Drone Warfare: A New Generation Of Deadly Unmanned Weapons -- The Guardian
Business is booming at the vast base in Nevada, where tomorrow's Top Guns are learning to target terrorists from afar.
The electronic cavern is dark, save for the glow of consoles, and Lt Col Mike Weaver surveys his apprentice warriors with satisfaction as they project American might halfway around the world. One crew – two young men in flight suits seated before half a dozen screens – prepares to fire missiles from a remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) at a boatload of suspected insurgents in Afghanistan. Another crew circles a suspicious bulge by a roadside in Iraq and feeds co-ordinates to ground troops. Another tracks what appears to be a vehicle in Yemen.
"There's not a lot of time for emotion here. There's a war going on and we have a job to do," says Weaver, a veteran F15 fighter pilot.
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My Comment: If there were no drones .... would Al Qaeda still be operating in Pakistan's tribal areas? I would so no because special ops and fighter bombers will be used instead .... but the risk factor for civilian and military casualties will be higher .... as well as the political backlash when something goes wrong. So yes .... drones have a future for the simple reason being that they are effective, and they minimize military casualties. But what is remarkable about drones is that we are only a few years in this new era of warfare .... one can only imagine what we will be having 10, 20, 30 years from now.