On Wednesday 20 November, the Defence Secretary John Healey announced in the House of Commons that the UK was scrapping its entire fleet of Watchkeeper drones bringing to an end to the sorry saga of this drone programme.
Anyone who has been following the Drone Wars blog over the last 14 years will be well aware of the failings of Watchkeeper. Based on the Israeli Hermes 450 drone, Watchkeeper was built by a joint venture company (U-TacS) owned 50-50 by the Israeli company Elbit Systems and Thales UK.
While the UK’s armed Reaper drones are operated by the Royal Air Force, the unarmed watchkeepers were bought for the British Army with the intention of undertaking short-medium range surveillance in order to conduct artillery strikes.
Fifty-four of the drones were built under a 2004, £1bn contract which was supposed to see “world-class” drones, operated by the army in Afghanistan by mid-2010. Long delays saw only four of the drones deployed to Afghanistan for four weeks in 2014, conducting around 140 hours of surveillance as British forces withdrew from Camp Bastion.
Since then, apart from one short deployment in the UK, the 50 plus Watchkeeper drones have either flown on training flight, mostly in the UK or Cyprus (despite being marketed as an all-weather system, it performs poorly in ‘adverse’ weather) or simply kept in storage. The UK deployment was to support Border Force operations to curb refugees crossings the channel. According to responses to our FoI requests at the time, a total of 21 flights were conducted in September and October 2022.
Crashes of Watchkeeper drones
| Date | Type | Tail No. | Where | Source | Status |
| Nov 10, 2022 | Watchkeeper | N/A | United States | Press | Destroyed |
| May 29, 2022 | Watchkeeper | N/A | Off Cyprus | Press | Destroyed |
| Oct 14, 2020 | Watchkeeper | WK044 | Cyprus | Press | Unknown |
| Jun 13, 2018 | Watchkeeper | N/A | Aberporth | Press | Destroyed |
| Mar 24, 2017 | Watchkeeper | N/A | Irish Sea | Press | Destroyed |
| Feb 3, 2017 | Watchkeeper | N/A | Irish Sea | Press | Destroyed |
| Nov 2, 2015 | Watchkeeper | WK006 | Salisbury | Press | Destroyed |
| Oct 16, 2014 | Watchkeeper | WH031 | Aberporth | FoI | Withdrawn |
Military Technophilia
While it would be fair to say that there have been particular problems with the Watchkeeper programme, the dominant narrative that sophisticated military technology is the answer to a wide array of political and security issues is also an important element here.
In the aftermath of 9/11, the US use of Predators to conduct armed strikes at great distance drew headlines and political interest in this new military technology. Drones, it was soon being argued, were the solution to global terrorism, and the UK used its leverage with the US to acquire its own armed system, the Reaper.
Although the British army already had disastrous experience with using drones (the Phoenix, nicknamed ‘the bugger-off’ as it frequently never returned), it was decided that the army too had to have the latest ‘must have’ bit of kit. Cost, it seemed, was no object and capability after capability was loaded on to the Watchkeeper UAV with the result that, according to some of the crash reports, it became hugely overcomplicated to operate.
While Watchkeepers continued to fall out of the sky, as recently as April 2024, the MoD was still insisting that it was a “powerful” and “successful” programme.
The debate about security threats has become so dominated by the military industry that is has now become an article of faith within the political establishment that global peace and security lies in procuring evermore sophisticated military technology. Politician after politician, with very few exceptions, promises to ensure that we have the best, biggest, newest weapon system. Any alternative to this treadmill has become unthinkable.
The forthcoming Strategic Defence Review will likely repeat the mantra that we need more military technology – drones, AI, Hypersonic weapons, human augmentation – to ensure our peace and security. The reality, as Professor Paul Rogers has argued is that such programmes are mere ‘lid-ism’, not designed in any way to address the underlying causes of conflict, but rather ‘to keep the lid on’ – to keep the poor, poor and the rich, rich.
Watchkeeper may only be remembered as a procurement disaster. Or more likely, like its predecessor The Phoenix, quickly forgotten in the hullabaloo around yet another new piece of military technology.