Airpower and Drones: An Excerpt
By War is Boring has published a short excerpt of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force. The excerpt is taken from the chapter on drones, and stems from one of my biggest frustrations with the extant drone debate; the lack of sufficient connection to the history of airpower theory and practice.
The novelty of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles can obscure how well they fit within traditional air power theory. Drones’ capacity for combining persistent surveillance with precision-guided munitions makes them useful for air campaigns designed to detach the sinews of enemy military and governmental institutions.
Indeed, if neoclassical air power theory is about leveraging intelligence and surveillance to achieve political and strategic effect, drones are ideal platforms. Drones’ vulnerability to surface and air attack—at least by sophisticated opponent—is ameliorated by their lower material and human costs.