not in barracks, and many work civilian jobs full time. Members of the Air Guard must, at a minimum, participate in a weekend of training every month. Some personnel work for the Air Guard in a full-time capacity on state or federal orders. Response to a stateside natural disaster is an example of working on state orders.
Air National Guard and the National Guard (the army contingent) aircraft are no strangers to domestic natural disaster response. The large C-130H can drop water and fire retardant on wildfires, Chinook and Blackhawk helicopters can transport people out of dangerous situations, and the MQ-9 Reaper can fly over and observe situations using high-powered sensor pods to help firefighters better understand the fire and find people in distress.
Stateside and domestic disaster response are core components of the Air Guard and Guard’s mission. And as personnel reminded me, it is an important part of their job. The mission of the Air Guard is to:
maintain well-trained, well-equipped units available for prompt mobilization during war and provide assistance during national emergencies (such as natural disasters or civil disturbances). During peacetime, the combat-ready units and support units are assigned to most Air Force major commands to carry out missions compatible with training, mobilization readiness, humanitarian and contingency operations. (Air National Guard, n.d.)
In the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Air Guard units were mobilized to support the federal efforts. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, Air Guard personnel started supporting federal missions through remotely piloted aircraft as demand for pilots and sensor operators increased (Ouma et al. 2011; Government Accountability Office 2014; Lunney 2016). Since the withdrawal from both Afghanistan and Iraq, personnel reported to me that they were less active on the surveillance and strike front, with many bases decreasing the number of personnel they needed to participate in federal missions, decreasing the number of jobs available.
Proof of Concept: SLR
In my final stretch of fieldwork, there was a cookout at my field site to celebrate the local landing of two MQ-9s. Many of us watched the landing from the office, dozens of miles from the runway, and clapped as the planes landed, prompting one pilot to laugh and say, “I can’t believe we’re this excited to have landed an aircraft.”
Later that day, I was in a hangar separated from the two planes by a flimsy rope and a security forces officer. The smell of burgers, hot dogs, and fries was paired with the sound of music and laughter echoing through the large space, occasionally interrupted by the roar of a plane flying overhead. As an F-35 flew over we all stopped to watch the “invisible” aircraft dramatically slow down to the point of looking like it was floating in the air.
For my doctoral research, I conducted interviews and participant observation at Air National Guard bases around the country, but primarily on one base in the American South that flew missions abroad on the MQ-9 Reaper. The MQ-9 Reaper is a remotely piloted aircraft through which the U.S. military and CIA has remotely surveilled, analyzed, and killed abroad. While the plane’s predecessor—the MQ-1—has been in use by the U.S. in various capacities since the late 1990s and early 2000s, it would not be largely spoken about in the public until the late 2000s and early 2010s.[1]
Most public coverage of remote war focused on the reality of participating in remote war from the home front. Even with the public focus on the MQ-9 as a war machine, over the course of my research, personnel were tapped to help with the live reporting and aftermath of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and fires.[2] Exercises like the one we were celebrating were an important training opportunity and demonstration of coordination and cooperation between different Air National Guard units, and local and state authorities.
Two MQ-9 Reapers in a hangar. Image by author.
The cookout was a celebration of landing the two MQ-9s from another state using satellite launch and recovery (SLR). The ability to remotely land and recover an MQ-9 via a satellite connection could significantly increase the ability to use an MQ-9 in disaster response all over the country.[3] The local landing of the MQ-9 was to promote the technology’s capability in ways that could directly benefit the local public. This public introduction to a technology that is normally kept behind a wall of secrecy—and physically located far away from where it is operated— was exciting for some of the servicemembers I interviewed.[4] Many hoped that the proof-of-concept and public showing of the MQ-9 would lead to the base acquiring one to fly locally over disasters.
“Helps us be the Guard side of the Guard”
Personnel who participated in the SLR demonstration were excited about the potential to have an MQ-9 of their own. The excitement was twofold: it would create more local jobs and would enable the Guard to respond to disasters in their community.
Some Americans may be uncomfortable with the idea of a military aircraft known for its surveillance capabilities sitting on their local runway. Images of these same aircrafts have been taken in war zones, so their domestic use can trigger mental anxieties about an over-powerful government who is observing its own citizens using its weapons of war. This perception is not unfounded: in June of 2020, flight trackers spotted an MQ-9 circling a Black Lives Matter Protest in Minneapolis (Kanno-Youngs 2020), prompting a Customs and Border Protection official to downplay the abilities of the aircraft in a public statement (U.S. Customs and Border Protection 2020).
At the same time, many of the pilots I met felt excited by the possibility that the technologies—and by extension their jobs—might be repurposed for local missions with humanitarian aims. It would not be the first time a technology designed for war has crossed the line to civilian life. Some of our most quotidian technologies were initially military tech, such as the internet and GPS (Light 2015). The MQ-9s are not being used by private civilians the way the internet and GPS are, but they are being utilized by non-military law enforcement agencies such as Customs and Border Protection. The peacetime use of the MQ-9 falls in line within the multiple priorities of the Air Guard specifically directed by the Defense Support of Civil Authorities Directive. As one pilot told me, “It’s exciting thinking about helping the state. It would help us be the Guard side of the Guard.” Being the “Guard side of the Guard” refers to the professional obligation of personnel to the state. This is also something that recent recruitment materials (like the video below) have attempted to appeal to: the call to humanity, local service, and individual choice.
Among the members of the Guard I interviewed, humanitarian efforts and the call to serve the U.S. were often cited as reasons personnel joined the military, and workplace conversations shifted over the course of my fieldwork (2020-2023) from eliminating national security threats in ongoing conflict zones to rescuing fellow Americans from environmental disasters. The shift from killing to saving, however, is still haunted by the technology’s very name: the MQ-9 Reaper.
Does it matter that the origins of the technology were one of “hunting” and “killing”? To some, the memory of the technology’s original use will haunt any humanitarian effort the MQ-9 participates in. However, as storms worsen, these technologies may be our best bet at mitigating further harm despite the technology’s involvement in a system that has fueled climate-worsened natural disasters. In a strange twist of fate, the technology could help remind us of our collective humanity and desire to save and protect one another.
Notes
[1] For further reading, see Drew & Phillipps 2015; Phillipps 2022; Press 2018; Schmidt 2016; Singer 2009.
[2] Other famous examples of National Guard involvement in humanitarian issues and civil unrest include sending Arkansas National Guard personnel to Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957 to quell violence after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision; National Guard personnel were deployed in 1968 in the wake of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination; National Guard were deployed to administer humanitarian aid after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (Govern 2016); and even more recently National Guard personnel from units all over the country were deployed to restore control of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC after the January 6, 2020 insurrection attempt (Farley 2021); and also to aid in conducting COVID-19 testing around the country.
[3] Without SLR capabilities, a crew is required to be locally available to land, maintain, and launch the plane.
[4] Not all bases that participate in MQ-9 operations in the U.S. have an MQ-9 on base.
This post was curated by Contributing Editor Paige Edmiston.
References
Air National Guard. n.d. “About Us.” 125th Fighter Wing: Air National Guard. Accessed September 11, 2024. https://www.125fw.ang.af.mil/About-Us/.
Drew, Christopher, and Dave Phillipps. 2015. “As Stress Drives Off Drone Operators, Air Force Must Cut Flights.” The New York Times, June 16, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/us/as-stress-drives-off-drone-operators-air-force-must-cut-flights.html.
Farley, Robert. 2021. “Timeline of National Guard Deployment to Capitol.” FactCheck.Org (blog). January 13, 2021. https://www.factcheck.org/2021/01/timeline-of-national-guard-deployment-to-capitol/.
Gabbert, Bill. 2020a. “100 More People Rescued by Helicopters as Creek Fire Grows to over 140,000 Acres.” Wildfire Today (blog). September 8, 2020. https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/09/08/100-more-people-rescued-by-helicopters-as-creek-fire-grows-to-over-140000-acres/.
———. 2020b. “Creek Fire Reaches Mammoth Pool Reservoir; Military Helicopters Rescue over 150 People.” Wildfire Today (blog). September 6, 2020. https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/09/06/creek-fire-reaches-mammoth-pool-reservoir-military-helicopters-rescue-over-150-people/.
Govern, Kevin H. 2016. “Defense Support of Civil Authorities: An Examination of Trends Impacting Upon Police Militarization.”
Government Accountability Office. 2014. “Actions Needed to Strengthen Management of Unmanned Aerial System Pilots.” GAO-14-316. Washington, DC: Government Accountability Office.
Kanno-Youngs, Zolan. 2020. “U.S. Watched George Floyd Protests in 15 Cities Using Aerial Surveillance.” The New York Times, June 19, 2020, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/us/politics/george-floyd-protests-surveillance.html.
Light, Sarah E. 2015. “The Military-Environmental Complex, 45 10763 (August 2015).” Environmental Law Reporter News and Analysis 45 (8).
Lunney, Kellie. 2016. “Air Force Will Offer Drone Pilots $35,000 Retention Bonuses.” Government Executive. August 11, 2016. https://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2016/08/air-force-will-offer-drone-pilots-35000-retention-bonuses/130685/.
Ouma, Joseph A, Wayne L Chappelle, and Amber Salinas. 2011. “Facets of Occupational Burnout Among U.S. Air Force Active Duty and National Guard/Reserve MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper Operators.” Air Force Research Laboratory.
Phillipps, Dave. 2022. “THE UNSEEN SCARS OF THOSE WHO KILL VIA REMOTE CONTROL.” The New York Times, April 15, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/us/drones-airstrikes-ptsd.html?referringSource=articleShare.
Press, Eyal. 2018. “The Wounds of the Drone Warrior.” The New York Times, June 13, 2018, sec. Magazine. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/13/magazine/veterans-ptsd-drone-warrior-wounds.html.
Schmidt, Michael S. 2016. “Air Force, Running Low on Drone Pilots, Turns to Contractors in Terror Fight.” The New York Times, September 5, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/us/air-force-drones-terrorism-isis.html.
Singer, Peter W. 2009. Wired for War. New York: Penguin Books.
Solman, Master Sgt. Gregory. 2020. “163d Attack Wing Navigates a DOMOPS Perfect Storm.” National Guard. September 25, 2020. https://www.nationalguard.mil/News/Article/2361477/163d-attack-wing-navigates-a-domops-perfect-storm/.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. 2020. “CBP Statement on the AMO Unmanned Aircraft System in Minneapolis | U.S. Customs and Border Protection.” Government Website. U.S. Customs and Border Protection. May 29, 2020. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/speeches-and-statements/cbp-statement-amo-unmanned-aircraft-system-minneapolis.
