Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, P.W. Singer (New York: Penguin, 2009), 512 pp., $30 cloth.

It is hard to miss the subplot in P. W. Singer's thickly researched opus on warrior robots and unmanned military systems: While we are busy wiring advanced devices for combat, we are failing to deprogram our own destructive tendencies. His hope is that our morality will catch up with the accelerating changes in warfare. Singer also provides deep practical analysis of this ongoing revolution in military affairs, taking readers from the level of the combat unit all the way up to the starred generals. Already troops on the ground in Iraq are grateful to their robots for assistance in roadside bomb disposal, while the constant video stream from aerial drones has tempted commanders to micromanage battles and even pull the trigger on remote missile strikes.

Singer is especially convincing in his appeal for society to start codifying the ethics of these new technologies before mistakes are made. Two primary questions dominate the discussion: Will robots be autonomous? And will they be lethal? So far humans have remained in the decision loop, with the machine functioning mostly as a “warfighter's associate” that surveils the battlefield. But as sensors and effectors improve, it becomes possible for robots to detect enemy fire and return it. The complication here is that engineers must also code robots with the rules of engagement and the laws of war to prevent atrocities. Another looming unknown is the effect robotic and unmanned weapons will have on the likelihood of violence, whether between two great powers or in the asymmetrical realm of urban counterinsurgency. If these systems push down the cost of warfare in terms of blood and treasure, public resistance to conflict may decrease. Meanwhile, terrorists may be more motivated to strike an enemy's home soil if they have fewer opportunities to harm human soldiers in their own territories.

Technology has a history of distancing combatants from each other, and robots continue this psychological and physical trend, allowing a soldier to see his victim but experience none of the analogous risk. Is sending a robot to do a soldier's job a cowardly war by proxy? Could a war where one side is unwilling to sacrifice lives ever be just? Singer rightly asks whether these technologies will prove “too difficult and abhorrent to deal with,” warranting an outright ban.