Feature: The Spectres of Covert and Unmanned Wars in the Post-9/11 World
Written by Chevon Erasmus Porter
06 September 2011
The Spectres of Covert and Unmanned Wars in the Post-9/11 World
There are two seemingly obscure consequences of 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States that do not receive the attention they deserve in public debate. The first is the rapid advances made in the field of unmanned weapons systems. The second consequence reflects on the role of covert operations in the murky realm of counter-terrorism operations. Ten years ago, US armed forces operated, by some calculations, between 50 and 100 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Today, the New York Times estimates that the Pentagon operates about 7 000 of these weapon systems.
