Posted on 08/08/2018 10:45:34 PM PDT by Seizethecarp
Bernard Hudson is the former director of counterterrorism at the CIA and is a nonresident fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center.
A failed assassination attempt against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Saturday was mounted with explosive-armed drones, according to news reports. Nine days earlier, and on the other side of the world, terrorists claimed to have sent an armed drone to attack the international airport in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. No one was killed in either case, and the circumstances of both remain murky. But a new and dangerous era in non-state-sponsored terrorism clearly has begun, and no one is adequately prepared to counter it.
Both of these episodes will encourage other technologically savvy groups and disgruntled individuals to use drones to commit political violence. While news of the events in Venezuela and the UAE was disturbing, the failed attempt in Abu Dhabi is especially worrisome because of the mass casualties that destroying an airliner would cause.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) represent a fresh threat to the traveling public. A concerted effort must be made to confront this threat before lives are lost.
Protecting heads of state from drone attacks will be even more complex, so varied are the leaders’ schedules and public appearances. Not only can preprogrammed drones swoop in from almost any direction, but they can also be used by anyone with the means to buy them. Worse, threats from the sky used to be exclusively the domain of nation-states. That has changed in the past two weeks.
Weaponized drones are firmly in the hands of non-state actors. No one is safe. Not heads of state. Not the flying public. We cannot afford delay in devising ways to combat this new peril.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This is actually the kind of public awareness campaign regarding airport security that I have been advocating for the past decade...especially if you see your neighbors with a certain "profile" behaving suspiciously with drone aircraft or quadcopters or swarm formations!
Good reason to go out an buy a shotgun.
The CIA, saying that bad people might attack you with a drone. LOL no irony there.
And I’m noticing they spread a near constant Soviet level panic about every threat they can imagine, and how they will protect us from it.
90% of it is BS from our control freak government.
It's always something.
Thanks, Seizethecarp.
Thanks for the ping
You’re very welcome, easternsky.
I am pretty sure that threats from the sky has been available to anyone that really wanted it since September 11, 2001 and in all reality long before.
And on April 15, 2015 a Gyro-copter landed on the Capitol grounds.
Pretty much anyone who is willing to pay the price has had the ability to bring death from the air.
The only thing that may have changed is that the person does not necessarily have to be willing to surrender their life or at least be 100% certain that he WILL surrender his life.
We have drones in our neighborhood.
Not too keen on them...
LOL!
In case readers do not know, Maduro is best friends with Recep Erdogan, the Turkish dictator who arrested or purged 100,000 opposition leaders, military officers, senior bureaucrats, and secular teachers after Erdogan orchestrated a fake coup d’état about two years ago.
As expected, the USA news media has completely buried the Maduro story, just like they buried the Erdogan story.
Death from the air doesn’t have to be a noisy quadcopter that you can take out before it takes you out. It can be a Switchblade or something similar. A small electric RC plane with a video camera in the nose and a small shaped charge in the fuselage with contact fuzing. The remote operator would fly it quietly on engine until it acquires target, then turn off the engine and dive almost silently towards your head.
Important people can no longer appear outdoors safely, especially at night. There are expensive active countermeasures which can be deployed on special occasions in specific locations, but anyone can be a target of terrorism. If the VIPs are well-protected then the audience will become the targets. The only countermeasure which is going to be practical for everyday security in public outdoor spaces is a bunch of dammed netting all over the place.
I learned to fly drone helicopters (Dash) in the Navy. 1966. I have watched as GPS and computer technology has turned our primitive aircraft into minature stealth missiles things that could be turned out by the millions. Think Foxcon making them. Drones are a scourge and the idea that Amazon will have them delivering packages to your house is a nightmare not a pleasing.
>>This is actually the kind of public awareness campaign regarding airport security that I have been advocating for the past decade...especially if you see your neighbors with a certain “profile” behaving suspiciously with drone aircraft or quadcopters or swarm formations!
When the government releases “guidelines” for monitoring your neighbor on its behalf, the “profile” will be white males. The suspicious activity will be owning guns, going to church, flying a flag, joining the NRA.
Life is dangerous. 99% of all privately owned non-commercial drones can’t lift hardly anything. The article tries to connect a harmless photo drone to something that can carry payload to create fear in people who don’t know better. This reads like a PuffHo article.
Self driving cars are a weapons system waiting for a warhead.
The only thing new is the word “drone”.
You won’t be able to fly a drone near us presidents at public events because they know to jam the frequencies. You can see an EW truck in every motorcade.
This is because for years we’ve had these things called model airplanes. The concept of equipping one as a weapon is nothing new.
Unless of course you live in Venezuela.
Full choke, turkey load.
Once again, the word ‘terrorism’ is being abused......
Author is a member of the /Harvard/Kennedy School/Democrat operation led by;
Ash Carter
Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
Belfer Professor of Technology and Global Affairs
Member of the Board
Former United States Secretary of Defense (2015-2017)[part of the failed Iran negotiations]
Expertise: [How a former SecDef pads his resume]
Russia Asia & the Pacific North America South Asia Europe Middle East & North Africa [i.e. the world]
Intelligence in policymaking Military strategy NATO U.S. foreign policy International Security & Defense Afghanistan war Chemical & biological weapons China & security Democracy Homeland security National security economics Preventive defense Security Strategy Terrorism & Counterterrorism Weapons of Mass Destruction Nuclear Issues China nuclear issues India nuclear program Iran nuclear program North Korea nuclear program Nuclear proliferation Nuclear terrorism Russia nuclear program Science & Technology Science & Technology Policy.
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