Pick up the Pace on Counter-UAS Technology

Last weekend, it was widely reported that Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah used an armed drone to bomb a facility used by the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front, along the Syria-Lebanon border.

This is a significant development. While Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations have used surveillance drones in recent years, this latest incident marks the first time that a non-state actor has successfully fired a weapon from one of these platforms.

There will likely be further calls in the wake of this occurrence to craft an international convention on the use and proliferation of drones. CNN’s Peter Bergen has previously commented in response to ISIS using a surveillance drone over Syria last month:

That terrorist and militant organizations have acquired and used drones during combat operations for surveillance purposes shows how rapidly this technology is proliferating. This is why it is crucial to have some kind of international agreement that governs the use of armed drones by both states and “nonstate actors.”

One could imagine the creation of some kind of Geneva Convention that specifies as a matter of international law when the use of armed drones could be sanctioned outside of conventional war zones to kill terrorists.

Such a convention would also help to prevent the sale or transfer of sophisticated drone technology to nonstate actors such as ISIS.

International cooperation to keep drones out of the hands of terrorist organizations and their state sponsors is to be welcomed, although the utility of a binding international legal agreement regulating armed drone use is rather questionable. Such an agreement likely will not have any effect on groups such as Hezbollah and ISIS (or Iran, for that matter), but it will likely inhibit those countries that are most responsible in their use of this technology (like the United States) from being able to deploy it as they deem necessary for their own self-defense, in accordance with the rules of international law that already exist regarding the use of force.

The better bet for addressing the proliferation of drones to nations and non-state actors intent on harming the United States and its allies is the accelerated development of, and continued investment in, Counter Unmanned Aerial System (C-UAS) technologies, designed to identify and take down enemy drones.

The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines are already testing such systems, as are the Israelis. Can’t happen fast enough.