Abstract
Since the flight of a kite by some Chinese, thousands of years ago, the UAVs have developed to
the level of unleashing immeasurable destruction even without endangering the life of the „man
in the loop‟. This paper traces the history of the drones in the modern times while focusing on the
American utilization of the UAVs in the wars of the twenty-first century. Drones basically
address the „friction‟ element of the war. While analyzing the technical aspects of the UAVs, the
article assesses the revolution these have brought in the conduct of the warfare. There are issues
of collateral damage being labeled against the use of UAVs, but there is no denying the fact that
these are the best weapons available in the arsenal to minimize the number of civilian casualties –
as compared with the manned aircrafts and the casualties caused by the missiles fired from the
aircraft carriers at times stationed hundreds of miles away. Pilotless target aircraft (PTA),
Reconnaissance UAVs, and Strike UAVs or UCAVs are the three main types of Drones
according to their function. The advantages of the UAVs over the manned aircrafts are the
performance of dull, dirty, and dangerous work, their development and use being economical,
their tactical advantage of not endangering the life of the controller, and most recently their use in
the civilian arena like the flood relief activities, monitoring of the borders, reconnaissance of the
areas after accidents or natural disasters, etc. Biggest challenges in the development of the drones
are enhancing the endurance and autonomy of the UAVs, in-flight refueling, increasing the
payload capacity, having less numbers of satellites, and most importantly the issues related with
the international law and the attached ethical issues. With the successful tests of Burraq, Pakistan
has also joined the club of the states developing the UAVs and the race is still „on‟.
Muhammad Nadeem Mirza, Irfan Hasnain Qaisrani, Lubna Abid Ali, Ahmad Ali Naqvi. (2016) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: A Revolution in the Making, South Asian Studies, Volume 31, Issue 2.
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