Suicide Drones: A History

Warfare

History Hit

History

4.5 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Drone warfare has undoubtedly become a crucial component of contemporary military operations - with drone strikes in the Russia-Ukraine war often dominating headlines. And while suicide drones are predominantly used within warfare, providing an opportunity to overwhelm enemy air defences - it's important to recognise that drones serve many purposes beyond destruction. With their utility extending to reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, drones have long developed since their first uses in the Vietnam war. But how do changing markets and modern conflicts affect the development of Drones, and can we use past events to predict future trends?

In this episode James welcomes Dan Gettinger to the podcast to examine both past, and present, uses of Drones - and illuminates us on what to expect in the future. Looking at how international sanctions and blockades, changing political relationships, and the evolution of war helps determine drone development - is it possible to predict how drones will be adapted in the future?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The use
0:05.0	in Russia and Ukraine has dominated headlines around the world in recent weeks.
0:06.0	We've seen Iranian-supplied kamikaze drones used by Russia to target Kyiv,
0:10.0	and suicide drones allegedly Ukrainian in origin striking the Kremlin and affluent parts of Moscow.
0:17.0	Not only this, but on the battlefield, smaller loiter munitions have been used to strike tanks and target troops in trenches.
0:25.5	But all of these incidents in themselves have a looming question.
0:29.5	What actually are these kamikaze style suicide loitering drones that we talk about and what is the history behind their use?
0:38.0	I'm your host James Patton Rogers this is warfare and to find out I've invited my old friend Dan getting her on to the
0:44.0	podcast. Dan was the co-founder of the Pioneering Center for the study of the drone
0:48.1	at Bard College. He is a technical guy, a number-cruncher, and through his research I've learned so much about the technical aspects
0:55.3	of drones and how far they've spread around the world.
0:59.0	But what Dan reveals here is fascinating.
1:02.2	A surprising, much longer history behind the Kamikaze drone
1:06.4	than you might first expect. Enjoy. Hi Dan, welcome to Warfare. How you doing buddy?
1:17.0	Doing great, thank you.
1:19.0	Well it's great to have you on the podcast. I mean this is long overdue, but it turns out that the whole world has gone
1:25.0	mad with drones and so we need an actual drone expert not just me chatting about
1:30.1	drones left right and center to give us some context about what is going on in the
1:34.8	world so thank you so much for taking the time. Now when it comes to talking about drones
1:40.5	one of the hottest topics at this moment in time is this idea of
1:44.2	kamikaze or suicide drones that have been most specifically adopted by Russia.
1:50.4	I mean the most iconic of these I guess is the Shahead 136 which is an Iranian
	...

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