
Every Country Will Have Armed Drones Within Ten Years - rpm4321
http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/05/every-country-will-have-armed-drones-within-ten-years/83878/
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_djo_
This is too US-centric, especially as it implies that drone proliferation will
slow down if the US stops its own development. This is nonsense.

Fact is, the US was a late adopter to more modern drones, or UAVs, having
fallen behind countries like Israel and South Africa who had developed
propeller-driven surveillance UAVs and used them operationally in combat from
the late 1970s.

Both gained much experience in the use of drones to evade surface to air
missiles and developed stealth prototypes, including the South African
Flowchart, and began early work on weaponising them. As a result, both Israel
and South Africa were early exporters of drones, selling to dozens of
countries and remaining major sellers. When the US needed to acquire tactical
UAVs in the 1980s, it acquired Israeli Tadira Mastiffs. It wasn't until nearly
a decade later that the first Predator flew, in 1994.

Both the above countries have armed drones for sale, though refuse to
publicise their sales. So even if the US were to scale back its drone research
massively, it would not do anything to slow down this pace of development
elsewhere, which has only increased with more countries and companies building
drones and their subsystems.

It was only in 2001 that trials were first carried out to arm Predators with
Hellfire missiles. Not because they were more effective weapons platforms than
manned aircraft, but because the idea was to shorten the time needed between
spotting a target on the UAV's cameras and hitting it with a bomb or missile.

As such, most countries don't actually need armed drones. They're slower and
more vulnerable than manned combat aircraft, are not designed to dash to
target areas quickly and are typically more expensive to operate than aircraft
like the Embraer Super Tucano or Aerosud AHRLAC because they need more ground
equipment and a ground control station. The market for surveillance drones,
especially those that can provide some level of persistent surveillance, is
huge and growing bigger. The number of countries specifically requesting armed
drones, however, remains low.

~~~
Jtsummers
> This is too US-centric, especially as it implies that drone proliferation
> will slow down if the US stops its own development. This is nonsense.

Where do you get that from?

Some quotes from the article:

    
    
      Virtually every country on Earth will be able to build or
      acquire drones capable of firing missiles within the next ten
      years. Armed aerial drones will be used for targeted killings,
      terrorism and the government suppression of civil
      unrest. What’s worse, say experts, it’s too late for the United
      States to do anything about it.
    
      “Once countries like China start exporting these, they’re going
      to be everywhere really quickly. Within the next 10 years,
      every country will have these,” Noel Sharkey, a robotics and
      artificial intelligence professor from the University of
      Sheffield, told Defense One.
    
      Singer cautions that while the U.S. may be trying to wean
      itself off of armed UAV technology, many more countries are
      quickly becoming hooked.
    
      So, what option does that leave U.S. policy makers wanting to
      govern the spread of this technology? Virtually none, say
      experts. “You’re too late,” said Sharkey, matter-of-factly.
    

The rest of your post, other than the comments on earlier-than-US use of
drones, is a rehash of the various points in the article.

~~~
_djo_
It's underscored by one of the quotes used to end the piece off:

    
    
       Less impressed, Sharkey said the U.S. still has time to 
       rethink its drone future. “Don’t go to the next step. 
       Don’t make them fully autonomous. That will proliferate
       just as quickly and then you are really going to be sunk.”
    

And the opening premise of the article is not only that armed UAV technology
is spreading, but that the reader should somehow be concerned that the US is
unable to stop it. It speaks about what options are available to US policy
makers to govern the spread of the technology, correctly answering 'none' but
not once mentioning that the US never had any ability to govern the spread of
UAV technology. Especially because it was not the originator of it.

The rest of the article is ok, particularly the quotes attributed to Singer
(an excellent writer on the subject), Sam Brennan and Mary Commings and the
maps showing which countries are using or developing armed and unarmed UAVs. I
just feel it's let down by the editorial slant and US-centric focus.

------
arcadeparade
>What’s worse, say experts, it’s too late for the United States to do anything
about it.

This is an extraordinary comment to make, when they have used drones more than
anyone.

~~~
etiam
I took that to imply roughly that

'The USA has been igniting and fuelling this arms race with ever greater use
and weaponization of drones, but now the process is self-sustaining. Even if
the USA should cease developments of its drone program and start
decommissioning the crafts, that in itself would not stop drone armament,
since several other actors would in all probability continue developments on
programs that are now already in full action'

~~~
arcadeparade
Interesting, I took it to mean that this journalist is like most others, in
that he starts from the assumption that the U.S owns the world and has the
right to rule it as such.

~~~
etiam
:) I certainly won't dispute that you may have been right, but I'd like to
give him the benefit of the doubt here.

As an aside, if you were right: Unpalatable as the sentiment may be, there
_is_ still something to the notion that the USA does have a lot of influence
over major parts of the world. I think we can all generally agree that as a
nation they do have an unusual degree of possibilities to set examples and
fashions, and I like it much better when the administration feels like
championing human rights or restrictions on certain kinds of particularly
nasty weapons than when it's bent on exporting new justifications for steps
towards totalitarianism or more cost-effective ways to slaughter people.

So if people in general indeed seem to think that the USA has both possibility
and some kind of obligation to do things like try to curtail a rise in drone
warfare, I actually feel kind of pleased at that. To the extent that it's
real, I think it's welcome, and to the extent that it's conceit, maybe it's at
least a constructive one.

------
sspiff
> Every country ... Only every country that is, wants to be or pretends to be
> a military power.

Many (smaller) countries realized long ago that if they would end up at war
with a much larger neighbour, their own military power would be of no use, and
gave up on maintaining and building self-sufficient military machines.

Instead, they focus on a certain aspect of military operations, and develop
and maintain that segment of their armies in order to make a somewhat
meaningful contribution to a certain alliance, hoping that alliance will help
them should they ever need it.

Others gave up on having armed forces at all.

~~~
hessenwolf
Defensive versus attacking capabilities differ very strongly though. The
quagmire defense is not soo expensive, I would think. For example, Switzerland
has lots of basements and guns and gun training. That just sounds like such a
lame headache to take and hold.

~~~
vidarh
A great example of the cost discrepancy in the context of drones: You see a
"drone" flying towards you. Is it a) a dressed up $20 RC toy plane, or b) a
flying bomb that can take lives or take out hundreds of thousands, or even
millions, of dollars of hardware?

Presumably, you wouldn't want to risk b), which means for every instance of a)
you'd presumably end up committing resources to counter it, if the odds of b)
are "high enough", where "high enough" could easily be 1% chance of a bomb or
less if the 1% case is sufficiently lethal.

You could see a hidden defending force "swarming" an invader with toys with
the odd highly lethal weapon in the mix very cheaply to slow an advance...

~~~
LyndsySimon
There are already several people working on collective autonomous UAVs.
Example: [http://www.nature.com/news/autonomous-drones-flock-like-
bird...](http://www.nature.com/news/autonomous-drones-flock-like-
birds-1.14776)

A "flock" of light unarmed vehicles surrounding with one or more armed
vehicles that drop in and out of the flock to do their thing would likely be
extremely difficult to deal with.

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tonylemesmer
Love this:

“Once countries like China start exporting these, they’re going to be
everywhere really quickly. Within the next 10 years, every country will have
these,” Noel Sharkey

How about you change "China" to "USA" \- Basically the same right? What's so
wrong about China having drones that he singles them out?

~~~
gambiting
Because it's the common perception that USA would never sell their weapons to
terrorists or third world countries where there is little to no control over
them, but China lacks such a moral compass and will sell to anyone who is
willing to pay. A completely wrong perception, but there it is.

~~~
buzaga41
"such a moral compass" seriously?

~~~
gambiting
I thought the sarcasm would be obvious without the /s tag.

~~~
buzaga41
Dang sorry, I was really just skimming and haven't read the a article :P But
yeah it's a ridiculous notion and won't take long to start coming up

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chiph
Something that wasn't mentioned is command & control. 1st tier militaries will
have satellite communications, and be able to operate their drones world-wide.
2nd & 3rd tier militaries will have nearby ground-stations, with control
capabilities limited to just-over-the-horizon.

Again, control of the high-ground is key.

    
    
        With regard to PRECIPITOUS HEIGHTS, if you are 
        beforehand with your adversary, you should occupy
        the raised and sunny spots, and there wait for him
        to come up.

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imjustsaying
I'm not surprised.

How hard would it be for an individual to mount an RPG or Liberator firearm
payload on a sub $1k drone that can be piloted 20km?

I also expect drone regulations to increase considerably once attacks from
such low-end drones start appearing.

~~~
Klinky
Certainly not trivial, and certainly not for $1K. Perhaps in 10 years like the
article suggests.

However, you could probably take an off-the-shelf large R/C plane or
helicopter and put a small explosive payload in it, then crash it into
somewhere. Even that would be hard to do for under $1K, and range would be
limited.

~~~
imjustsaying
Good point. I just did some searching around the internet; 20km for under $1k
is way off the mark.

300m however with a live video stream and GPS navigation programming is
available under $1k even on Amazon:

[http://lowenddrone.com](http://lowenddrone.com)

~~~
LyndsySimon
The big problem there is the telemetry. Make it semi autonomous - fly to
target at 500', then dive straight down and detonate.

I'm fairly confident I could put together an aircraft that could travel 20km
with a 3km payload and self-destruct at the destination for less than $1k.

~~~
Klinky
Doesn't ArduPilot offer those autonomous features?

~~~
LyndsySimon
I know it does waypoints, but "pop up and dive bomb this target" probably
isn't a popular feature :)

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JoeAltmaier
Heck, I can have an armed drone next month. Buy a quadrotor coptor, an Arduino
kit, a camera and a GPS chip. Some software and anybody can deliver a charge
to a location and make a Youtube video of the whole thing.

Its way past technology outpacing our ability to react. The brave new world is
here, with such wonders in it.

~~~
falcolas
FWIW, a model aircraft would have more payload, longer air time, and require
less software to build than a quad rotor...

Quadrotors are cool, but severely limited in the range, time aloft, and
payload categories.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
But quadrotors can be dialed in to an arbitrary GPS coordinate accurately and
deliver a payload. That's the whole ballgame with assassination or sabotage.

~~~
falcolas
The only place a quadrotor would shine above a model aircraft in this case
would be moving into a building. Any open air location would be equally
vulnerable to either solution, with the model aircraft capable of bringing
more to the party, as it were.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...or operating around obstacles (trees, overhangs, vehicles). Anyplace that
has to be approached in anything except a fast horizontal vector, which in
town is any place at all pretty much?

Add to that identifying a target visually and tracking. A plane could hit a
fixed target but if its moving, a model plane could have an awful time
matching speed and direction.

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jqm
Will drone strikes eventually be followed up by semi-autonomous ship/ tank/
robot machine gunner invasions?

Probably.

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llomlup
I guess the title should say "Every developed and some developing countries".
Other countries have troubled economies that barely allow to have armed
forces, let alone to purchase a new hardware.

~~~
mnw21cam
On the contrary - quite a few poorer countries have remarkably well-funded
militaries. There's a saying in Africa - "The poorer the country, the bigger
the Mercedes."

------
robmcm
Will the futures equivalent of the AK-47 be on github?

------
glassapps
and every student as it seems :-)

------
unsigner
And then the countries with the most pacifist hackers will be at a severe
disadvantage...

------
EGreg
Skynet?

------
Dewie
> Armed aerial drones will be used for targeted killings, terrorism and the
> government suppression of civil unrest. What’s worse, say experts, it’s too
> late for the United States to do anything about it.

Yes, it would be best for only the US to have this technology, as they would
surely _only_ use it for good..

~~~
sspiff
This reminds me of the story about Theodore Hall, who gave secrets from the US
atomic bomb projects to the USSR, allegedly for the sake of preventing a
monopoly of such power by the US and balancing out the two major power blocs
to prevent one from simply destroying the other, with all the associated
horrors.

