Drones

Military Drones are swarming the Skies of Ukraine and other Conflict Hot Spots – and Anything goes when it comes to International Law

By Tara Sonenshine, Tufts University | – Loud explosions rock the evening sky. Streaks of light appear like comets. Missiles rain down. Below, people scramble for cover. The injured are taken on stretchers – the dead, buried. That is daily life in Ukraine, where pilotless vehicles known as drones litter the sky in an endless […]

Drones

How Russian and Iranian Drone Strikes further dehumanize Warfare

The Conversation

By Jordan Richard Schoenherr, Concordia University | – Along with the recent reciprocal drone strikes by Iran and the United States in Syria, Russia continues to unleash its arsenal on Ukrainian civilian and military targets alike. While the Russian armies have started using outdated weapons, novel technologies remain the objects of fascination on the battlefield. […]

Arms Sales

Ukraine war: Iranian ‘kamikaze’ drones can inflict serious damage but will not be a gamechanger

The Conversation

By Dominika Kunertova, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich | – Many Ukrainians are facing the prospect of a winter of power outages after about 30% of the country’s power stations were knocked out in just over a week. The deputy head of the president’s office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, has warned that the country needs to […]

Arms Sales

Iranian drones used by Russia in Ukraine show that there’s already one Victor in that War: Iran

The Conversation

By Aaron Pilkington, University of Denver | – The war in Ukraine is helping one country achieve its foreign policy and national security objectives, but it’s neither Russia nor Ukraine. It’s Iran. That was starkly clear on the morning of Oct. 17, 2022, as Iranian-made drones attacked civilian targets in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. Russia used […]

Arms Sales

U.S. Lawmakers Demand Federal Scrutiny of How US Tech got into Turkey’s Drones

ProPublica

By Umar Farooq | – ( ProPublica ) – As countries around the globe add armed drones to their arsenals, federal lawmakers are pressing the Biden administration to investigate how U.S. parts and technology ended up in what has fast become one of the most popular models on the world market: Turkey’s TB2. Manufactured by […]

Arms Sales

A Powerful Turkish Drone Is Helping Ukraine Fight Russia. It’s Also Killing Civilians Across the Globe.

ProPublica

By Umar Farooq | – ( ProPublica) – Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was in a tough spot last August when he paid a visit to Turkey. For nearly a year, his government had been at war with rebels from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which was now pushing south from its stronghold near the […]

Drones

Why Iran’s Provision of Drones to Russia for Ukraine War is a Diplomatic Failure of the Biden Administration

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Biden’s National Security Advisor on Monday spoke of the goals of the president’s trip, which begins today, Tuesday, to the Middle East. I’ll have more to say about that tomorrow. But at the end of his remarks, Sullivan dropped a bombshell. He revealed that Iran is sending Unmanned Aerial […]

Drones

The Rise of the (Real) Murderbots and why we Need to Abolish Them before it is is too Late

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Here’s a scenario to consider: a military force has purchased a million cheap, disposable flying drones each the size of a deck of cards, each capable of carrying three grams of explosives — enough to kill a single person or, in a “shaped charge,” pierce a steel wall. They’ve been programmed […]

Afghanistan

“Worse than a Crime”: Pentagon Inspector finds Kabul Drone Strike Killing 10 not a Violation of Law (!)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Paul Handley of AFP reports that the US Air Force Inspector General, Lieutenant General Sami Said, found that a drone strike that mistakenly killed 10 civilian non-combatants, including 7 children, in Afghanistan on August 29 violated no laws, including the law of war. When Napoleon had the royalist Duc d’Enghein […]