Drones Present Long-term Strategic Challenge

For students of military affairs attuned to changes in warfare and the application of force in international relations, no topics command more eager attention at the moment than the use of drones and cyberspace by the US to strike its’ enemies. Fueling the contentious international debate about the use of these technologies is that drones and cyber-attacks are widely mistaken for policies in themselves instead of tools or weapons used to pursue a policy. This confusion unfortunately obscures the more important strategic implications that drones and cyber warfare together represent, at a time when they are still in their technological infancy. As the lumbering WWI tanks rolling slowly over trenches on the Western Front foreshadowed the next war’s Panzer blitzkrieg, the convergence of drones and cyber weapons may herald a darker future.