1. The first
armed drones were created to get Osama bin Laden.
In 1998,
U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration shut down an operation to kill the
al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan with cruise missiles, given collateral damage
estimates of 300 casualties and only 50 percent confidence in the intelligence.
As the 9/11 Commission noted, "After this episode Pentagon planners intensified
efforts to find a more precise alternative." In 2000 and 2001, the U.S. Air
Force struggled to reconfigure a Hellfire anti-tank missile to fit onto a
Predator surveillance drone. Meeting one week before the 9/11 attacks, the
National Security Council agreed that the armed Predator was not ready to be
operationally deployed. The first known killing by armed drones occurred
in November 2001, when a Predator targeted Mohammed Atef, a top al Qaeda
military commander, in Afghanistan.
2.
So far,
drones tend to crash.
On Dec.
4, an RQ-170 Sentinel surveillance
drone crashed in Iran; a U.S. official involved in the program blamed a lost
data link and another unspecific malfunction. Two weeks later, an unarmed
Reaper drone crashed at the end of a runway in the Seychelles. "This should not
be a surprise," a defense official told Aviation Week &
Space Technology, saying the United States had already lost more
than 50 drones. As of July 2010, the Air Force had identified 79 drone
accidents costing at least $1 million each. The primary reasons for the
crashes: bad weather, loss or disruption of communications links, and "human
error factors," according to the Air Force. As Lt. Gen. David Deptula, former
Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence, has noted with refreshing
honesty, "Some of the [drones] that we have today, you put in a high-threat
environment, and they'll start falling from the sky like rain."
3.
Drones
are coming to America.
Worried
about the militarization of U.S. airspace by unmanned aerial vehicles? As of
October, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
had reportedly issued 285 active certificates for 85 users, covering 82
drone types. The FAA has refused
to say who received the clearances, but it was estimated over a year ago that
35 percent were held by the Pentagon, 11 percent by NASA, and 5 percent by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). And it's growing. U.S. Customs and
Border Protection already operates eight Predator drones. Under pressure from
the congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus -- yes, there's already a drone lobby,
with 50 members -- two additional Predators were sent to Texas in the fall, though
a DHS official noted: "We didn't
ask for them." Last June, a Predator drone intended to patrol the U.S.-Canada
border helped locate three suspected cattle rustlers in North Dakota in what
was the first reported use of a drone to arrest U.S. citizens.
4. The scope
of U.S. military drone missions is expanding…
Drones
have come a long way in little more than a decade of military use in strike
operations. Five-pound backpack drones are now used by infantry soldiers for
tactical surveillance and will soon be deployed for what their manufacturer
calls "magic bullet" kamikaze missions. Special operations forces have
developed a warhead fired from a Predator drone that can knock down doors. K-Max helicopter drones transport
supplies to troops at forward operating bases in Afghanistan. Balloons unleash
Tempest drones, which then send out smaller surveillance drones -- called
Cicadas -- that glide to the ground to collect data. And now the U.S. State
Department is flying a small fleet of surveillance drones over Iraq to protect
the U.S. Embassy there. Bottom line: More and more drones have been rushed into
service, and their use and application by the U.S. military is seemingly
infinite.
5. …But not
as fast as civilian uses.
Safety
inspectors used drones at Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power
plant to survey the damage after last year's tsunami. Archaeologists in Russia
are using small drones with infrared cameras to construct a 3-D model of
ancient burial mounds. Environmental activists use the Osprey drone to track
and monitor Japanese whaling ships. Photographers are developing a
celebrity-seeking paparazzi drone. GALE drones will soon fly into hurricanes to more accurately monitor a storm's
strength. And Boeing engineers have joined forces with MIT students to build an iPhone app that can control a drone
from up to 3,000 miles away. Last summer, using a laser 3-D printer, University
of Southampton engineers built a nearly silent drone that can be assembled by
hand in minutes.
6. Most
military drones don't bomb.
Although
decapitation strikes may get all the headlines, the vast majority of the time,
drones are used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance -- what the
military calls ISR. The U.S.
Navy's first high-altitude drone can relay black-and-white photos covering
roughly half the Persian Gulf; the Global Hawk's advanced radars make detailed
images of the Earth and attempt to sniff out chemical or biological agents for
telltale signs of weapons of mass destruction. Soon, the Gorgon Stare drone
will "be looking at a whole city, so there will
be no way for the adversary to know what we're looking at, and we can see
everything," according to Maj. Gen. James O. Poss.
7. Attack
drones require more boots on the ground.
Most
unmanned aircraft flown by the U.S. military require not just a ground-based "pilot,"
but also a platoon of surveillance analysts (approximately 19 per drone),
sensor operators, and a maintenance crew. Some 168 people are required to keep
a Predator drone aloft -- and 180 for its larger cousin, the Reaper -- compared with
roughly 100 people for an F-16 fighter jet. To keep up with the demand, the Air
Force has trained more drone operators than pilots for the past two years. The
upside is that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, drones "are
usually less expensive than manned aircraft" ($15 million for a Global Hawk
versus about $55 million for a new F-16),
though costly sensors and excessive crashes can negate the difference.
8. Drones
are becoming a lethal weapon of choice, but nobody's in charge.
Over the
past decade, there have been some 300 drone strikes outside the battlefields of
Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Of these attacks, 95 percent occurred in
Pakistan, with the rest in Yemen and Somalia; cumulatively, they have killed
more than 2,000 suspected militants and an unknown number of civilians.
Although U.S. President Barack Obama recently acknowledged that "a lot of these
strikes" have been in Pakistan's tribal areas, who can be targeted and under
what authority can only be guessed from a few speeches and statements by
anonymous U.S. officials. There are believed to be multiple drone-target "kill
lists" among government agencies. The 2011 book Top Secret America revealed "three separate 'kill lists' of individuals" kept by the National Security Council, the CIA, and the military's Joint Special
Operations Command. In Yemen, the Pentagon is the lead executive authority for
some drone strikes (which are reported to the congressional armed services
committees), while the CIA is in
charge for others (reported to the intelligence committees). As for the Obama
administration's claimed power to assassinate U.S. citizens, such as
Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the Justice Department refuses to
declassify the memo that provided the legal authority to kill him with a drone.
So, although 85 percent of non-battlefield drone strikes have occurred under
Obama, we have little understanding of their use.
9. Other
countries are catching up to the United States.
As with
most military programs, the United States is far and away the leader in
developing drone technology, and the country is projected to account for 77
percent of drone R&D and 69 percent of procurement in the coming decade.
Nevertheless, estimates of how many other countries have at least some drone
capability now range from 44 to 70, for an estimated 680 drone programs around
the world, up greatly from 195 in 2005. China is escalating its drone program,
with at least 25 types of systems in development. Iran has also touted its
program, including the armed "Ambassador of Death" drone, which President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled by declaring: "Its main message is peace and
friendship."
10. The drone
future is already here.
The
Pentagon now boasts a fleet of approximately 7,500 drones, up from just 50 a
decade ago. According to a congressional report, "manned aircraft have gone
from 95% of all [Defense Department] aircraft in 2005 to 69% today." Over the
next decade, the Pentagon expects the number of "multirole" drones -- ones that
can both spy and strike -- to nearly quadruple, to 536. In 2011, the Teal Group
consulting firm estimated that worldwide spending on unmanned aerial vehicles
will nearly double over the next decade from $5.9 billion to $11.3 billion
annually. In the future, drones are projected to: hover just behind infantry
soldiers to watch their backs; carry airborne lasers to intercept ballistic
missiles; perform aerial refueling; and conduct long-range strategic bombing
missions. Given that drones will become cheaper, smaller, faster, stealthier,
more lethal, and more autonomous, it is harder to imagine what they won't do
than what they will. Whatever limits drones face will be imposed by us
humans -- not technology.
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