Terrorist Drones

Abstract

Chapter 5 argues that drones will allow non-state actors like rebel and terrorist groups to begin to level the playing field with powerful governments and to expand their goals as a result of being able to take to the skies. The low marginal cost of drones will be a boon to non-state actors who will use them to blunt the advantages that governments currently enjoy. In conflict zones, drones enable groups like Hezbollah and the Islamic State to watch the battlefield in a way that they never could before and to strike at their enemies in surprising ways. At home, drones will enable terrorist organizations to strike civilian targets and perhaps even assassinate world leaders.