This paper is published with permission from the Center for a New American Security. By Paul Scharre, Michael C. Horowitz, and Kelly Sayler On April 13-17, delegates to the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) will discuss lethal autonomous weapon systems, an emerging technology that raises significant legal, moral, ethical, …
By Jason Gregg Drones are becoming a common feature in war. Israeli air operations in Gaza and U.S. operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and, most recently, in Syria, suggest that the use of armed drones in combat will likely continue to expand. The proliferation of armed drones is also set to accelerate, particularly …
By Arthur Holland Michel On Thursday March 19, the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, home to such iconic aircraft as the Enola Gay, the Spirit of St. Louis, the SR-71 Blackbird (which travelled from Los Angeles to its final home in D.C. in 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 20 …
By Anna Hadfield “What I have to say is openly polemical,” writes Grégoire Chamayou in the introduction of A Theory of the Drone, translated from the French by Janet Lloyd, “for, over and above the possible analytical contributions this book may make, its objective is to provide discursive weapons for …
By Arthur Holland Michel On February 5, 2003, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations General Assembly in order to describe in detail the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein was supposedly developing in Iraq. This speech is now infamous, and the the inaccurate statements about …
By Arthur Holland Michel As the February 27 deadline for Congress to approve an appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security approaches, and the prospect of a last-minute deal becomes smaller, it is worth considering whether a DHS shutdown would affect the Customs and Border Protection drone program. The …
This post is part of a series of posts and resources on drones and the world of intelligence. For a complete guide to drone hunting, click here. For resources on how to find and spot drones, click here. For our Multimedia Portal on drones and intelligence, click here. A version of this story …
This post is part of a series of posts and resources on drones and the world of intelligence. For an in-depth look at the U.S. communications infrastructure at the heart of drone operations, click here. For resources on how to find and spot drones, click here. For our Multimedia Portal on drones and …
By Arthur Holland Michel Last Sunday, the Federal Aviation Administration unveiled a draft set of rules for the non-recreational use of drones in domestic U.S. airspace. The FAA recognizes that its proposed rules are not perfect, and that they could be greatly improved with a little help of the public. …
The Portals are multimedia collections covering a variety of issues on drones. We have assembled collections of audio and video recordings of academic lectures, debates, roundtables, and policy speeches that will familiarize our readers with a range of topics, from the history of aviation to counterterrorism strategy. We hope that …
By Dan Gettinger, @GettDan An abundance of books on drones have been published this year. These publications deal with a host of issues ranging from the legal and ethical dimensions of targeted killing to practical guides for budding drone hobbyists. A few of these books take a longer view of the …
By Chanterelle Menashe Ribes Auschwitz Overlooked As aerial sensor technology proliferates, Harun Farocki’s film Images of the World and the Inscription of War (1988), which interrogates our capacity to see freely in a world of mass-produced and computer-produced imagery, is a film worth revisiting. This visual essay opens with the story …
