Nightfall and the Cloud: Examining the Future of Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles and Remotely Piloted Aircraft
Abstract
In early 2008, the United States began a dramatic increase in the use of remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) as part of the global war on terrorism. Since that time, there has been no shortage of scholarly articles on and public discussion of the legal implications of RPAs, the hazards of their employment in military campaigns, or the prospects for the diffusion of RPA technology. The debate over these aircraft and future unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) is generally one of extremes, much as the one about the value of air warfare more generally for the past century. As early airpower advocates extolled the potential of the air weapon to bring about a decisive end to conflict through the threat of aerial bombardment, critics decried the human suffering that would inevitably result and sought to ban the practice outright.1 Experiences of the twentieth century would demonstrate how airpower advocates overestimated the likelihood of success of strategic bombing given the technologies available at the time, with doctrines and technology catching up to the theory in the 1990s at the earliest.2
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2015
- Accession Number
- ADA624261
Entities
People
- Michael P. Kreuzer
Organizations
- Air and Space Power Journal