“The UN mission in Democratic Republic of Congo has started to deploy unarmed surveillance drones to monitor rebel activity near the forested borders with Rwanda and Uganda. This is the first time any UN mission has deployed drones. The first two were launched from the eastern city of Goma, which was last year briefly occupied by M23 rebels………..”

Like the Hitler-created Volks Wagen (People’s Car in German), the drone is fast becoming a favorite machine for both rich and poor countries. Everybody seems to want them now. Even the United Nations. Some local law enforcement agencies in the USA are seeking to acquire and use drones: the local police already often resemble battle groups in a war zone. Will it be long before the Saudi Commission for the Propagation of Vice (Religious Cops) starts using drones to catch witches and sorcerers, female drivers, and to chaperone married couples? Probably not.

Once upon a time the USA had a monopoly on these drones (at least I think so). But that was then. Now the Iranians mass produce them, as do the Israelis and many others. Hezbollah launches them against the Israelis (who no doubt have been doing the same from the day they launched their first drone). Those who can’t produce their own drones are now at the bottom of the technology pile. Technology-challenged Arab regimes are scrambling to buy them. The potentates of at least one Persian Gulf country are seeking to relocate whole Western plants that produce them, along with their staffs.
The Americans now rely on sophisticated drones to win the no-longer-named-so War on Terror: the old name evokes other failed wars like the War on Drugs and the War on Poverty (no, there is no War on Christmas: that was a creation of Fox News hotheads). The assumption is that decapitating the terrorist organizations with drone attacks will weaken them. This decapitation policy is debatable: so far chopping off one big head has led to the growth of several smaller heads. Al-Qaeda no longer has a brass plaque, a corporate address in Afghanistan or Pakistan or Yemen or Saudi Arabia. It now has franchises that stretch from AfPak through Al-Anbar (Iraq) to once-secular Syria (courtesy of Persian Gulf Salafis and Wahhabi princes) and all the way cross North Africa to the Sahel region.
Here are some links to older posts on this very interesting topic:

War of Drones Reaches the Sinai: Everybody Hitting Muslims and Arabs

Of Suspicious Downed Drones and Aged Kite Runners over the Persian Gulf

Intern Drones over the Gulf: More on the War of Drones

Cheers
mhg