The first carrier launch of the X-47B has got America's war fans rubbing their hands in glee.
The launch of the latest drone variant marks "an important step in the expanded use of drones by the American military."
Isn't that great news?
Here's a weapon that makes American war-planners reckless and lazy, galvanizes America's enemies, vastly increases the ranks of those enemies, and the fact that a successful carrier launch presages an expanded use of drones is passed off as a good-news story?
America is NOT heading for a happy place...
Showing posts with label US drone warfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US drone warfare. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Sunday, March 17, 2013
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)