Why nations want drones

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Another Wikileaks revelation: other nations keep asking the US for drone aircraft. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Noah Shachtman of Wired Magazine about why those nations want drones, and what the proliferation of drone technology means for the future. Download MP3

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Lisa Mullins: Noah Shachtman edits Danger Room, that’s Wired Magazine’s national security blog. Noah, Danger Room has been looking through the Wikileaks cables and seeing what they reveal about drones and who has them and who wants them more specifically. What’s the most interesting and relevant information you found so far?

Noah Shachtman: I think the most interesting thing is that really everybody wants drones now. Any military worth its salt wants to get American armed drones not necessarily to fight any particular foe but just to show that their a modern military.

Mullins: And beyond being symbolic and beyond the appearance of being modern, how much more military might do drones give a country?

Shachtman: Well, it’s a different kind of military might because you don’t need to put a lot of troops on the ground. And so countries like Turkey are looking to get armed US drones so they can attack the Kurds over the border in Iraq. Countries like the United Arab Emirates are looking get armed drones in case of Iranian attacks. You know, just a bunch of different countries are looking to have them.

Mullins:  So who has drones already?

Shachtman:  Certainly all the big powers do, China, Russia, the US. Israel which was really the original drone maker has sold them to all different kinds of countries including Georgia and now to Russia so sort of both sides in that conflict.

Mullins: Right now in the United States it seems as if the countries that you’re mentioning, Turkey, United Arab Emirates are looking to the US to sell these drones. What companies here in the US would benefit if the US were to make a deal like this?

Shachtman:  Well the biggest maker of armed drones here in is General Atomics. They’re based in San Diego and they’re the ones that came up with the iconic Predator and Reaper drones that are now so active in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Iraq.

Mullins: And the amount of money that could be made?

Shachtman:  The cost per drone isn’t that much in defense terms. It may be only be a mere five or 10 million dollars but the real money comes in processing the video and processing all the intelligence information that drones gather. It’s kind of like the old razor blade model. They’ll give away the razor for free. It’s the razor blades that cost a lot of money and it’s kind of the same thing here with drones.

Mullins: Ok. So there’s good market potential here how about in terms of whether or not it’s a wise military strategy. Is it in US national interests for drone technology to proliferate?

Shachtman:  It may not be because right now the US is kind of the unchallenged master of the drone game but a number of other countries are quickly catching up. China recently had its big air show and debuted a number of drone models. Iran is working on a number of drones including one they call the quote unquote Ambassador Of Death. So there’s a lot of other countries that are really interested in this game and that’s going to challenge a bit of US military supremacy that American military planners have counted on for the last five or 10 years.

Mullins: How about drones being used specifically against the US or US interests or US military abroad?

Shachtman:  Right. It’s going to be a concern. It hasn’t been a concern here to fore but it’s almost undoubtedly going to be a concern in the future. Luckily the weak part about drones is they’re really easy to shoot down but that said, they’re also stealthy and they’re sometimes hard to spot so they could be a real worry for the US.

Mullins: What happens out there? I mean if you’re saying it could be a real worry for the United States what happens out there when everybody quote unquote must have drones?

Shachtman:  Well I think one of the things is that the US has enjoyed a unique advantage in that they kind of have a birds eye view of the battlefield in a place like Iraq and Afghanistan and that’s enabled the US really to operate with many fewer troops because they can position them in proper places. So, you know, that advantage might be taken away in a typical war time scenario. You know, obviously the US has been able to use drones to attack Al Qaeda and Al-Qaeda affiliated groups in Pakistan without a lot of troops on the ground. You know if all of a sudden they can turn around and without sacrificing many of their own do that to us, that’s a pretty nerve wracking development.

Mullins: All right. Noah Shachtman contributing editor at Wired Magazine and a fellow at the Brookings Institutions 21st century defense initiative, thank you.

Shachtman:  Thanks for having me

Mullins:  We’ve got a link to Wired Magazine’s Danger Room and it’s coverage of drones at the world dot org.

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