The case for drones as weapons is very ably presented by Adam Yoshida in Drones are 21st Century Superweapons. Not just for drones, however, but for entire robotic armies. He makes a good case:
In general, Western populations in recent wars have been moved to oppose wars on account of friendly, not opposition casualties. ...
In the years since the Second World War there has been one clear strategy for a nation or a non-state group to inflict a defeat upon a Western nation: recognize that the West places an extremely high value upon the lives of its individual citizens and, therefore, that if you can inflict a large number of casualties upon any Western nation you will create intolerable political pressures on the home front and force that nation to come to terms.
The solution is to take our people out of the line of fire.
Instead of risking Western soldiers on the ground during extended counter-insurgency operations, combat robots could be deployed in substantial numbers in order to suppress continued enemy activity. The only soldiers that would need to be risked, at least initially, would be those who would be called upon to maintain these robots near the front and these would be as well-defended as possible.
He notes that the people who oppose drones fall into two categories. One basically opposes any aggression that might result in a death to further a policy they disagree with. The other group, he contends, knows how important such weapons are, but oppose them because,
they understand how heavily they would weigh the odds against any low-technology group fighting a high-technology power and these are people who, whatever their ostensible loyalties, have been friendly towards the cause of every insurgent or terrorist group fighting the West in my own lifetime.
Understandably, he has no sympathy for their point of view.
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