Photo by Iwan Gabovitch | CC BY 2.0
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more and more and more—— Lewis Carroll, “The Walrus and the Carpenter” (1871)
Over 75 states possess unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly called drones. We know of fifteen states which possessed armed drones at the end of 2016. They are the US, UK, China, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Africa, and Turkey.
Deadly Toys
As you read this, ISIS drones are dropping bombs on the Iraqi city of Mosul. ISIS has had surveillance drones at least since 2014. On August 23, 2014, a video was posted to YouTube which showed aerial footage of a Syrian army base. An on screen caption proclaimed “From the drone of the army of the Islamic State.”
Now ISIS has armed drones. The New York Times reported that in October 2016 Kurdish forces in Iraq shot down an ISIS drone “the size of a model airplane.” The drone exploded on examination, killing two Kurdish troops. The Times said this was “believed to be one of the first times the Islamic State has successfully used a drone with explosives to kill troops on the battlefield.”
ISIS has brought a new weapon into the world: the “flying IED” (improvised explosive device). Blake Baiers, writing at RealClear Defense, comments that “ISIS is mimicking the U.S. military’s multi-billion dollar drone program by using off-the-shelf hobby drones and plastic…