US May Sell Armed Drones 131
An anonymous reader writes: Nations allied with the United States may soon be able to purchase armed, unmanned aircraft, according to an updated U.S. arms policy. Purchase requests will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and foreign military bodies would have to agree to a set of "proper use" rules in order for the U.S. to go ahead with the sale. For example: "Armed and other advanced UAS are to be used in operations involving the use of force only when there is a lawful basis for use of force under international law, such as national self-defense." These rules have done nothing to silence critics of the plan, who point out that the U.S. has killed civilians during remote strikes without much accountability. The drones are estimated to cost $10-15 million apiece.
Nobody gets to use the surprise face (Score:4, Insightful)
Exporting weapons that wind up being used against our own troops is fairly commonplace in this scenario, but hey, it's all about the corporate profits baby!
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They'll certainly end up being used against someone the US is allied with, and "agreements" aren't going to forestall that.
"such as national self-defense"
"Terr'rists active within our boders" It's been used as justification for all sorts of otherwise-illegal activity, so countries can stay within the terms of the agreement and still go after their own civilians.
We work hard to prevent nuclear proliferation ... why not prevent advanced drone proliferation as well?
Re:Nobody gets to use the surprise face (Score:5, Insightful)
We work hard to prevent nuclear proliferation ... why not prevent advanced drone proliferation as well?
They're just not that difficult to manufacture.
If American military developers are not allowed to sell theirs, someone else will.
The market share of worldwide death-dealing is a real thing.
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but they're a machine, which makes them for the most part very easy to reverse engineer or copy by any country with a decent science program.
your analogy is broken, since we aren't talking about a hobbyist toy compared to a real machine, we're talking foreign governments (or companies) funding r&d and research into drone technology.
how about a honda civic compared to a ford mustang? (also a good analogy since the foreign product will be junk, at first, based on inappropriate chunks of existing technolo
Re:Nobody gets to use the surprise face (Score:4, Insightful)
Ford beats both Honda and Toyota in quality now according to Consumer reports, as reported by Time [time.com]:
Ninety percent of Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln products were found to have average or better expected reliability, matching and even surpassing the scores posted by Honda and Toyota and their associated brands, such as Acura and Lexus, the magazine said.
"It's rare for Consumer Reports to see family sedans from domestic carmakers continue to beat the reliability scores of such highly regarded Japanese models as the Camry and Accord," says David Champion, senior director of Consumer Reports, Automotive Test Center.
Ford's reduction in number of brands (no more Mercury) and models is paying off in increased quality.
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how about a honda civic compared to a ford mustang? (also a good analogy since the foreign product will be junk, at first, based on inappropriate chunks of existing technology from other projects, but eventually will surpass others in reliability...)
I love people perpetuating myths. Have you looked at any recent data? American vehicles have also recently been showing better quality numbers than Euro cars. The Dodge I'm driving today (2012 model), isn't anywhere near the crap they produced twenty years ago. And FWIW, I've owned everything from Mercedes, Saab & BMW to Infiniti, to nearly every flavor of US make, in my ~40 yrs of driving. Just anecdotal here, but most of the foreign brands broke as frequently as the domestics, but were more expen
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I love when people dont know what they're on about.
Since when has a Honda Civic been a European car? Even the UK built FN2 Type R was designed in Japan (as bad as it was compared to previous Type R's and the FD2).
If you want something that will last 20 years on its original parts, buy Japanese. Also, most American cars aren't sold in countries
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Maybe, but maybe not.
In any case, acomplished amateurs have done pretty impressive things even in the distant past [wikipedia.org] with autonomous flight, so given a good stash of cash and using modern computing tech, it should be possible to build decent military drones. Probably not at the level of a USAF drone - but likely able to do the whole FPV+aiming+firing routine well enough t
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This is the same as me saying, "If I don't kick you in the nuts someone else will." Does that make it justified?
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It wouldn't be so much of a problem if the US definition of "allies" wasn't so lax (Israel, Colombia, Bahrain, etc). Don't get me wrong - I'd pick the US over Russia for example any day. But that doesn't mean that I'm comfortable with all of the US's "allies" having the right to buy the US's latest weapons, on their word alone.
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It wouldn't be so much of a problem if the US definition of "allies" wasn't so lax (Israel, Colombia, Bahrain, etc). Don't get me wrong - I'd pick the US over Russia for example any day. But that doesn't mean that I'm comfortable with all of the US's "allies" having the right to buy the US's latest weapons, on their word alone.
It's worse than that. From TFA:
Armed and other advanced UAS are to be used in operations involving the use of force only when there is a lawful basis for use of force under international law, such as national self-defense.
So it's a "Do as we say, not as we do" policy. Obama's use of drones has been against U.S. and International law from the very beginning. The Bush administration may have been guilty, too, but it has vastly expanded under Obama.
Dear Mr. Obama: killing young teenagers who may be "suspected terrorists" was not legitimately in defense of the safety of the U.S., nor a lawful act of war. It's murder, under both U.S. law and International law. Like the Geneva Conventions, for exa
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The United States quit caring about laws ( domestic or international ) a long time ago. It's a " Do as we say, not as we do " country anymore. It will also continue until someone else who has the military muscle to enforce it, steps up and says " Enough
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Instead, ask why we should treat drone aircraft any differently than manned aircraft. It's not like a drone is magically more lethal than an F16 or F18....
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Don't be absurd ... America is largely about exporting IP laws these days ... you know, bullying other countries into signing treaties designed to enshrine guaranteeing profits of multinational corporations in the laws of as many countries as possible.
Apparently, America's foreign policy has mostly been co-opted by corporations, and now America just does what they're told.
America used to stand for Democracy, Liberty, and Freedom. Now it's Copyright, Patents, corporate Rent Seeking, Surveillance, and a litt
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We also sell food which can keep our enemy armies fed.
We provide entertainment that shows how wrong we are as a society, to enrage our enemies.
If we don't sell food, starving areas become violent quickly.
If we don't share entertainment our culture will be judge only by rumors, and exaggerated showing us in the worse possible life.
If we don't sell weapons, to our allies. Then it seems like we are not part of the alliance, and are hoarding our weapons for a future transgression.
Yea the world is a horribly com
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Dunno, I thought that Neal Stephenson's 'movies, microcode, pizza delivery' was a better trifecta.
But I like pizza.
(Of course, I'd jump at the chance to own my personal Predator drone as would pretty much anyone here....)
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Weapons, entertainment, and food are pretty much the bulk of American exports.
As an entrepreneurial American, I'm left wondering about a product that combines all three.
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Huge fireworks that spray out candy at high velocity and are lethal within a 5-meter radius?
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Exporting weapons that wind up being used against our own troops is fairly commonplace in this scenario, but hey, it's all about the corporate profits baby!
<sarcasm>Let's be reasonable. How else are we going to perpetuate the military-industrial complex if we don't give weapons to our eventual enemies?</sarcasm>
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United States Top 10 Exports
The following export product groups represent the highest dollar value in American global shipments during 2014. Also shown is the percentage share each export category represents in terms of US overall exports.
Machines, engines, pumps: US$219,566,232,000 (13.5% of total exports)
Electronic equipment: $171,966,197,000 (10.6%)
Oil: $157,213,437,000 (9.7%)
Vehicles: $135,797,903,000 (8.4%)
Aircraft, spacecraft: $124,831,5
Re:Nobody gets to use the surprise face (Score:4, Insightful)
Top Military Weapons Exporters Below are the 15 countries that exported the highest dollar value worth of military weapons (excluding artillery products) during 2013:
1.United States: $277,159,000 (83.8% of total military weapons exports)
2.India: $9,668,000 (2.9%)
3.South Korea: $6,466,000 (2.0%)
4.Colombia: $5,000,000 (1.5%)
5.Norway: $4,766,000 (1.4%)
6.Croatia: $3,291,000 (1.0%)
7.Australia: $3,265,000 (1.0%)
8.Slovakia: $3,000,000 (0.9%)
9.Thailand: $2,910,000 (0.9%)
10.Canada: $2,814,000 (0.9%)
11.Poland: $2,293,000 (0.7%)
12.Russia: $2,005,000 (0.6%)
13.Netherlands: $1,962,000 (0.6%)
14.Senegal: $1,266,000 (0.4%)
15.Malaysia: $1,100,000 (0.3%)
Pretty sure weapons is a subset of machines in your list.
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Unless you count things like CPUs and operating systems as weapons, entertainment, or food I think you have to add tech to that list.
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When the second amendment was written they specifically said "Arms", not pistols, long guns, swords, etc. for a reason. At the time most merchantmen carried cannons, port cities had their own batteries of cannon, frontier communities would buy multi-barrel muskets as protection against Indians and brigands, and the "town hall cannon" was not just an ornament. The amendment is an artifact of the time in which it was written, and definitely needs updating, but most people (on both sides of the issue) are un
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The insane do not question their sanity (Score:2)
Truly, the inmates run the asylum.
Re:Nobody gets to use the surprise face (Score:5, Informative)
Weapons, entertainment, and food are pretty much the bulk of American exports.
Actually, no. In 2013, the US was the second largest exporter of arms ($6.2 billion), after Russia ($8.3 billion) [wikipedia.org]. And because you probably won't read the linked article, I should mention that these numbers include the estimated value of arms given as foreign aid. But those numbers are dwarfed by the real heavyweights.
Top ten US exports in 2013 [worldstopexports.com]:
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And even food is actually used by the US as an economic weapon, especially when it's tied to aid packages, which is very unfortunate.
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Weapons, entertainment, and food are pretty much the bulk of American exports.
Exporting weapons that wind up being used against our own troops is fairly commonplace in this scenario, but hey, it's all about the corporate profits baby!
Or in other words, the modern interpretation of the US Constitution's 2nd Amendment is the right to sell arms.
What happens when ISIS and al-Qaeda get drones? (Score:2, Insightful)
Drones are cool when only rich nation states can afford them, but it's only a matter of time before anybody can buy them, and payback will probably be "a bitch" as they say.
Re:What happens when ISIS and al-Qaeda get drones? (Score:4, Funny)
_______________
Breaking news : Scientists have now mapped the gene which makes them map genes .
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I hope that answers your question.
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ISIS has a lot of US made weapons, procured from Iraq when they took over military bases there.
Granted, we didn't sell directly to ISIS, but we certainly setup the power vacuum that allowed them to obtain them.
So the US "accidentally/inadvertently" let ISIS get US made weapons. It's not like the power vacuum wasn't an obvious outcome when we pulled out of Iraq, but no one thought it would involve such an organized group.
We underestimated the enemy (and started the original war without thinking through the
And I'm sure (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:And I'm sure (Score:4, Insightful)
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Why bother? We can shoot them down with air-to-air missiles from our planes with little to no effort.
That's how the military-industrial economy works. Case in point, Iraq. We defeated the Iraqi army in 2003 and broke all their toys. We built a new Iraqi Army and supplied them with new weapons. ISIS came and looted most of those weapons. Now we're bombing the weapons we previously supplied. Then we'll sell whomever's left with some more weapons to replace the ones we bombed. Repeat over and over again...
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US arms manufacturers would certainly try to resist government pressure on this though, as the revelation of such a tactic would flat-line their sales abroad.
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Um, isn't the TRIGGER a kill switch?
Life imitates art (Score:2)
This sounds so much like a star trek episode i have seen before. On top of that "see the white of their eye's" (Don't shoot until...) changes in an historical sense. Next thing you know we will have MEC's running around and World subjugation will commence (tongue in cheek).
Being a Military guy once ago i feel this is way different than the way we did stuff.
I'm just expressing something and i hope i don't get slammed too much but i feel it's lame.
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Simple mistake, i have a sticky keyboard.
Re:Face it America ... (Score:5, Insightful)
As an American myself, I really can't find any fault there. I have been saying basically the same to my countrymen for years. That said, its not us.....its the Aristocratic ruling class that we wont admit exists.
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I think Kruchev said it best "Politicians are the same all over; they promise to build a bridge, even where there is no river".
Doesn't matter what the claimed ideology, doesn't matter the system, people in power will say whatever they have to say, truth or not, sequitor or not, if it means staying in power. Power and principles are mostly mutually exclusive.
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And you let them through the 'There is nothing we can do' or 'nothing to hide nothing to fear' arguments
There is something we can do. But that requires a majority of us to decide to stop playing their game, and start playing one that's more cooperative. Those of us who are wise to the game can't just make it happen on our own. That's the kind of fantasy that the anti-gun-nuts imagine that gun owners of America have. It requires broad community support.
Even local politics is generally dominated by money. It's going to take a paradigm shift in what it takes to get voter mindshare to change things substantially.
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That said, its not us.....its the Aristocratic ruling class that we wont admit exists.
Then it is us. Only we can put and end to it, primarily by not acquiescing so easily.
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Hey, I'm not the one pissing and moaning about the 'aristocracy'. I'm just offering you an out.
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Fuck it, just let Bush and Clinton run on the same ticket. Call it Clinton Bush ticket. Everybody will be happy. Then every month they can take turns as to who is on top.
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The real problem is size. Make the system big enough spanning enough territory and enough people and it can be so distant from them as to basically be an abstract.
I did a quick back of the envelope calculation once looking at approximate number of eligible voters at the country's founding, vs now and number of federal reps/senators then and now. Do you have any concept of how the system has utterly failed to scale?
for representation levels to be similar to the founding.... we would need approximately 100k p
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You are mistaken Mr/Mrs. it is not the whole country that is doing this shit it's the 1%.
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It's the 99% that let them. They are slightly outnumbered, you know.
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And, really, a huge amount of that 99% are saying "as long as we're safe we don't give a crap what you do and who you do it to".
Pretending this isn't happening with the approval of the rest of America is a lie.
Maybe not all Americans, but enough to say that American's can't just say it's the 1% doing it.
Re:Face it America ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm curious to know who this collective "we" is that you're talking about. There is a lot that the United States does that is cause for concern, but there's also plenty the US does to help. You give me the impression that either you're either ignorant about everything that happens around the world or you're very selective about where you get your news.
As for the US military, for a whole host of reasons the US is endlessly doing Europe's dirty work. They sure are averse to getting involved, even when something's happening in their own backyard or their own meddling was the source of those problems. And in the end, while Europe enjoys the luxury of keeping its hands clean they have no shame in getting on their high horse about American involvement around the world.
Of course, the US could always take the Chinese approach of superficially not getting involved in anything, but supporting oppressive regimes so that they can strip nations of their resources. Take a look at what they're doing in Africa.
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Nonsense. The US does its own dirty work for its own purposes. It doesn't help Europe out for Europe's sake. Europe has been involved in every military action in recent years, in many different roles. Stop pretending the US is some bastion of goodness when it comes to military action - it's not. If it were, it wouldn't have overthrown democracy after democracy time and time again, then got all surprised when "their guy" either turned on them, or got kicked out and replaced with someone vehemently anti-
Why just nations? (Score:2)
When will those of us in the flyover states be able to buy our own armed drones?
Youtube is filled with entertaining videos of rednecks with guns and explosives. Armed drones would help take this to a whole new level. Think BattleBots with truly no holds barred.
Sure, there may be some people who would want to use these for illegal purposes, but think of all the benefits. Imagine a new service for stalking victims - counter-stalking drones, now with a "resolve" button.
(For the humor impaired, yes, I'm kidd
Those proper use guidelines in full (Score:3)
foreign military bodies would have to agree to a set of "proper use" rules in order for the U.S. to go ahead with the sale
Those rules are as follows:
That is all.
Seriously? (Score:2)
So, I'm not sure why this is even being considered. Why not sell man-pack, shoulder-mount weapons..you know, without the actual ammunition while we're at it? If the military is all up in arms over a drone that goes down and isn't confirmed destroyed, lest someone get a hold of the parts and reverse-engineer it, why would you agree to sell one? Oh, sure, they'll agree to "proper use" of it, but that wouldn't keep them from tearing it apart and making their own copies, will it? I mean, that's just a piece
Do as I say? (Score:3)
Is this one of those "Do as I say, not as I do" things?
I bet it's one of those "Do as I say, not as I do" things.
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You forgot the sarcasm tag, or are you as evil as your post would make it seem?
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www.MyHitList.com (Score:2)
Well, anyway the drones will be produced privately elsewhere soon if not already. No one's putting this genie back in a bottle. Reminds me of when it was illegal to export 286 computers in the late 1990s.
"Click to Hit" Go online, create a user profile, enter photo of your enemy into our facial recognition software, and our private security drone will execute your enemy in 3-5 business days.
I worry about the day... (Score:2)
I worry about the day when they start selling them to domestic law enforcement agencies.
Expect to see them in Ukraine (Score:5, Interesting)
Expect to see these drones in Ukraine soon, then. Not that the change in the policy was needed, since US is providing to the ally Israel, but it does seem as a message to Russians that they will see drones soon in the war zones of Donbas and Crimea.
Had Ukraine had drones six month ago, or better a year ago, their situation would have been much different and they would not need to go through shameful and humiliating "decisions to withdraw" time after time. Sort of a disgrace for a 5th largest weapons exporter in the world, industrial powerhouse, rocket builder and a formerly nuclear country , but we digress here.
Yes, we know that the war is a significant contributor to the scientific research, however expect these UAV to be battle tested in Ukraine against most modern Russian radio-electronic warfare methods.
This is news? (Score:2)
America sells weapons? Who'd a thunk it...
In other words (Score:2)
Oh wait....there's that magic word, 'drone'.
Guaranteed
Follow THe Money (Score:2)
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First the drones are the kindest weapon of war ever invented. Compared to other modes of fighting drones kill far less innocents. For example we can use a drone to take out a car with enemies in the car......
Time for an empathy lesson. Imagine every time you went outside, you heard a lawn-mower sound. It came from a UAV operated via satellite feed from a foreign country on the other side of the earth. That foreign country claims their motivations are honourable, but you have your doubts. Sometimes that UAVs fire missiles or drop laser-guided bombs, usually targeting "terrorists". You don't like the "terrorists", and maybe they murdered your brother and are demanding protection money, so you are glad when they g
Just wait for economy of scale. (Score:2)
Revenue (Score:1)
Where does the revenue from the sales go? It'd be nice to see it go to schools/education in some way, but I am sure it'll go to waste at the Pentagon some how.
old news (Score:1)
Just waiting ... (Score:2)
What could go wrong? (Score:1)
Article missing the most important part ... (Score:2)
and this is of course: Where can I get one??? :P
The rest of the article is not relevant
Some countries just want to see the world burn. (Score:2)
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Are you sure it's Ron Paul? I didn't read the whole thing, but I thought he was fellating Vladimir Putin.