Notes from the drone arms race

By Elisabeth Eaves

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Enemy drones rigged with bombs or explosives have become more than a nuisance to US-backed forces in recent years. Political scientists Itai Barsade and Michael C. Horowitzcompare the role of ISIS drones today—often souped-up versions of off-the-shelf models—to that of improvised explosive devices, a cheap, adaptable technology that fundamentally shaped battlefields in the 2000s. Earlier this year, the head of the US Special Operations Command described a day on which an anti-ISIS campaign “nearly came to a screeching halt” as it faced 70 drones in the air. New York Times national security reporter Eric Schmitt calls ISIS drones “one of the Pentagon’s most vexing counterterrorism conundrums.”