When the Drones Come Marching In

While nuclear weapons have been preventing great powers from seriously fighting each other, drones have been working in the opposite direction. The effect of drones has been to help level the ground on which non-state and state belligerents fight each other. It is in this, above all, that their importance lies.

Contrary to the common wisdom, drones are not new. Perhaps the first to build and use them were the Austrians in 1849; besieging Venice, which had revolted against Habsburg rule, they launched two hundred balloons that carried 33 pounds of incendiaries each. How effective they were, and what role they played in the city’s ultimate surrender, is disputed to the present day. Drones, in the form of remotely-piloted gliders and aircraft, were also employed by the German Luftwaffe during the last years of World War II. They scored their greatest success on 9 September 1943 when a contraption affectionately known as Fritz-X hit the brand-new Italian battleship, Roma, in the waters between Sa ...