Reading on the balcony of his house was a deadly mistake. That is how Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of Al Qaeda, inadvertently disclosed his whereabouts to the CIA. Last July 31, USA launched an attack with drone that ended the life of Osama Bin Laden’s former right-hand man after 20 years of persecution. Remotely controlled, the aircraft would have fired an R9X Hellfire missile, armed with six moving blades instead of conventional explosives, allowing surgical execution of the target while reducing the ability to cause collateral casualties.
The last great blow against the terrorist organization that perpetrated the 9/11 attacks cannot be understood without Washington’s eagerness to continue oiling its war machine. In recent years, the arms race that the United States leads has been articulated especially through the new advances in a military technology destined to be differential, since it opens the doors to a war without soldiers, theoretically more precise and with fewer military victims.
military drones
Few advances in this field have been more visible than those drones military, whose business has grown in parallel with the international arms market. Thus, the market for unmanned aircraft used by armies for surveillance, logistics and attack tasks, it moved some 11.6 billion dollars last year, according to a study by Allied Market Research, a volume that is expected to grow 12% over the next decade. More than 100 countries and other non-governmental actors have access to them.
The main manufacturers of military drones are companies like the American Lockheed MartinBoeing or Northrop Grumman Corporation, although the Israeli Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, the Chinese state-owned CASC or AVIC, or the French Thales Group also stand out. China is gaining ground in a market in which other countries such as Turkey or Iran are also beginning to stand out. Its use in combat is becoming more and more relevant, leading more nations to compete to gain influence in the sector.
remote controlled weapons
The sale of drones is a growing business for these and other companies, but not the only one, as the development of remote weapons (RWS, for its acronym in English), defense equipment that is installed in the military vehicles terrestrial and aquatic for soldiers they can control them remotely without exposing themselves. Its use has grown in recent years, especially to combat insurgent or terrorist movements. This market moved around 8,480 million dollars in 2018 –latest figures available– and it is estimated that it could reach 25,000 million in 2026.
Other military technologies in which armies are investing more and more are rockets and guided missiles –whose industry generated 54.8 billion dollars in 2021 and continues to rise–, anti-battery radars –50.93 billion in business last year–, communications software and applications of the so-called Military Internet of Things (IoMT), the interconnection and coordination between military technological devices.
The most dystopian face of this arms race is that of the smart weapons, which could use an algorithm to identify their target and shoot it autonomously without the need for human control, with the risks that this entails. The UN has already accused Libya of using (and Turkey of selling) a technology that the US has spent some 18 billion dollars on researching between 2016 and 2020.
Beyond drones, tanks and missiles, the arms race is also being waged on a tiny scale. And it is that the majority of electronic products, also the warlike ones, depend on the semiconductors, a strategic industry in which China has already overtaken the US. The growing tensions between the two powers over Taiwan, crucial in the global manufacture of chips, also respond to this struggle to have the latest military technology.