How is the US responding to unmanned innovation across the globe? This episode looks at what unmanned systems the US military is currently investing in and then turns to experts to ask what they think the US should be investing in. These interviews highlight a debate between different characteristics of war—precision vs. mass, attrition vs. maneuver, quality vs. quantity, and argue that too little emphasis is put on how these systems allow states to manage the long term economic and political cost of warfare.
ABOUT THE PODCAST
The Hand Behind Unmanned is a limited series podcast about the people who design, direct, and deploy America’s arsenal of unmanned weapons. The limited series podcast tells stories about their beliefs, identities, and the ways in which human ideas about warfare created and continue to shape today’s drone revolution. It is a history of US investment in mines, torpedoes, missiles, satellites, bombs, and drones from the point of view of the generals, admirals, career bureaucrats, academicians, politicians, and entrepreneurs that guided, dictated, and sometimes manipulated technology to create autonomous systems.
You can also pick up a copy of the book “The Hand Behind Unmanned: Origins of the US Autonomous Military Arsenal” by Jacquelyn Schneider and Julia Macdonald. Available now: https://www.hoover.org/research/hand-behind-unmanned-origins-us-autonomous-military-arsenal?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=thbu_description
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