Chinese drones over Washington

Reuters has a thought-provoking and irony-laden meditation on America's drone advantage.

We've been warning forever that America's drone advantage won't last forever. It's that age-old relic of American exceptionalism, the belief that America is so far advanced the rest of the world can never catch up.

As in the Japanese auto industry will never catch up...

Nor will the Chinese manufacturing infrastructure... or Taiwanese computer makers... it's a long list.

But until recently there's been little or no acknowledgement that America's unprecedented use of UAVs is setting precedents every time another Al-Qaeda "number two" is dispatched in some foreign land.

That's changing though. Iran has cobbled together some sort of embryonic drone device and sent it on sight-seeing missions over Israel. China now has drones. If the Pakistanis are clever enough to build nuclear weapons, I suspect they can manage a drone program too.

Paki drones over the Pentagon? That should give the brass pause for thought.

Evidently it already has. Obama thinks the time may be ripe for some international guidelines on drone use.

That's not bound to impress the dozen or so countries that have borne the brunt of America's strategic advantage in drone warfare over the past ten years or so.