Will Foreign Drones One Day Attack the US?

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How our new favorite weapon in the war on terror could soon be turned against us.

File photo, F-22 Raptors, 06/15/09. (photo: US Air Force)

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-2 # Guest 2010-02-27 00:58

As usual, the article does not discuss the incredible vulnerability of drones. Let's not forget that they've been used mainly against foes without any (or with very limited) AA capability. But when they did come up against an opponent with a rudimentary AA defense in Serbia in '99, they performed disastrously.
For some reason that seems to be a taboo topic.

0 # Guest 2010-02-27 07:49

And how well is the US covered by anti-aircraft defenses?

0 # Guest 2010-02-27 09:37

Didn't you read the article thoroughly? The US doesn't even have a truly rudimentary AA defense that can handle the relatively slow moving and low emission/low tech aerodynamic features of the up and coming drones. Our Air Defenses were created to handle modern fast-movers with a fairly large amount of time of advance warning. One cannot effectively defend against something one does not see coming. Think about how incredibly effective those IEDs were/are in our Iraq misadventure before we realized that they were indeed the principle threat.

+4 # SteveLaudig 2010-02-27 02:20

follow the history of the dum dum bullet and that may trace how the "legalities" and use will develop. Such weapons are fine and legal if used against "lesser peoples" until the "lesser peoples" get them. Then the "greater peoples" take offense.

+6 # Guest 2010-02-27 07:43

How many people knew this?: "Industrial farmers around the world already use aerial drones to dust their crops with pesticides."
Agribusiness policy (a.k.a. farm policy) trumps any sanity regarding our food or our environment already. Farmers have tractors that will steer themselves with sub-inch accuracy using gps (originally denied by the military). Off-the-shelf technology galore. The greed of the military-industrial-agricultural empire- complex trumps everything. The article suggests more experts in robotics is the answer. Are you kidding? Maybe respecting other people's sovereignty and cultures might be a good place to start. We can't run and we can't hide when we are our own worst enemy.

0 # Guest 2010-02-27 14:26

George -

Thank you! That was a beautifully informative comment, particularly the suggestion about 'respecting other people's sovereignty...' If only!

+4 # Guest 2010-02-27 10:21

Recalling that our own drones have "accidentally" killed dozens of Afghani civilians at family gatherings in recent days -- whose would be the RIGHT hands for such weapons to be in?

+1 # Guest 2010-02-27 18:42

The United States of America, once the champion of the poor and downtrodden, morphed into the villain it is today.
By interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, invading and occupying some of them to suit its appetite for oil and world domination It has made itself vulnerable.
The possession of technological and military superiority does not ensure security as has been proven in the debacle of great empires in the the past. Right now the US is conducting wars against small nations using its tremendous power achieved by borrowing money from some nations it considers its future rivals. By setting the trend in the use of UAV in military missions America is certainly going to be overwhelmed in the future as other nations make advances in such technologies and especially when they have the cash to spend.

0 # Guest 2010-02-28 08:02

If it was a terrorist attack, it might well be launched from within the US making detection and AA impossible. and a very agile vehicle suitable for attack on an individual could be purchased as a toy See: http://mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/VideoAbspielen?id=188

0 # Guest 2010-02-28 12:36

Sorry, but I have lived through the "missile gap," the "Cuban threat", the "Cold War", the "space race", the "domino theory", the "containment failure", the "MIRV gap", the "attack on free enterprise", etc. One more attack, gap like the "UAV gap" is no longer compelling. I have come to the conclusion that there just seems to be no way to have freedom without the risk of dying for it. I think our founding fathers said this in 1776. Should we stop being so afraid and just get over it?

0 # Guest 2010-02-28 21:46

"What terrorist is going to have a Predator?"

What narco is going to have a submarine? They already have a bunch and are making them so fast that they don't need to design them for return trips. If those guys can manufacture an ocean going submarine, then other terrorists, and I'm thinking the computer guy who suicided into the IRS building, can certainly make drones.

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