the future of drone warfare

This is interesting. The author is saying that the reason for the success of drones is because the US is an early adopter and that eventually this early adopter edge will disappear.

It is similar to any other military advance. It works well early on but only until defenses and counter measures are worked out that will certainly be better than exist now.


[link to c4ss.org]

excerpt full article at link


Even John Robb, my favorite writer on networked resistance and asymmetric warfare, seems to take a dark view of the long-term effect of drones. The main advantage of his resilient communities, as he sees them, is that they’re too small, decentralized and hardened to present high-profile targets to states in their death throes.

But that’s far too pessimistic an assessment, in my opinion. The apparent spectacular successes of drone warfare in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen are actually just early adopter advantages accruing to the first powerful states to put drones to use. This says absolutely nothing about the overall effect of drone technology as we move down the cost curve — any more than we could have predicted the institutional effects of cybernetics and the Internet based on the enormous vacuum tube mainframe computers of the late 1940s.

It’s a fair guess that increasingly sophisticated, autonomous hunter-killer drones will be governed by an exponential rate of cost reduction comparable to that described in Moore’s Law. In a few years time, we can expect remote-controlled or autonomous armed drones available as open-source, off-the-shelf technology that networked resistance movements can churn out with cheap tabletop CNC machines in their own garage factories.

When that happens, and the “World’s Sole Remaining Superpower” loses its early-adopter advantage, drone technology will work to the advantage of the side with the most decentralized, distributed organizational infrastructure, and the most widely dispersed and hardened end-points. And it will disproportionately hurt the side with the most centralized, hierarchical form of organization and the most concentrated target profile. Anyone want to venture a guess as to which respective sides fit those descriptions?

Last Edited by s. d. butler on 02/07/2013 07:42 PM