Demand For Unmanned Aircraft Outstripping Their Capabilities

coondoggie writes "Has the highly successful but disparate unmanned aircraft strategy deployed by the military outstripped the Department of Defense's ability to handle its growth? The Air Force, Army, and Navy have requested approximately $6.1 billion in fiscal year 2010 for new systems and expanded capabilities. The Pentagon's fiscal year 2010 budget request wants to increase the Air Force's Predator and Reaper unmanned aircraft programs to 50 combat air patrols by fiscal year 2011 — an increase of nearly 300% since fiscal year 2007. In 2000, the DoD had fewer than 50 unmanned aircraft in its inventory; as of October 2009, this number had grown to more than 6,800. The program's success, however, is causing some big cracks in the system. According to a report issued this week by congressional watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office. The military is facing a number of challenges — including training, accessing national air space, and improving aircraft communications systems — that must be overcome if unmanned aircraft are to take their place as a central piece of the military's future, the GAO stated."

Comments

Re:Bad news

[Hurricane78]

Afghanistan has vast mineral resources. But you’re partially right. The real reason is, that Afghanistan lies in one of the strategically most important areas of the world.

It is the only country in the world with borders to the ex Soviet Union, China, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq. The meaning of this should be obvious. It shouldn’t even be called a country at all, with its diverse tribes and influences. Imagine all those countries had borders to each other, and you would put a blender right in the 5-country border in the middle. The result would be Afghanistan.

In practice, this meant, that during the cold war, the Soviet Union of course wanted that area. But the US didn’t want it. So the cold war got very hot. But the USA were wise back then. They knew that you can’t win a war in that area. Ever. That’s why the tribes still battled themselves to this day. So they sent ammunition and weapons to the Afghans. Who of course happily accepted. It was a “win-win”. Except that the only ones dying were the Afghans. (Two of my uncles died in it, and probably 3 were tortured, so I know very well what I’m talking about.)

Of course the Soviets failed to conquer the country. And Kharzai was pro-US, while the Soviet Union broke apart. All was good for the USA.
Except that now, the Afghans hat shitloads of weapons and a population of which all the young had not ever seen anything else, except war. You can guess what that resulted in. The mental psychological fallout turned some to religious extremism. An easy thing to exploit. Some used it, and gained political power over Afghanistan, by opposing the cruel dictatory pro-US Kharzai. Back then, the Taliban were seen as the less bad choice in the face of his crimes.

Now something had to be done, to gain back power. So the USA used their own man, Bin Laden, and the attack of 9/11 as an excuse (no idea how much of it was planned, so I don’t judge here), as a reason to go to Afghanistan. Completely forgetting, that you can not ever win there. (As they said themselves, some decades earlier.)

And now they struggle in the same way as the Soviet Union did. I would’n be surprised at all, if the SU would fuel the Taliban, just so they could see the US fail in the same way, for shits and giggles. ;)
Fact is that the US will also walk out of Afghanistan without winning. That’s no shame. That’s just how it always was, is, and always will be, I guess.

We should just declare it a uninhabited wasteland, and let the people move away. That would be better for everyone.