Drone Warfare: History, Evolution and Future

Krutika Patil

Ms Krutika Patil is Research Assistant for the Project on Cyber Security at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. read more

When Tesla and SpaceX Founder Elon Musk, in a room full of US Air Force personnel, asserted that autonomous drone warfare is the future and will replace fighter jets, it sparked a controversial but crucial debate.1 The decade post 9/11 saw the proliferation of drones in the military domain. Drones and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been used extensively to disable conventional weapon systems in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Ukraine. Hence comes the conundrum of replaceability and disruptiveness of conventional warfare vis-à-vis drone warfare. UAVs are a ‘product of deep integration of technology and Information systems’.2 Further, rapid advancements in cloud computing, big data, networking, and artificial intelligence have propelled the desirability of using drones due to their superior surveillance and strike capabilities.

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