Ancient War Machines
Since the beginning of warfare, military planners and generals dreamed of engineered machines to destroy military enemies first before they could inflict any destruction upon their own military forces.
In ancient Greek times, Archimedes born in 287 B.C.used catapults and hurled heavy timbers at Roman ships in the distance and designed a “death ray” consisting of mirrors that reflected the sun. In 70 AD, the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem. The most fearsome weapon in their armory was a massive torsion spring catapult that towered over eight meters high. It was so powerful that it could fire boulders weighing 26 kilos over hundreds of meters to devastate Jerusalem’s walls.
In the Middle Ages Leonardo Da Vinci was a man who saw the need for military engineers, which would provide him with employment, travel opportunities, and the chance to continue his scientific work unhindered. Leonardo, in his design for a multi-barreled cannon of 1481, sought to overcome the slow rate of fire. Leonardo designed a (86 feet long) crossbow, (his ballista). The weapon boasted a worm and gear mechanism to draw the bowstring and was mounted on canted wheels. Two alternate firing mechanisms allowed the bow to release by a hammer blow or by lever action. Da Vinci's 1487 design for an armored “tank” was made from wood and operated by eight men.
Unmanned remote-controlled aircraft have been around longer than most people think. In 1488, Leonardo Da Vinci had also considered the possibility of an enemy using flying machines in battles, and designed weapons that would shoot them down! In the 1900s, the German Kettering "Bug”, for instance, was developed during World War I. A bomb-carrying unpiloted biplane flew on a pre-set course to its target. The Germans in World War II developed the first radio-guided rockets. In WWII, the USN returned to the idea of "assault drones" for use against Japanese warships.
Introduction to Drones
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone is an aircraft without a human pilot on board. Its flight path is either independently controlled with the aid of computers inside or outside the vehicle, or under the remote control by a navigator or a Combat Systems Officer. Today, there exists a wide variety of drones in terms of shape, size, features, and configuration, as well as classes of drones. According to a 2012 Brandenburg University Flying Robots Report, many classes of drones exist such as the following:
• MAV (Micro Aerial Vehicle): Small UAVs with a combat radius of several hundred meters are used primarily for reconnaissance purposes and suitably equipped for this purpose with cameras and other sensors. Drones that fall into this category are small enough to be transported and operated by one person.
• OAV (Organic Aerial Vehicle): Is a general term for an Organic Air Vehicle, in the meaning that people's senses are enhanced, for example views from the air.
• RPV (Remotely Piloted Vehicle): Via satellite, WIFI, or similar, remote controlled UAVs. Smaller vehicles can often be controlled actively, while larger drones are mostly operated by setting pathway grid points.
• UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle): Denotes an unmanned aircraft, commonly known as drone, which flies autonomously or by remote control.
• UAS (Unmanned Aerial System): A generic term, which includes ground control station, start/landing devices, and other control elements.
• TUAV (Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle): TUAVs fill the gap between short-range MAVs and the MALE / HALE systems, by combining the flexibility of smaller drones with the maximum range of larger ones. Typical systems weigh up to 300 kg and have a range up to 300 km. Unlike most MAVs, a special device is needed to start (for example boosters or catapults).
• UCAV (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle): General term for UAV systems equipped with weapons to attack or defend against enemies.
• URAV (Unmanned Reconnaissance Aerial Vehicle): The range of reconnaissance UAVs corresponds with up to 14000 km those of large commercial aircrafts. High altitude long endurance (HALE) drones like the Global Hawk achieve flight times up to 42 hours with flight height up to 65000 ft. (20 km). Medium altitude long endurance (MALE) drones achieve heights up to 7 - 15 km.
• VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle): Referrers to drones with the ability to launch vertically. Most of these drones can also, similar to a helicopter, hover in the air. Subcategories of the VTOLs are VTOL Tactical UAV (VTUAV), which are adapted for military purposes.
Military Perspective
A well-known application of drones is for military application. Drones came into battlefield prominence with the beginning with the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) s. They became organic, long-range artillery, and diminished the high casualties associated with troop movements within rugged exposed desert and mountainous terrains. -(UAV)s were not used in the Russia’s Afghanistan War and comparison of casualties between these two periods of wars in Afghanistan is telling. Starting in 1979 and ending in 1989, the Former Soviet Union (FSU) lost 14,453 men, while there were between 850,000 and 1.5 million civilian Afghan deaths. The Mujahedeen lost an estimated 75-90,000 soldier. Since 2001, U.S. military lost in Afghanistan are close to 2,150 soldiers. The difference could very well be the use of U.S. engineered UAVs-a weapon platform that reached the original ancient dream of death from long distances and from the sky without causing massive casualties to U.S. troops.
Military Drones
Systems Concept
Drones have many military applications such as Aerial Mine Detection, Target Reconnaissance, Electronic Jamming, Radar Jamming or Saturation, Flight Path Reconnaissance, Psychological Warfare, Command and Control Relay, Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Detection, Artillery Correction, and Intelligence. According to a 2007 Military Systems Report, “UAVs use either variations of the design criteria for manned air vehicles to fulfil similar requirements, where applicable, and new design criteria where specific unique weapons system capabilities are demanded, along with certification guidelines being formulated by authorities to operate the vehicle in various classes of airspaces.”
A system is an organized assembly of equipment, personnel, procedures, and other facilities designed to perform a specific function or set of functions. In order to understand drones, the system concept, applied to manufacturing, communications, and information technology processes, can help in understanding these unique machines. UAV drones are engineered system platforms consisting of a group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole. A (UAV) is communication platform that consist of subsystems and components (e.g. airframe, propulsion, guidance, communications, sensors, electronics, etc.). A design for UAVs essentially follows the same design rules as for manned Air System Platforms. UAVs designed as pure deadly force platforms are adapted to carry weapons, while UCAV designs are adapted to reconnaissance missions.
General airframe structures and composite materials also follow standard engineering specification outlined in the following five groupings:
HALE – High Altitude Long Endurance-Class One Vehicles [RQ-4 Global Hawk]
MALE – Medium Altitude Long Endurance- Class One Vehicles [MQ-1 Predator, MQ-1C Grey Eagle, MQ-9 Reaper]
URAV – Unmanned Reconnaissance Air Vehicle - Class Two Vehicles [RQ-4 Global Hawk]
UCAV – Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle-Class Three Vehicles [Taranis-BAE]
STUAV - Small Tactical Unmanned Aerial System [RQ-21A- Insitu,Aerosonde Mark 4.7]
Design Considerations
A key engineeringdesign consideration is modularity. As the operational requirements change quickly from mission to mission, modularity wins battle for the warfighter. Replacement and a wide range of the ordinance must be done with ease. The reality of obsolescence of electronics, antennas, and sensors is also part of a winning modular design. The airframes performance characteristic must be changeable to meet a changing mission. All structural components must be easy to transport as well. According to a report by Dr. Martin Neubauer, “Health & event monitoring (real time) could be more important than in manned air systems, i.e. extension of health & event monitoring to areas usually observed by the pilot may be necessary. Factors such as bird strike; lightning strike; monitoring of general vibrations, acoustic noise (high cycle fatigue); dynamic loads ( e.g. monitoring of local accelerations from gust, buffet, dynamic landing impact); pilot observed aging effects (wear and tear), ( change of maintenance concept, e.g. additional inspections may be necessary)”
UAVs are powerful warfighter platforms, but they are extremely fragile operating platforms as well. Critical Elements for UAV Vehicle Structure which need special attention are as follows: (1) Structural Design Criteria; (2)Material Selection criteria; (3) Design Methodology; (4) Analysis and Test Requirements/Procedure; (5) Validation and Verification Concept; (6) Flight Envelope Expansion; and (7) In-Service Usage Monitoring. According to the U.S. Defense Technical Information Center Report, “the technology exists to enable evaluation, design, and development of a user-controlled air vehicle system that can provide individual combat users with access to and control of networks of UAVs. The key issues associated with the system concept are operational in nature and can be evaluated in simulation (constructive and man-in-the-loop) and in field experiments (using surrogates). Upon favorable evaluation of the concept, additional technologies could be developed to enhance the system concept. Included are automatic target recognition (ATR) to cue users to tactical developments, advanced data compression to improve response times, and multisource correlation to provide multiple users with tactical situation awareness previously available only to senior commanders.”
Leveling the military playing field
U.S. Air Force drones are called Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and must be considered in a systems context, which includes the remote human operator(s), a command, control and communications (C3) system, a payload, as well as the air vehicle, or multiple vehicles. UAS are the architectural platform for now but may change in the global war on terror.
The U.S. Air Force controls its MQ-9 Reaper and the MQ-1 Predator from Creech Air Force Base, forty-five miles north of Las Vegas Nevada, which is one of seventeen drone operating and training sites across the United States. In 2011, there were twelve U.S drone bases stationed overseas. In 2011, the U.S. Air Forced trained 350 drone pilots compared to 250 conventional fighter and bomber pilots. Former top F-16 Ace fighter pilots control the unmanned aircraft, sitting in a remote secure ground control trailer at Creech, about 7,500 miles away from the assigned battlefield. Fully armed Predators when operating have a direct video feed into the White House’s Operations Center. The President of the U.S. can watch real-time any battle activity or reconnaissance operation.
Battle Situational Awareness
The battle is projected on a screen and when the ground commander gives the command, a missile is fired, eliminating the threat. Two hundred and fifty pilots work in shifts around the clock. Alongside each one of them is a crewmember who operates the plane's onboard camera, and a behind-the-scenes team of intelligence analysts. The planes are not launched at Creech Air Force Base or any other U.S. Air Force base. They take off from locations within the battle zone such as Afghanistan, and stateside or overseas crews take control by satellite once the aircraft is several thousand feet in the air. What the pilots see is a real-time view of the battlefield from thousands of feet in the air, beamed back live from cameras mounted on the unmanned planes.
Although the 2014 figures are classified as to the current USAF inventory of Reapers and Predators, 2009 figures revealed that the Air Force had twenty-eight Reapers in inventory, each one costing about $11 million. The Reaper can fly as high as 50,000 feet, sit over a target for 15 hours straight, and is as lethal as an F-16 fighter jet. The Reaper carries 500 lb. bombs and Hellfire missiles. Each Reaper carries a million dollar camera that is unseen and unblinking. The insurgents never have an idea that they have a silent tracker overhead observing their every movement.
The Air Force also had in 2009 one hundred sixteen Predators. The Predator is smaller than the Reaper, but it can stay up 24 hours at a time. It can be miles away from its target, flying undetected through the clouds, and when required to support a combat mission, instantly zoom upon the enemy reigning death from the clouds. These UAS platforms have infrared camera capabilities that can spot the body heat of the insurgents or when their gun was recently fired. This ability to sit over a target without detection for long periods makes the Predator and Reaper more accurate than a manned fighter jet. The pilots' aerial view of the battlefield often allows them to see the enemy before the soldiers on the ground can see them. UAS Combat pilot crews spend hours studying the movements of insurgents. If they are setting up an ambush against U.S. troops, they face destruction before any U.S. troop causalities can happen.
During an August 14, 2009 CBS news interview, Former General Norton Schwartz, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force and currentlyPresident and CEO of BENS spoke that “it has become central to the way we operate. As a system, do you see anything that has done more damage to al Qaeda? In 2006, the Predator played a crucial role in hunting down the most wanted al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Here is the way it goes. You had 600 hours of Predator time over a lengthy period….following Zarqawi. And then you had maybe six minutes of F-16 time to finish the target. It reflects again the power of the unmanned systems to produce the kind of intelligence that leads you to a guy like Zarqawi, who was very good at maintaining his anonymity.”
Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)
UAS is very adept at (ISR). According to a report from Market Research Media, the U.S. military Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAS) market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 10 percent between 2010 and 2015 and will generate $62 billion in revenues during this period. The Brookings Institution stated that seventy-six other countries are seeking drones for ISR. Will this lead to international standards? In 2012 a Pew Research Center poll found that 63% of the French public, 59% of the German public; apposed drone strikes. This was even higher in Turkey. Counter-measures against drones were demonstrated. The U.S. Navy used laser firing to shoot down a drone in July 2012 from the guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey in San Diego.
A September 2012 U.S. Congressional Report on acquisition of ISR stated that “Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems are integral components of both national policymaking and military operations, including counterterrorism operations, but they are costly and complicated and they must be linked in order to provide users with a comprehensive understanding of issues based on information from all sources. Relationships among organizations responsible for designing, acquiring, and operating these systems are also complicated, as are oversight arrangements in Congress. These complications have meant that even though many effective systems have been fielded, there have also been lengthy delays and massive cost overruns. Uncertainties about the long-term acquisition plans for ISR systems persist even as pressures continue for increasing the availability of ISR systems in current and future military operations and for national policymaking.”
The Report continued…”The most commonly used UAS systems, Predators and Reapers are designed for tactical use. The Predator flies at altitudes up to 25,000 feet; the Reaper 50,000 feet. Both have an endurance of 24 hours. Some (UAS) s, such as the Global Hawk, have capabilities that rival those of reconnaissance satellites. They can fly higher—over 60,000 feet—and longer—28 hours. There is potential overlap between Global Hawk capabilities and those of reconnaissance satellites. Development costs of (UAS) s have tended to exceed initial estimates by significant amounts. Development costs of the Air Force’s Global Hawks grew by 284%; the Reaper by 97%; the Shadow by 80%, and the Predator by 60%.35 In some cases (especially with the Global Hawk) the increases resulted from immature technologies and fundamental restructurings; in others it was simply a matter of increasing the number of platforms to be acquired.” Further, in the Report, “The 112th Congress continues to indicate concern about ISR issues, especially those relating to expensive space systems. The House version of the FY2012 defense appropriations bill, H.R. 2219, included provision (§8089) that would mandate the establishment of a major program category for space in future defense programs. The report noted that over the past decade, various attempts for alternative systems have been suggested and in some cases funded. Several of those attempts included the parallel development of alternative systems or technologies. These systems were advertised as being less expensive, more capable, and less risky. In each case, these alternative systems were terminated due to cost or complexity.”
Global Growth
In 2011, the U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said it was “in the United States interest to share drone technology with allies despite the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).” At the same U.S. drone manufacturers were lobbying hard to ease the then ITAR tough restrictions on exports of drones. Since then competitors to U.S. technology developed for military superiority have sprung-up geometrically and globally.
The list of global UAV manufacturers is growing. Some of the well-known global UAV manufacturers are Bell Helicopter, Boeing Rotorcraft Systems, Raytheon, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (Predator, Reaper), Northrop Grumman (Global Hawk, Fire Scout), Elbit Systems (Heron, Hermes), Matra BAE Dynamics (Dragon), Yakovlev (Expert), EADS (Orka, Scorpio, Surveyor), and Belge De Lampes Et De Materiel Electronique SA (MBLE) of Belgium (Sparrow Hawk), AeroVironment (Wasp AE, Puma AE (Raven), Boeing Defense, Space, & Security (Solar Eagle, Scan Eagle, and Argus One).
Thirty-one countries currently have large drones in military service; twenty-eight have either directly purchased some or all of their drones from another country or manufactured their drones with the help of another country. Israel’s Elbit is the main exporter of drones exporting to eighteen countries with joint development projects with four countries. Recently Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Azerbaijan, and Georgia; have all acquired large Elbit Systems drones. Both the Canadian RCAF and RAAF operate variants of Heron. Israel helped France, UK, Finland, and Switzerland to develop their drones. The NATO country France then exported their drones to Greece, Netherlands, and Sweden. The US exported their UAVs to Belgium, Egypt, Italy, Morocco, UK, and are helping Germany to develop their drones. South Africa has exported drones. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studied, NATO European member countries have large UAVs for their military, defense, and civilian uses. Germany has three, France 4, Italy 9, and the UK has ten.
Pushes for Drones
The former European Aerospace Defense and Space (EADS) and Northrop Grumman established a joint venture to develop the Euro Hawk, a derivative of the Global Hawk. In 2013, the NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) aircraft program ordered five Block 40 Global Hawks at $1.7 billion USD. Later Germany learned that the UAV could not be certified or flown in the EU. The project was scrapped.
As of January 2, 2014, (EADS) was rebranded as “Airbus Group. Prior to the rebranding EADS consisted of four divisions; namely, Airbus, Eurocopter, Astrium, and Cassidian. Cassidian, was the defense division of EADS and delivered advanced defense systems.
In 2006, the Cassidian Barracuda, Europe’s first unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) had its first maiden flight. Its role was reconnaissance and combat (UCAV).The aircraft was a joint venture between Germany and Spain. Development of the project was stopped after the first prototype crashed at sea while approaching for landing during a test flight. The program was resumed in 2008 followed by further flight campaigns. Barracuda offered an operating radius of up to124.274 miles, a maximum flight speed of Mach 0.6, and its test instrumentation can weigh up to 661.387 pounds. The system engineering design dispenses with hydraulic components and uses electro-mechanical actuators instead.
The Barracuda has for the last ten years (2003-2013) been a UAV demonstrator test platform for Cassidian. France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Greece and Spain, funded the Dassault nEUROn, which was to be a competitor to the Barracuda. In addition, the Barracuda competes with Lockheed Martin’s RQ-3 Dark Star, General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, and BAE’s Corax (Raven) and Taranis.
On January 30, 2014, Britain and France signed a two-year research contract to independently develop and manufacture their own-armed military drones. According to the RT overseas press, “The UK currently operates its unmanned aerial vehicle program out of the United States due to restrictions for using the craft in European airspace. France, meanwhile, has bought drones from US-based General Atomics for its year-long military operation in Mali.” According to Daniel Michaels of the Wall Street Journal, British firm BAE Systems, Europe’s biggest defense company and France’s Dassault Aviation, have been seeking seed money for a joint large drone prototype to compete with U.S. UAV manufacturers. In 2003, Dassault announced the “nEUROn” project with several EU partner countries. A prototype was flown in December 2013. BAE could not test its “Taranis” in the UK and did so in Australia. Chief Executive of BAE Eric Trappier was quoted on October 9, 2013, “We have our own ideas, but without a state program the manufacturers can’t do much. We have been in this situation for 14 years.”
China has already displayed a list of over 100 military drones but they are not verified. India’s Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL) is the top contender for the mini-unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for the Indian Army's Northern Command, which is close to the Pakistan border. TASL vice-president Sukaran Singh said that the company was approached by several original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) work related to aircraft components.
Future of Drone Surveillance – Guns into Plowshares
Drones have existed for many centuries. In the 1930s, they were used for target practice. Today the technology aboard an unmanned aerial vehicle (or UAV) is all about using surveillance to improve infrastructure security, safety, and efficiency. The use of military drone technology can fit into application needs of a thriving society. For example, applications ranging from homeland security, disaster response, law enforcement, search and rescue, geological applications, environment protection,communication, entertainment, statistical survey of traffic and road efficiency, forecast of farming production, collection of database for urban planning, verification of cultivated areas with government subsidies have made drones a growth civilian industry.
For many years, European universities have already been studying the use of drones to perform various research studies such as Aerial Photography UAV, Aerial Inspection with micro drones, Aerial Surveillance with micro drones, Aerial Mapping Services / GIS UAV, Aerial Video with micro drones, Aerial Security with micro drones, Aerial Scientific Services with micro drones, and Aerial Search & Rescue UAV.
In December 2013, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration selected a handful of universities and state agencies to operate sites for drone testing, in a step toward eventually integrating commercial unmanned aircraft into the U.S. aviation system. The research to begin in June 2014 will be conducted by industry experts and academics on the safe operation of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, across a broad array of geographical areas, climates, and types of airspace. The six sites selected are the commerce department of North Dakota; the state of Nevada; a public airport some 250 miles north of New York City; the University of Alaska; Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi; and a partnership between Virginia Tech and Rutgers University. The Alaska team headed by the University of Alaska envisions 14 pan-Pacific ranges for airborne experiments and includes partners in Hawaii and Oregon. The FAA work is expected to target everything from federal certification of the safety of commercial drones to the reliability of air-to-ground communication links to verifying a generation of new, lower-cost sensors designed to avoid midair collisions. The U.S. Congress mandated the FAA to do research into integrating drones with civilian airspace.” Routine flights by tens of thousands of government and commercial drones are not expected until at least 2025”, based on industry analysis and previous comments by Michael Huerta, Director of the FAA. Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania Departments of Engineering are already experimenting with micro UAVs, some the size of a U.S. penny are called robo-bugs. These devices will be inexpensive to produce on a large scale and used in areas like buildings on fire, contaminated areas, and collapsed structures. Government agencies want to use UAV technology for traffic monitoring, environmental sensing, wildfire spotting, and wildlife tracking. Door to door drones that can deliver books are already happening in China and in Australia. Domino’s Pizza is experimenting with delivering pizzas in the UK. Germany is already delivering medication by drones.
In Conclusion – The Good and the Vigilant
Drones and special operations forces will be the key preferred tool of U.S. hard military power. Protecting Americans from terrorist that seek to harm them requires early action, even stealth, and early strike action before even knowing that the threat is imminent. Osama bin Laden’s strategy was to use terrorism to shock and thus destroy the structure of American society and its government’s military ability to strike back. With the death of Osama bin Laden, the American public feels safer today. The American public demands zero risk of a terrorist attack in the homeland. Drones are the ideal, poll-tested counter terrorism policy. Drones are cheap, effective, and do their killing far away from the homeland.
Drones are keeping Americans safe while limiting overseas commitments. NATO has become the new edge of the spear in flash points such as Libya, Tunisia, Syria, Yemen, Nigeria, to name a few. These are the strategic and tactical needs motivating Europe to push for their own manufactured drones that they can control the battlefield using their Galileo Navigation constellation. In addition, China is also seeing the importance of drones and the military rational for its BeiDou Navigation Constellation. If Iraq and Afghanistan become terrorist states, drones will play an important part. They will keep the Taliban leaders moving in fear and hinder further al Qaeda’s ability to destroy western civilization.
President Barak Obama spoke at the January 28, 2014 State of the Union the following: “As Commander-in-Chief, I have used force when needed to protect the American people, and I will never hesitate to do so as long as I hold this office…”
Once a hellfire missile releases on a target, it cannot be called back. Security of a nation always rest in the hands of commanders who reluctantly uses force to secure the peace. As Aristotle said, “War, as the saying goes, is full of false alarms. We make war so that we may live in peace.”
On August 21, 2015Mary Ellen O'Connell, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame said, "Drone attacks beyond armed conflict zones are unlawful for all U.S. personnel. Attacks within armed conflict zones – Iraq – are lawful for U.S. military personnel only." The CIA operatives in Yemen, Syria, Qatar, or Jordan have not followed these restrictions. Under George W. Bush legislation was passed by Congress in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks that gave any U.S. President the power to use drone attacks anywhere in the world. Barak Hussein Obama has ordered massive drone attacks in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. O'Connell speaking like a PR agent stated that “drone technology was seductive”. The law professor O’Connell spoke that "They (U.S. Presidents) may be tempted in the future to move contractors from assisting with drone maintenance and the like to killing with them." The University of Notre Dame is not noted for its legal scholarship, but follows a progressive socialist admissions policy. UAV makers such as General Atomics could fly armed drones on behalf of the military to attack civilians in various North American, Eastern European countries or in the Middle East. U.S. President Obama did not follow O’Connell’s legal view of drones and used drones to kill hundreds in various war zones-it is cheaper and dramatic. FAA’s approval of drones could result in home-grown Syrian terrorist using these simple machines to bomb buildings with simple wireless GPS remote control.
The U.S. Bush or Obama Administration has not been known to use common sense and regulate the civilian use of drones. Silicon Valley firms such as Apple, Yahoo, and Google want to find new markets as the Chinese and Koreans take over the U.S. smart appliance manufacturing processes. For Silicon Valley Venture driven firms, civilian use of drones using the Android or Apple Operating system is the natural next step in their quest to raise revenue. We must remember that drones are silent agents of war.
During war, the laws are silent. -Quintus Tullius Cicero
