 or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), as they are also called, are a controversial technology whose development flourished after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.)
PREDATOR: The U.S. military hare more than 6,000 of drones, such as the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.'s Predator seen here. Remotely pilot aircraft (RPAs) or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), as they are also called, are a controversial technology whose development flourished after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Image: COURTESY OF U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO/LT COL LESLIE PRATT, VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
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The September 11, 2001 attacks initiated a flurry of advances in military technology over the past decade that has helped the U.S. and its allies redefine modern warfare. None of these advancements have had a greater impact on America's missions in the Middle East than the maturation of remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or, more generically, drones. The U.S. Army's drone armada alone has expanded from 54 drones in October 2001, when U.S. combat operations began in Afghanistan, to more than 4,000 drones performing surveillance, reconnaissance and attack missions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan (pdf). There are more than 6,000 of them throughout the U.S. military as a whole, and continued developments promise to make these controversial aircraft—blamed for the deaths of militants as well as citizens—far more intelligent and nimble.
Whereas drones themselves are certainly not a new concept—their origins can be traced back to the 1840s—since 9/11 they can now be loaded with a variety of sensors and weapons and are controlled by highly trained operators using a joystick and video monitor thousands of kilometers from a combat zone.
"One of the most significant things that has occurred since 9/11 is the shift from, if you will, peer-to-peer warfare to a focus on irregular warfare," says U.S. Air Force chief scientist Mark Maybury. RPAs, as the Air Force refers to them because they are indeed operated by pilots, are helping U.S. troops and their allies adjust to that shift by delivering reconnaissance data and attack support against enemies difficult to spot because of their ability to blend in with noncombatants and the rugged terrain of their surroundings. [View a slide show featuring different drones used by the U.S. military]
Use of drones has grown across several branches of the military as well as the CIA (one of the earliest users of unmanned aircraft). The Air Force, for example, logged its first 250,000 hours of drone flight time between 1995 and May 2007. The next 250,000 hours of drone flight time, however, took only a year and a half, from May 2007 to November 2008. The Air Force achieved its third set of 250,000 flight-time hours in just one year, from December 2008 to December 2009.
The Department of Defense's 2012 plan calls for "purchasing more of the existing unmanned aircraft systems for current operations, improving the systems already in service, and designing more-capable unmanned aircraft systems for the future," according to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published in June (pdf). The CBO estimates that the Defense Department will spend about $36.9 billion across its different branches on 730 new medium-sized and large drones through 2020.
This expansion of the military's unmanned aircraft campaign brings with it a degree of concern as drones have come under fire by critics. Some dispute the military's accuracy claims and point to unmanned aircraft as the cause of thousands of civilian deaths in the war-torn Middle East over the past decade. Others note that the fight against terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda embedded in civilian zones—most notably the killing of Osama bin Laden—has primarily been carried out using time-tested intelligence methods rather than drone-launched Hellfire air-to-surface missiles.
Dawn of the drone
The use of unmanned aircraft in war goes back 162 years, when Austria used pilotless balloons to drop bombs on Venice in 1849. As Scientific American reported at the time: "In a favorable wind the balloons will be launched and directed as near to Venice as possible, and on their being brought to vertical positions over the town, they will be fired by electro magnetism by means of a long isolated copper wire with a large galvanic battery placed on the shore. The bomb falls perpendicularly, and explodes on reaching the ground."
In the early 20th century the U.S. military recruited remote-controlled airplanes to serve as decoys or even to attack enemy targets during the First and Second World wars. From the 1950s, these aircraft began to support troops with the aid of cameras, sensors, communications equipment or other payloads. "In terms of modern use, drones really started in the early 1990s, where they were an advanced concept technology demonstration at DARPA [the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]," Maybury adds.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.'s Predator drones were introduced to combat in the mid-1990s and deployed in the U.S.'s 1999 Kosovo air campaign for surveillance and reconnaissance. Predators (which have a 20-meter wingspan) were first used in Afghanistan in October 2001 to provide intelligence and a strike capability to Operation Enduring Freedom, the official name used by the U.S. government for the war in Afghanistan. A CIA-controlled Predator drone firing a Hellfire missile killed six suspected al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen on November 3, 2002—the first use of an armed Predator as an attack aircraft outside of a theater of war such as Afghanistan, according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
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20 Comments
Add CommentIt is impressive how technologically-advanced our society has become. However, I would be more impressed if all that money and effort were allocated to life-enhancing purposes instead of the purposes of destruction and killing. These drones are technologically amazing and worthy of admiration. However it is very sad to see the motivations and purposes behind this technology.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is cool that Scientific American can quote its 1849 article on this topic!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've always wondered what these drones have against wedding parties. They really despise them. Amazing piece of technology, though.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA little satire on the subject. http://www.thechicagodope.com/2010/11/11/cia-admits-drone-strike-killed-six-in-wisconsin-wedding-party/
I'm highly impressed by the U.S. Army's planning document (pdf - "Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2010-2035") you link to. It shows in great detail the intention to introduce UAV's to the United States (acronym NAS - National Air Space); shows how they intend to use them for information-gathering, "homeland defense," and to help with emergencies and disasters; and even proposes eventual coordinated "swarms of nanos" in urban environments (equipped with face recognition) and larger UAV's capable of "non-lethal" weaponry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo mystery here. Looks like Congress will appropriate the money, too.
Great more funds for dead civilians
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was also instrumental in the creation of the internet. Who knows? Perhaps someday this technology will become equally beneficial to everyone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is the most revolting is that the US uses its outrageous military spending solely to defend its wealthy few.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRemember that all this technology the government and military develops is open for abuse.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReality check: ALL technology is open to abuse.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUsing thousand of Drone air plans in Iraq,Afghanistan and Pakistan and murdering millions of innocent people why not U.S.lingering there without success?What is wrong with U.S. foreign policy? Why above countries still fighting with U.S.?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere is the data on the cost (per drone)?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnce a drone is shot down or captured, won't it go straight to other countries for dismantling and duplication (at 1000th of our cost)? Similar to what is already happening to military robotics.
Can these drones be used to spy on our own citizens? Can they be used by the military to forward their own agenda (as far as funding and congressional voting)?
How many of other drones were purchased by the CIA and the other American backed companies that operate independently of "military orders", but carry out war with their own means and agenda?
Aren't these the same drones now being used by our own border patrols (Mexico). What is their impact on the drug cartels and the overall war on drugs? Are the facial recognition cameras simply noting the players? Are they afraid of stepping on American financing toes? Are they using the information to stop the flow, or just using it to get their own piece of the "financial kickback" pie?
Shooting down a US pilot engaged in wartime activities is considered an act of war. Would shooting a pilot operating a drone be considered murder or an act of war if the pilot is in the US? I am concerned that we have inadvertently brought the battlefield to our shores.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are commenting on the internet so like it or not, by global standards you are part of the wealthy few.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour numbers are way off - the USA has killed tens of thousands and not millions and the majority of those were not unarmed civilians. The USA is not at war against Iraq or Afghanistan. We are at war with a group of Saudi Arabian religious zealots and probably indirectly with the religious dictatorship of Iran. Compared to nuking Japan or firebombing Dresden, this has been a very civilized set of wars. The real barbarous animals here are the ones that deliberately target children and turn Mosques and Madrassas into military targets.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery good point but really, we are already at war with people targeting our country that have already stated clearly that civilians are their main objective to kill. It would be different if we were fighting a real country.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI like robots because they do nothing wrong unless made to do wrong. It all looks to me to be evolution on the time-line of Earth , - which I believe is the most important perspective - we must look at the time-line of the Earth before judging things. The biggest problem has been lack of peace in nature - even before humans came along and nothing in nature had the power to fix the problem. I want robots to set up new designer ecosystems. That means the opportunity for peace in nature. I am not arguing for a principle, rather a sustainable environment that allows advancement of science so we can survive and have capacity to live fully. The bottom line is that the current problem is if robots are supported only for work in civilizations rather than work in ecosystems. Look, if you had the best designer ecosystem - what would it not do for you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny sceptics or supporters of my theory should answer this important question.
I like robots because they do nothing wrong unless made to do wrong. It all looks to me to be evolution on the time-line of Earth , - which I believe is the most important perspective - we must look at the time-line of the Earth before judging things. The biggest problem has been lack of peace in nature - even before humans came along and nothing in nature had the power to fix the problem. I want robots to set up new designer ecosystems. That means the opportunity for peace in nature. I am not arguing for a principle, rather a sustainable environment that allows advancement of science so we can survive and have capacity to live fully. The bottom line is that the current problem is if robots are supported only for work in civilizations rather than work in ecosystems. Look, if you had the best designer ecosystem - what would it not do for you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI invite all to answer this important question.
"The September 11, 2001 attacks initiated a flurry of advances in military technology over the past decade that has helped the U.S. and its allies redefine modern warfare."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYet the most sophisticated of all drones, the Predator dates back to the mid 90ties...
"The U.S. Army's drone armada alone has expanded from 54 drones in October 2001..."
Did you take into account the four drones that flew respectively into the WTC towers, the Pentagon, and into the ground in Pennsylvania?
In the hopefully not too far away future, US drones will have to face World revolution based on the civil society's myriads of personal ultra-light, electrical tiltrotor aircraft.
Should the revolutionaries not be able to outnumber the US drones, they will nevertheless beat them economically because these personal aircraft will grant the civil society much more even than the economic value currently granted by the motorcar they will substitute over time, plus the huge savings from abandoning intercity motorway infrastructure construction and maintenance.
Not only will military drones weigh heavily on the State budget, but with the announced (or already mass-produced?) hypersonic drones capable of dropping six tons of bombs on any big city of the globe within less than two hours, a threat of yet incomparably greater magnitude is arising:
As we know from WW2, a bomb carpet dropped on a big city creates the same fire storm as happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- yet without the environmental aftermath of a nuclear blast.
Strategically, this type of environmentally friendly mass-destruction potential will lead to a DRAMATIC LOWERING OF THE DECISION-FOR-ACTION THRESHOLD -- with the risk of nuclear escalation nonetheless to follow!
Teheran, mon amour...
The United States has not declared war on any of the countries you speak of - they are indulging in preemptive presence in those countries because they want their oil. The overseas countries have stated that they want the U.S. military out of their countries, and the U.S. should leave and stop meddling in the affairs of other countries. They should take their military personnel back to the U.S. where they belong to protect their own country. The very reason why you say other countries want to attack U.S. is because U.S. did it to them first and won't leave.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt has been announced "Drones Are Going Mainstream" in United States air space nationwide, for sole purpose of surveillance. They were getting resistance from FAA because of concerns FAA has about potential crashes the unmanned drones could likely have with commercial & private airplanes because drones are not controlled by air traffic controllers. It is a very valid and sensible concern. But as usual government prevailed and drones are probably flying around America as we speak. It is written they are difficult to detect, but that makes sense - how else can they spy effectively on society if easy to detect. This is a very large step forward in more loss of USA peoples freedoms, and you Americans just let it happen. Your Founding Fathers would be shamed of you Americans for what you are putting up with - when will you all finally stand up for yourselfs and say "Enough!" "No!" All of us in Europe we are stunned that you had most sublime document in all of History of world, and you just let them take it from you over last ten years without one objection. It will not be long you will understand what you lost when it is too late to do anything about it, when you look at the world from behind locked gates.
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