Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

TECHNOLOGY QUARTERLY: "Unmanned military aircraft: Attack of the drones; (Military technology) Smaller and smarter unmanned aircraft are transforming spying and redefining the idea of air power," The Economist, 5 September 2009.

Key points: no personnel lost and drones deliver great results at about 1/20th the cost of jets, according to the Israelis.

The spectacular benefit is the loitering capacity ("persistent stare" means you can find needles in haystacks because you can watch them being built) yielding real-time operational intell.

In 2003, the big UAVs logged 35k hours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last year the number was 800,000 hours. That total doesn't even include all the new, super-small robotic ones that guys just launch by throwing them in the air; the U.S. military has something like 5,000 such units. That's a revolution, my friends.

The big UAVs are getting up in the tens of millions of dollars per unit, but the smaller ones stay in the tens of thousands of dollars. Guess which ones will win out over time?

What's next, asks the article?

Advanced-country militaries and companies offering drone services to Gap nations as a means of extending transparency. In short, it becomes a service.

This is what I have preached for years now: there is a ton of money to be made on the SysAdmin side of the house.