Drones are everywhere.
Less than a decade ago, the Pentagon had about fifty unmanned combat air vehicles (known as drones or UAV — unmanned aerial vehicles). It is estimated that they currently have about seven thousand of them (and Congress asked for about $5 billion worth of more drones in 2012). There's a scene in Showtime's hit television series, Homeland, where Nicholas Brody (the former prisoner of war and current United States congressman) is told by David Estes (the director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center) that the use of drones in the war on terrorism has moved from forty unmanned combat air vehicles to nearly four thousand in no time at all. While that was a fictitious scene, it was the type of statement that would make anybody raise an eyebrow. What makes it all that more interesting, is that those fictional numbers aren't even close to the staggering reality of how many drones are in operation. And, that's just the work being done by the United States. The International Institute for Strategic Studies has identified fifty six different types of drones being used in over ten countries (and this data does not include places like China, Turkey and Russia).
To read the original article: The Booming Business of Drones - Mitch Joel - Harvard Business Review
