Host Per Fagereng speaks with Tom Engelhardt, co-author with Nick Turse of the new book, "Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050."
The drone has been a remarkable fantasy weapon -- our version of Terminator planet -- and a blood-stained one as well. Increasingly, however, its reality is proving grimly mundane and far less like that of a sci-fi movie. But drones remain the weak sisters of the weapons world. They tend to crash at an alarming rate due to weather, mechanical failures, and computer glitches, leaving shattered silver-screen techno-dreams of cheap, error-free, futuristic warfare in the dust.” The Holy Grail of drone ops, the ability of an aircraft to linger over suspected target areas for long durations, has similarly proven disappointingly limited.
In other words drones are quickly turning from can-do into can’t-do weapons. And yet, they are also proliferating. Engelhardt and Turse say tomorrow’s drone warfare will likely mean ‘more’ in one other area: more dead civilians.
- KBOO