Tech
How drones could reshape warfare in the future
Truth be told that we are living in the first age of drone warfare. While unmanned aerial vehicles can trace their origins back at least as far as 1918, it took the War on Terror and its accompanying technological advances to truly showcase the abilities of long-endurance, high-flying remotely piloted machines.
Yet despite their prominence in modern battlefields, the greatest impact of drones will be felt in the future. At least, that’s the argument from Michael C. Horowitz, Sarah E. Kreps, and Matthew Fuhrmann in an interesting new paper.
In “The Consequences of Drone Proliferation: Separating Fact from Fiction,” published online this week, the authors speak to fears, both real and imagined, about more and more countries incorporating armed drones into their military arsenals. While the United States is the best-known user of armed drones, it’s hardly the only country, with Israel, Nigeria, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom having all used them in combat.
The paper makes this key points: right now, drones are mostly changing the calculus for counter-insurgency and domestic warfare, but in the future, drones might change wars fought by nations against other nations.
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