Drones, which have become one of the war vehicles with the use of the US army, have a history of only twenty years, gaining awareness and becoming widespread in the field of civilian use. As we understand it today, the USA, which used drones for the first time in their conflicts with Al-Qaeda, actually had rejected these devices, which were introduced to them much earlier. A motorboat introduced by Nicola Tesla in 1898, which could be controlled by remote control, was rejected by the US military.
Thanks to their small size, easy operation and low cost, drones, which have a wide area of use today, are increasingly used in military operations. By means of these devices, the most important advantage of which can be controlled remotely, it is possible to prevent human loss, in other words, to neutralize the target without risking the life of a pilot.
The use of unmanned aerial vehicles in combat environments can be traced back to the bombing of Vienna with a pilotless hot air balloon in the 19th century and the introduction of a remotely controllable aircraft during the Second World War. Unmanned aerial vehicles technology, which has made significant progress in a very short time period with the help of developing technology day by day, has become very important for military, commercial and civilian use today. Especially in the last two decades, drones, which have become the most important element of military operations, are frequently used in activities such as observation, target detection and intelligence gathering. Moreover, these vehicles, which gain fire power thanks to the drones that have been upgraded to carry weapons, can also successfully hit the target. These vehicles, which eliminate the risk of human loss, have extremely low costs compared to many other equivalents, such as military jets called F-16s, which perform the same operation. This is also one of the most important factors for investing in this technology and its rapid spread, especially for military use.
Although the phrase "preventing human loss" is one of the most important factors regarding the importance of vehicles, one of the most important capabilities of armed unmanned aerial vehicles is to kill people with the help of a remotely controlled vehicle. Recently, the knowledge of a drone that can determine its target and shoot without the need for a pilot that performs the task of remote control has been included in the military literature. The drone that can perform this operation with the help of artificial intelligence is described as the first drone that can perform such a task.
All these developments, on the one hand, reveal the point reached by technology and give excitement, on the other hand, cause some deep concerns. In this series of articles, where we will examine these issues and more, we will talk about the development of drone technology and how this technology affects society, states and international relations. In particular, we will try to examine and explain the drones, which have become the number one tool of the battlefields, through examples.
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