Are drones a revolution or the evolution of warfare? 

The nature and future of war, as being fought in Ukraine and now in the “excursion” into Iran, has been described as a “revolution” with the massive and ingenious use of drones, also known as unmanned vehicles. 

If this is indeed a revolution comparable to the invention of gunpowder, machine guns, submarines, aircraft and especially nuclear weapons, that has not yet been established. And if battlefields have been transformed by the ubiquitous presence of offensive, defensive and logistical drones, what might that mean for future armies, navies, air and space forces?

The history of unmanned vehicles dates back centuries. In 1849, Austria launched bomb-carrying balloons to strike Venice. Nikola Tesla, who pioneered alternating current, created a radio controlled boat in 1898. The British used the Hewitt-Sperry “flying bombs” and deHavilland Queen Bee radio controlled drones.

Germany’s V1 and V2 rockets were obviously unmanned as were its “Goliath” tracked vehicles used in the Russian Front. In Vietnam, as a Swift Boat skipper, I recall chasing after parachutes containing film taken by drones flying over the north that were supposed to land in the sea. Often many did not require the more dangerous task of retrieving them on territory controlled by the Viet Cong.

Since the first Gulf War in 1991, videos of Reaper and Predator drones incinerating a multitude of targets with Hellfire missiles were frequently aired in news reports. In the current conflict in Iran, vivid videos of U.S. standoff weapons........

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