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ABSTRACT
Few innovations have marked the late-20th and early-21st centuries more than unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones. Drones’ current preeminence leads many to assume that their development was teleologically determined by technological advances. The empirical record, however, belies such assumptions and is filled with vicissitudes. The Air Force’s and Naval aviation’s pilot-dominated hierarchies never prioritized drones over manned aircraft of their own accord. Politicians, meanwhile, lacked the expertise to judge what technologies could achieve and therefore could not compel the military to embrace drones. It was, thus, competition from other organizations – the CIA, the Navy’s surface warfare community and the Army –that obliged reluctant aviators to embrace drones. My study’s key original finding is that inter-agency competition impels militaries to embrace technologies that they would otherwise reject. Warfare’s evolution means that non-military bodies – intelligence agencies, interior ministries and paramilitary forces – develop capabilities that rival those of traditional military services in specific domains and these organizations can prove more agile at adopting certain new technologies because of their flatter organizational structures.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the many individuals who helped bring this research to its completion. Six extremely talented research assistants—Gemma Walls, Joseph Duncan, Oona Singh, Carine Ghannoum, Eilidh Urquhart, and Rory Langan—provided invaluable help when it came to assessing the diffusion of drone technology beyond the United States. Matthew Valla, meanwhile, contributed immensely to my understanding of drone technologies and spent much time debating with me the relative weight of inter-service versus inter-agency rivalry. Ash Rossiter, Jordan Becker, Michael Hunzeker and Olivier Schmidt have all contributed to my evolving thinking on military innovation more broadly, with Ash deserving special acknowledgements for organizing this special issue. While all of these individuals contributed to my thinking, any errors are my own.
Disclosure statement
There are no conflicts of interest.
Notes
1. Ailleret, L’art de la guerre et la technique, 23.
2. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine.
3. Ibid., 220–44.
4. Zisk, Engaging the Enemy; and Rynning, Changing Military Doctrine.
5. Evangelista, Innovation and the Arms Race.
6. Rosen, Winning the Next War.
7. Corum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg.
8. Evans and Peattie, Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology.
9. Kuehn, Agents of Innovation.
10. Gundmundsson, Stormtroop Tactics.
11. Doubler, Closing with the Enemy.
12. Katzenbach Jr., “The Horse Cavalry.”
13. Ibid., 149.
14. Builder, The Masks of War.
15. Kier, Imagining War; and Johnson, Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers.
16. Humphreys, The Way of the Heavenly Sword; and Cameron, American Samurai.
17. Coulam, Illusions of Choice.
18. Armacost, The Politics of Weapons Innovation.
19. Coté, The Politics of Innovative Military Doctrine.
20. Ibid., 79.
21. Ibid., 77.
22. Richelson, The Wizards of Langley.
23. Tanguy, Missions Extrêmes, 11–27.
24. Ibid., 31–79.
25. Newcome, Unmanned Aviation, 35–38.
26. Ibid., 71.
27. Peebles, Shadow Flights, 96–132.
28. Miller, The 99th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, 38.
29. Ibid., 25–26.
30. Ibid., 26.
31. Rich and Janos, Skunk Works, 262.
32. CIA, “SD-5 Drone Characteristics and Capabilities.”
33. Miller, The 99th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, 61–70.
34. Xiaoping, The PLA Air Force, 54–70.
35. Ehrhard, Air Force UAV’s, 9.
36. NRO, Annual Report on Activities of the National Reconnaissance Program.
37. Xiaoping, The PLA Air Force, 71–72.
38. Ibid., 73.
39. Kissinger, Air Reconnaissance of South China.
40. Xiaoping, The PLA Air Force, 71.
41. Emerson, Air War Over North Vietnam, 49–50.
42. Wagner, Lightning Bugs, 70.
43. Ibid., 97–98.
44. Newcome, Unmanned Aviation, 86.
45. Barkan, “The Robot Air Force is About to Take Off,” 281.
46. Wagner and Sloan, Fireflies and Other UAVs, 117–18; and Ehrhard, Air Force UAV’s, 32–34.
47. Rich and Janos, Skunk Works, 262–70.
48. Wagner and Sloan, Fireflies and Other UAVs, 50.
49. Ibid., 51–54.
50. Ibid., 63–64.
51. Cohen, Israel’s Best Defense, 429.
52. Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon, 60–104.
53. Clary, The Bekaa Valley – A Case Study, 9–11.
54. Halloran, “US Buys Israeli Pilotless Planes.”
55. Yenne, Attack of the Drones, 37.
56. Ibid., 53.
57. Ibid., 54.
58. Carr and Keane, “A Brief History of Early Unmanned Aircraft,” 569.
59. Refer to: “Intelligence Successes and Failures in Operations Desert Shield/Storm.” Report of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, Committee on Armed Services (U.S. House of Representatives, 1993), 9. Available at: https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a338886.pdf.
60. Yenne, Attack of the Drones, 54.
61. Ibid., 49–51.
62. Ibid., 47–49.
63. Ibid., 71–76.
64. Fuller, See it, Shoot it, 105.
65. Ibid., 112–13.
66. Jones, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 43.
67. Ibid., 32.
68. GAO, Aquila Remotely Piloted Vehicle.
69. Whittle, Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution, 91.
70. Ibid., 99–101.
71. Ehrhard, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 541.
72. Ibid., 543.
73. Testimony of Charles Heber (DARPA), Senate Armed Services Committee, 9 April 1997. Available online at: https://www.darpa.mil/attachments/TestimonyArchived(April%209%201997).pdf.
74. Whittle, Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution, 111.
75. Fuller, See it, Shoot it, 114.
76. Testimony of Charles Heber.
77. Whittle, Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution, 113.
78. Ibid., 112.
79. Ibid., 113.
80. Ibid.
81. Benjamin Lambeth, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo, 94.
82. Ibid., 97.
83. Fuller, See it, Shoot it, 116.
84. Merlin, Ikhana: Unmanned Aircraft System, 4–5.
85. Harkins, X-45: Uninhabited Combat Air Vehicle, 19–21.
86. Ibid., 10.
87. Ibid., 75–83.
88. Whittle, Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution, 148–57.
89. Ibid., 182–231.
90. Ibid., 299.
91. Bone and Bolkcom, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 8.
92. GAO, Improved Strategic Planning, 2.
93. Harkins, X-45: Uninhabited Combat Air Vehicle, 79–83.
94. Bone and Bolkcom, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 35.
95. Mayer, “The Predator War.”
96. Whittle, Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution, 247–93.
97. “Just How Many Predator Drones.”
98. GAO, Improved Strategic Planning; and Bone and Bolkcom, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 30–31.
99. Bone and Bolkcom, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 41–43.
100. Weiner, “Evolution in the Post-Cold War Air Force,” 113.
101. See House Armed Services Committee, Hearing on Budget Request on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) And Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Capabilities (19 April 2007), 25. Available online at: https://fas.org/irp/congress/2007_hr/uav.pdf.
102. Ibid., 32–35; and Sevastopulo, “US Military in Dogfight Over Drones.”
103. Gates, Secretary Gates Remarks at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base.
104. Miles, “Gates Forms Task Force to Promote Intelligence.”
105. Shanker, “At Odds with Air Force.”
106. Barnes and Spiegel, “Air Force’s Top Leaders are Ousted.”
107. LaGrone, “U.S. Carriers Need New Lethal Unmanned Aircraft.”
108. Sherman, “Pentagon Sets Plan for New Bomber”; and Stevenson, “’Loyal Wingman’ Part of the Future of Air Combat.”
109. Bone and Bolkcom, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 8.
110. Gertler, U.S. Unmanned Aerial Systems, 10.
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Marc R. DeVore
Marc R. DeVore is Lecturer at the University of St. Andrews’ School of International Relations. Dr. DeVore also served as National Security Advisor to the President of the Central African Republic and an advisor to the President of Guniea-Bissau. He has published in the Review of International Political Economy, Security Studies, New Political Economy, Journal of Strategic Studies, Defence and Peace Economics, War in History, War in History, Comparative Strategy and Terrorism and Political Violence. He has conducted field research in the Balkans, Libya, Iraq, Lebanon and the Central African Republic.