Tag: Drone proliferation

Drones at DSEi 2011

Chris Cole
BAE Sytems Mantis drone at DSEi 2011

Drones were big news at this year’s DSEi arms fair, with many of the smaller ‘niche’ players launching new product and the ‘big boys’ showing off their wares and engaging in verbal fisticuffs about whose drone was  biggest/ brightest/best.

BAE Systems displayed their Mantis drone at the fair and were reportedly “confident” that their proposed new drone, dubbed Telemos (to be developed jointly with Dassault) would win the contract for the UK’s next generation drone.  EADS, meanwhile, the other giant of the European military industry is fighting its corner for its own drone; Talarion.  Fox News reported that the EADS CEO was “furious” that France is apparently going to choose the BAE Systems/Dassault proposal.
EADS reaction is so strong because they do not want to be left out of what many see as the key market in the global arms trade over the next few years.  While the new UK-France drone contract is estimated to be worth  between £1bn -£2bn, the global drone market over the next three years alone has recently been predicted to be worth around $14bn.  With Israel companies and US drone giant General Atomics already firmly

iStart mini-drone from Blue Bear Ltd

established in the market, winning funds to develop a future European combat drone is vital for these military corporations.  Many, not least the UK’s Defence Minister Peter Luff, has predicted that there will be no more ‘manned’ aircraft developed after this current generation of fighters; the future they suggest is drone.

Increasingly it is not just the large military companies involved in the drone wars.  Smaller companies are also seeking to get their foot in the door.  For example Blue Bear, a Bedford-based company launched a new ‘man-portable’ drone called iStart at DSEi.  As reported in Shephard News:

The platform can go ‘from box to launch in under five minutes’ and the only time-consuming thing during a mission is ‘waiting for the GPS’.  [It] has a ‘shake and start’ engine, a 40 minute endurance, and folded wings for easy carriage. It is derived from the company’s larger Black Star, of which the UK MoD is a customer.   It was developed in 18 months with police input, and is ultimately designed for special forces operations, [Company spokesperson] Williams-Wynn said.

An excellent article on other small drones on show at DSEi this year, including Spy Arrow, Shirk and Switchblade can be read here at the National Defense Magazine blog.

Thales, joint manufacturer of the new Watchkeeper drone along with Israeli company Elbit, were also at the arms fair and promoting Watchkeeper .  Below you can watch a short clip of Nick Miller – Thales business director for UAVs – promoting Watchkeeper during the DSEI fair (clip from flightglobal.com)

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posted with vodpod

The much delayed Watchkeepers  are (finally) due to come into service by the end of 2011 and will gradually  replace the Hermes 450 drones that the UK has been renting from Israel for the past four years.  This of course creates  a business ‘opportunity’ – anybody want to buy a squadron of second-hand, slightly used Israeli drones?  Elbit, it seems are open to offers.

Meanwhile, Qinetiq, were promoting their ‘West Wales UAV Centre’  – where the Watchkeeper drone is currently being tested – at DSEi.    The owners of the centre at Parc Aberporth,  site of a number of protests against drones already , are keen to attract more drone manufacturers.  While each individual Watchkeeper drone  will undergo testing at Parc Aberporth until at least 2014, it appears there is still plenty of room for more drones –  and no doubt more protests.

Speaking of which, the Fellowship of Reconciliation and SPEAK organised a protest outside General Atomics’ London office during the DSEi arms fair.  The manufacturers of the Predator and Reaper drone were curiously absent from DSEi this year – so protesters went to visit them.  Below you can seen Amy Hailwood of FoR speaking about drones against the background of the protest.

DSEi Does Drones

Chris Cole

Thousands of military buyers will descend on London next week to be wooed, wined and dined by military salesmen from the world’s largest arms companies. Many of those buyers will arrive with the same item at the top of their shopping list: drones.

Since the last Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEi) arms fair in 2009, drones have become the latest ‘must have’ weapon and companies large and small are plying their drone wars (sorry, wares) at this year’s show. Of course the word ‘drone’ is unlikely to pass any self-respecting military salesman’s lips; ‘Unmanned Aerial Vehicle’ (UAV) or preferably’ Remotely Piloted Aerial System’ (RPAS) are the de-rigueur terms when it come to striking deals – at least in public.

Recognising the huge desire for drones, DSEi have created the ‘Robotics and Unmanned Systems Showcase’; a special “football pitch-sized” dedicated arena that will be used for demonstrations of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and UAVs during the show.  DSEi Exhibition Director, Duncan Reid, said,

“The Unmanned Systems market is an area of tremendous growth and our feature area will provide both exhibitors and visitors with a real opportunity to interact, see some of the latest technologies and gain a deeper understanding of how these types of robots can help in the battlespace.”

As part of ‘the show’ DSEi have teamed up with the QinetiQ West Wales UAV Centre (WWUAVC) to produce what they call a “scenario-based programme of indoor unmanned systems demonstrations”. What this will be is not exactly clear at this stage but it sounds worryingly like salesmen will remotely piloting drones over Wales from the DSEi arms fair.

Drones on display at the show will include BAE Systems’ autonomous Mantis drone, the Global Hawk from Northrop Grumman, the new Watchkeeper drone built jointly between Israeli company Elbit and Thales UK; and the Dominator drone (presumably as close as they could name it to ‘the Terminator’ without infringing copyright) from Diamond Airborne Sensing. Strangely however, there seems to be no sign of General Atomics or its Predator, Reaper or Avenger drones at this year’s DSEi.

However it is not just the big boys that will have their drones out. Many smaller companies are also getting involved from Middlesex University students and their ‘SQ-4’ drone to companies like Sky-Futures who “recruit UAV system experts and sells UAVs in the military and civilian markets” and like to boast they come to “DSEi via Sandhurst, Iraq and Afghanistan.”

For more details about what is happening at DSEi this year  – and how to get involved in the protests against it, visit Stop the Arms Fair.

London Catholic Worker Protestors at DSEI 2009

Doubling the Drones

Chris Cole

The rise of the drone seems to know no bounds.  Just months after David Cameron’s pledge to double the UK’s Reaper drone fleet, the latest US military aircraft procurement plan shows that the Pentagon is also planning to double number of large US military drones over the next decade.

According to the document “the number of platforms in this category — RQ-4 Global Hawk-class, MQ-9 Reaper, and MQ-1 Predator-class unmanned aircraft systems — will grow from approximately 340 in FY 2012 to approximately 650 in FY 2021.”  Danger Room reports that

 “the U.S. aerospace industry is scrambling to meet the Pentagon’s huge appetite for unmanned planes.  In the last two years, no fewer than three new killer drones have begun flight testing. Boeing’s X-45C , Northrop’s X-47B and General Atomics’ Avenger are all vying for new Air Force and Navy contracts. Northrop and Boeing also recently unveiled new, high-flying, long-endurance spy ‘bots”.

It’s not only the major military corporation working on drones.  Many smaller companies are also working to develop small, weaponised drones such as the Arcturus T-20 UAV.  And, of course, it is not only the US and UK developing new drones with China recently testing a new unmanned helicopter, the V750.

Meanwhile drone strikes continue in Pakistan.  A drone strike on a compound on Friday 3rd June killed nine people allegedly including  Ilyas Kashmiri, a key al Qaeda operative in Pakistan.  However Kasmiri was previously announced to have been killed in a US drone strike in 2009 and the Long War Journal has raised serious doubts about the announcement of his death this time.  On Monday 6th June three separate drone strikes in North Waziristan in one day killed between 19 and 24 people.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported this week that “fissures have opened within the Obama administration over the drone program targeting militants in Pakistan.”   However it seems that while “a slowdown in drone strikes was debated  [at] a meeting on Thursday…. CIA Director Leon Panetta made the case for maintaining the current program.”   The WSJ report continues that the result of the meeting was “a decision to continue the program as is for now.”   Hardly, a fissure then.

An excellent Channel Four Dispatches documentary this week looked at the targeted killing programme in Afghanistan and Pakistan being undertaken by the US military using special forces and drones.  It can be viewed here:  America’s Secret Killers

US set to Dominate Expanding Drone Market, Little Sympathy for the Victims

Chris Cole

A recent study by the Teal Group has predicted that spending on UAVs will double  in the decade 2010 – 2020, with total spending on drones in the decade to be around $94 billion. (see graph below)

The report also predicts that the US will dominate the military drone industry, spending 77% of the world’s total UAV Research & Development and 69% of the total spending on UAV procurement.   “US dominance will stem from its greater investment in cutting-edge technologies and its head start over other major aerospace centres such as Europe” says Flight International.   

After the USA, the biggest spending region will be Asia Pacific, closely followed by Europe. Africa and Latin America will be modest spenders.   (The future wasn’t so bright however for a  Filipino man who tried to sell an unarmed Raven drone on ebay recently.  He was arrested by the US Department of Homesecurity agent posing as a buyer.  Unlike the CEO’s of the main UAV companies, he now faces 20 years in prison.) 

Meanwhile neither  apologies nor explanations have been forthcoming from the US for the massacre of forty civilians in a US drone strike in Pakistan last week.    The attack, which as we reported, brought forth condemnation even from senior Pakistan military officials has been dismissed by  an anonymous US official  as “These people weren’t gathering for a bake sale.”

As human rights lawyer, Chris Rogers says in a thoughtful piece fo the Huffington Post:

Such is the typical U.S. explanation and legal justification of its drone strikes in Pakistan. Instead of public oversight, information and investigations, silence or sly remarks from anonymous U.S. officials are what pass for accountability. As a result, the legal basis for strikes — in this case, specifically, how and on what basis the U.S. identifies and targets individuals as combatants — is unknown.

As the drone industry thrives and the drone wars develop, we will no doubt see even more civilian deaths simply dismissed or ignored.

Proliferation and protests

Chris Cole

Apologies for the recent silence but I was, as they say, unavoidably detained.

Proliferation of drones continues apace with Israel’s recent delivery 12 drones to Russia in a $400m deal and Brazil ordering further Hermes 450 drones.   Meanwhile the USAF continues to increase its UAV capability by ordering a further 24 Reaper drones from General Atomics as Israel and India have inaugurated new drone squadrons.

On the technological development side, Gorgon Stare, the new drone surveillance capability, has been dammed in an internal draft USAF report as “not operationally effective” and “not operationally suitable.”  Danger Room however reports an ‘updated’ report suggesting that ‘fixes are in place”.  

The new X-47B US Navy stealth bomber drone had its first flight this week.  The X-47B is one of the new autonomous drones that is not remotely piloted, but rather follows a pre-programmed mission.

There have been large protests against US drone strikes in Pakistan with some reports of thousands attending protest marches.   In the US, 14 protestors who trespassed at Creech AFB to protest drone strikes were found guilty and sentenced to time served.  John Dear, one of the 14, reports here on testimony from the court.

Finally should mention Drone Wars UK  letter published in Guardian on call for inquiry into use of British drones.

More Drone Strikes, More Drone Proliferation

Chris Cole
Children in North Waziristan with debris from drone missile. Copyright: CIVIC

Unmanned CIA drones strikes have continued this week in Pakistan with seven people killed in a strike on an Afghan refugee camp in North Waziristan on Sunday (10th Oct) , eight killed in a strike on Wednesday (13th Oct) four of whom were alleged to be from Turkmenistan and early reports suggesting between three and six people killed in a strike today (15th Oct).  Meanwhile a new report this week from American NGO CIVIC (Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict) challenges the official line that civilian casualties from drone attacks are very low.  CIVIC researchers spent a year on the ground interviewing victims of conflict including drone strike victims:

Gul Nawaz, from North Waziristan, was watering his fields when he heard the explosion of drone missiles: “I rushed to my house when I heard the blast. When I arrived I saw my house and my brother’s house completely destroyed and all at home were dead.” Eleven members of Gul Nawaz’s family were killed, including his wife, two sons and two daughters as well as his elder brother, his wife, and his four children. “Yes, the drone strikes hurt the Taliban. Most of the strikes are effective against the Taliban but sometimes innocent people also become the victim of such attacks. Take my case … ” said Gul Nawaz.   “I blame the government of Pakistan and the USA … they are responsible for destroying my family. We were living a happy life and I didn’t have any links with the Taliban. My family members were innocent … I wonder, why was I victimized?”

 As Middle Eastern history Professor  Juan Cole says in a piece this week by Johann Harri of The Independent “When you bomb people and kill their family, it pisses them off. They form lifelong grudges… This is not rocket science. If they were not sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qa’ida before, after you bomb the shit out of them, they will be.”

There continues to be no information released about the use of armed drones in Afghanistan although it is certain that they are being used with pictures of the newest British Reaper drone arriving at Kandahar appearing today.

Proliferation

Drone proliferation also continues with Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) signing a $400m deal this week to supply Russian company Oboronprom with drone ‘kits’ for assembly in Russia.

“The main aim of our project is to develop a centre or competence of world-class unmanned vehicle manufacturing in Russia,” says Oboronprom director general Andrey Reus. “In co-operation with IAI we expect to become a major player in the market within the shortest possible time.”

Writing in the Financial Times this week, just two days before suspended from the parliamentary Labour Party over allegations about his expenses, former European Minister Denis MacShane argued that European governments need to combine to build ‘Eurodrone’ to export around the world. 

“The model should be that of a Kalashnikov [machine gun]: a robust, simple to make and easy to use design to which other specifications can be added as needs arise. This will require some surrendering of national military-industrial prerogatives. But just as the Airbus successfully replaced failed national aircraft such as the Comet or Caravelle, a Eurodrone could showcase Europe’s ability to produce a world-class model for worldwide export.”

Hopefully, with MacShane as its advocate, ‘Eurodrone’ will remain stuck on the drawing board.