PKSOI/GLOBAL TRENDS CASE STUDIES A Drone's Strike Away | Page 8

Case Study #1118-08
PKSOI TRENDS GLOBAL CASE STUDY SERIES
The military’s expansion of its drone program is based
partly on cost-effectiveness. 50 According to the De-
partment of Defense, “drones are generally cheaper to
acquire and operate than conventional fighter jets.” 51
However, critics question whether or not they pres-
ent an operational advantage: “whether the strategic
advantage and human protection afforded by the use of
drones in overseas operations outweighs the potential
security threat posed by high crash rates and growing
backlash in target environments.” 52
According to The Washington Post, between 2001 and 2014, more than 400 military drones were involved in accidents
and 49% of them were considered Class A accidents in which the aircraft was destroyed or the damage incurred cost at
least $2 million. 53 The crash rate in 2015 doubled that of 2014. When fully equipped, the estimated cost to replace one
of these drones in 2017 is about $14 million. 54
Objective metrics in the evaluation of strategic advantages are hard to come by. While drones are capable of loitering
unmanned for hours collecting intelligence, they collect more intelligence than could possibly be analyzed by humans.
Drone contractor Sean Varah of MotionDSP admits that, while drones are excellent at getting “eyes on” denied or
restricted places at no risks to humans and can collect data over a long period of time, they are better at gathering data
than they are at producing answers.
Drones help identify who, what, when and where for humans to calculate the why and make informed deci-
sions on how to take action…You might be amazed at how much human effort this process still takes and how
labor-intensive it is, even in today’s technologically advanced world. The military deploys thousands of man-
hours to do the processing and analysis work. Of course, they have the manpower, and the work is sensitive. If
you are providing oversight for an infantry platoon entering a hostile area, and you need to identify threats,
make sure the soldiers don’t meet any surprises, and alert them of unforeseen factors; you’re not going to rely on
a computer algorithm alone to do that.” 55
Adds Joe Eyerman, Senior Director of the Research Triangle Institute’s (RTI) Center for Security, Defense, and Safety
and Co-Director of Black Channel, a company conducting R&D to validate drones for regulatory agencies in the US
and the European Union: “Drones are essentially high powered and flexible data collection tools. They are having an
immediate impact on surveillance, but the truly disruptive impact will come from the massive amount of data that will
be generated by drone deliveries and autonomous vehicles.” 56
Drone Strikes
Immediately after the attacks on 9/11, Predators were deployed to Afghanistan to support the “boots on the ground.” 57
When conventional military strategies began to fail in Afghanistan and later on in Iraq, the US military and intelligence
agencies expanded their use of drones to carry out targeted and selected attacks on key leaders of terrorist organizations
and their followers. Famously, in September 2011, a fleet of Predator and Reaper drones killed Anwar al-Awlaki, al-Qae-
da’s chief propagandist and strategist, who was the mastermind behind a number of high-profile plots, including the
2009 “underwear bomber,” a 23-year old Nigerian national who attempted to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his
underwear on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day 58 and a 2010 attempt to bring down cargo aircraft
with exploding toner cartridges. 59
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