Military Drones: Then and Now

I was first interested in the military side of drone technology when I started to follow it more than decade ago. One of the first instances of armed drones being used in a theater of conflict was back in 2002. The San-Diego based General Atomics design known as the ‘Predator RQ-1’ - which had been used previously in the Balkans conflict as aerial surveillance - was the machine that carried out the targeting killings of Al-Qaida militants on Yemenis soil.

Fast-forward to 2018 and now Chinese-made models are doing exactly same thing. A Chinese ‘Wing Loong II” drone controlled by Emirati forces targeted and destroyed an SUV carrying a top Shiite Houthi rebel official. The Chinese copy is comparable to the General Atomics ‘MQ-9 Reaper’ design which has been used by the US military across Afghanistan and Iraq. According to a top China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp executive: "In recent years, all types of drones have proven their value and importance through a high degree of use in warfare, and the military has noticed. Many countries are now speeding up the development for these weapons systems, including China.”

Due to weapons export controls, US drone technology has only been used by its closest allies such as France, Spain and the UK. This balance of power changes with the introduction of technology-capable, armed Chinese models. Not only are they considerably cheaper than US or Israeli-made drones but the communist Chinese have no qualms about selling them to despotic or criminal regimes. Chinese sales of armed drones are booming: They have been spotted at airfields in Jordan, the UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and even parked beside American models in Saudi Arabia. This has encouraged the US to drop their export controls for more of its allies - even for their armed versions.

In my opinion, the US are already working on versions (most likely with jet-engines) that will render the Chinese versions obsolete in the short-term. However, this will not discourage Beijing’s allocation of defense spending on their drone programs, potentially sparking an aerial robotic arms race between two world powers in the foreseeable future.

The American-made MQ-9 Reaper has been in service for almost a decade.

The Chinese made ‘Wing Loong II” seen at an arms bazaar - an obvious copy.