Drones: A Military History /// 92

Battlecast

A man is sitting on his porch before he suddenly geysers upward, somersaulting through the air like a discarded plaything. A work truck is cruising across the Gaza Strip at fifty-miles-an-hour and then is suddenly crushed like a coke can and engulfed in flames. Scores of mass-produced Turkish drones flood the Armenian sky, raining death on soldiers before they even knew what hit them, the only warning a low, mechanical hissing sound. This is drone warfare. This is the future of war – a frightening, science-fiction future that is bursting from the pages of our literature into the real world. Tens of thousands of drones watch everything we do; many models can fly for more than twenty-four hours, a ceaseless, lidless eye. Men half-a-world away kill other men with devastating firepower. In Ukraine, soldiers adapt commercially-built drones to serve as mobile killing machines, while their operators sit in a basement scores of miles away, almost completely safe from immediate retaliation. In this episode is the future of combat, the future of intelligence-gathering, and the future of the invasion of human privacy. George Orwell’s 1984 was a tea party compared to the world we are creating for our children. There is an eye in the sky controlled by anonymous, bored pilots. There is an eye in the sky watching you. There is an eye in the sky that can kill you with the press of a button.

This is the story of drone warfare.

It’s all free and it’s all here on Battlecast – the world’s foremost podcast on war and its socio-political impact.

Download episode 92 here: download link

Maps and Images:

Extensive maps and images are posted to the historical atlas of drone warfare located here

Music Source:

Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio /// website: karlcasey.bandcamp.com

Drones References:

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Rehman, A. (2013). “Impact of drone attacks in Pakistan and the war on terror: A consideration of the effects of drone attacks in Pakistan and whether they are helping or not to win the war on terror!” International Relations 3. Malmö University: Department of Global Political Studies.

Fields, N.R. (2012). “Advantages and challenges of unmanned aerial vehicle autonomy in the Postheroic age.” [Unpublished Master’s Thesis]. James Madison University.

Blom, J. D. (2010). Unmanned aerial systems: A historical perspective. Combat Studies Institute Press.

Amnesty International (2013). “Will I be next?: Us drone strikes in Pakistan.”

Anderson, K. (2011). “Targeted killing and drone warfare: How we came to debate whether there is a ‘Legal Geography of War’.” Hoover Institution.

Witt, S. (2022). “The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare.” The New Yorker. (May 9, 2022). https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/05/16/the-turkish-drone-that-changed-the-nature-of-warfare

Turse, N. & Engelhardt, T. (2012). Terminator planet: The first history of drone warfare 2001 – 2050. Dispatch books.

Franke, U. (2018). The unmanned revolution: How drones are revolutionizing warfare. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Oxford.

Sommerville, Quentin. (2024). “Ukraine thrown into war’s bleak future as drones open new battlefront.” BBC.com. Accessed July 24, 2024. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cne4vl9gy2wo

Walsh, J.I. & Schulzke, M. (2018). Drones and support for the use of force. University of Michigan Press.

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Johnsen, G.D. (2014). “Nothing Says Sorry Our Drones Hit Your Wedding Party’ Like $800,000 And Some Guns. Buzz Feed.” Web. https://www.buzzfeed.com/gregorydjohnsen/wedding-party-drone-strike

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Cooper, H. (2016). U.S. airstrikes at Somali site kill about 150. The New York Times. Section A, Page 1.

Cooper, H. (2017). Over 100 Shabab militants killed in U.S. airstrike in Somalia. The New York Times. Section A, page 11.

Olson, J. and Rashid, M. (2013). Modern drone warfare: An ethical analysis. 2013 ASEE Southeast Section Conference.

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Jordán, J. and Baqués, J. (2014). Guerra de drones. Política, tecnología y cambio social en los nuevos conflictos.

McCurley, T and Maurer, K. (2015). Hunter killer: The true story of the drone mission that killed Anwar al-Awlaki.

Frontline. (2023). America and the Taliban: Part two. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQKERL9h7Yo&rco=1

New America Foundation. (n.d.) “The war in Somalia.” https://www.newamerica.org/future-security/reports/americas-counterterrorism-wars/the-war-in-somalia/

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The Economist Data Team. (2015). Drone strikes: cause or effect. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2015/09/23/drone-strikes-cause-or-effect

Soliman, A.S.F. and Mahmoud, K.A. (2023). Applications des véhicules aériens sans pilote: Développement vers un poids de quelques grammes.