Tag: drones

Ayatollah Air Power

Clifford A. Brown
By Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown Contributor
Retired from the U.S. Army Reserve as a Colonel after 30 years of active and reserve assignments. M.A. Political Science, M.S. Strategic Studies, Army War College, JD. Served in 1st Armored Division in West Germany when the Berlin Wall came down, in 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea during the regime of Kim Il Sung, and commanded a logistics battalion in Iraq 2003-2004. Wide-ranging public policy interests. Occasional home brewer and infuser of alcohol spirits.
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16 COMMENTS
 

If push comes to shove, could American air power lay waste to the Iranian regime in a cake walk, a turkey shoot? Consider what we know, publicly, of Iranian military capabilities in the air. They have aircraft from the pre-stealth era, drones, and extensive surface-to-air missile defenses. Perhaps, however, their best “air” assets are computer coding and diplomatic shuttle flights.

RQ-170
Photo by Gene Blevins/LA DailyNews

It was not big news when fairly rag-tag forces shot down a low and slow flying armed MQ-9 Reaper drone. After all, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has a wing dedicated to advising foreign forces, including the Yemeni forces fighting other Yemeni forces backed by Saudi Arabia. This is not secret, so the U.S. Central Command was willing to claim Iranian participation in the June 2019 shoot-down:

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Ricochet Audio Network
By Ricochet Audio Network
Ricochet Audio Network Admin
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3 COMMENTS
 

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are pleased to see a key figure from the Florida high school shooting replaced in the Broward County Sheriff’s Office but are irritated the media has stopped covering Sheriff Scott Israel, who still has his job despite failing to perform his duties before and […]
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Blasphemy and Drones in Sorocaba

Fred Cole
By Fred Cole
Fred Cole Member
[Y]ou betray your whole life if you don't say what you think and if you don't say it honestly and bluntly." — Charles Krauthammer
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48 COMMENTS
 

Welcome to the 21st century, where we have drones and people are only beginning to explore their potential applications.

So it was that the São Geraldo Magela church in Sorocaba, Brazil recently used a drone to deliver a monstrance to a priest. The drone flies in, and with a little assistance, makes it to the priest, who places it on the altar. For what it’s worth, the crowd loved it, as you can see from the video:

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TomCo9
By TomCo9
TomCo9 Coolidge
I was never what you'd call liberal (in either the social or fiscal sense) but certainly things changed once I discovered The One. That was, of course, Thomas Sowell. If Friedman was the greatest economist of the 20th century then Sowell is the greatest economist/philosopher hybrid. I work in the restaurant industry currently but also review movies at my blog web-site Tommy's Film Affair. If anyone cares they can view it here: http://tomconinereviews.blogspot.com The reviews are, purposefully, … [more]
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Direction by Jason Bourque More
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Ricochet Audio Network
By Ricochet Audio Network
Ricochet Audio Network Admin
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This week on Banter, John Yoo and Jeremy Rabkin joined the show to discuss their new book, “Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War.” Yoo is a visiting scholar at AEI and Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Rabkin is a law professor […]
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Ricochet Audio Network
By Ricochet Audio Network
Ricochet Audio Network Admin
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1 COMMENTS
 

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Rich McFadden of Radio America feeling optimistic after a recent poll shows that Republican Karen Handel has a slim lead over Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff in the Georgia runoff election. They also praise the Supreme Court which ruled unanimously in favor of protecting trademarks that some parties may consider offensive […]
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Misthiocracy secretly
By Misthiocracy secretly
Misthiocracy secretly Member
misthios (ancient greek): salaried, hired, hired labourer krátos (ancient greek): power, strength misthiocracy: Rule by the staffers.
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9 COMMENTS
 

There is now a device on the market that remotely orders a DJI Phantom drone (and maybe other brands as well, I dunno) to land. The device, called the DroneGun, can work from over a mile away. More
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Drones of the Sea: DARPA Unveils Sea Hunter

Jon Gabriel, Ed.
By Jon Gabriel, Ed.
Jon Gabriel, Ed. Chief
Jon Gabriel (a.k.a., @ExJon on Twitter) is the Editor-in-Chief of Ricochet. He is a political writer and marketing consultant, contributing articles to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and USA Today among others. Until 2012, he served as Director of Marketing for the free-market Goldwater Institute, where he converted policy initiatives into compelling stories. In the private sector, Jon led marketing efforts for Cold Stone Creamery, Honeywell, and several technology companies. In his… [more]
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28 COMMENTS
 

Sea HunterFacing threats from a new wave of potentially hostile submarines, DARPA has launched a self-driving sub detector prototype named Sea Hunter. The 130-foot twin-screw trimaran was designed to be stable in all types of weather and can sail for thousands of miles and for months at a time. The unarmed prototype has a small cabin for a human to operate the vessel if needed, but the final version will not house any crew.

“This is an inflection point,” Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Work said in an interview, adding he hoped such ships might find a place in the western Pacific in as few as five years. “This is the first time we’ve ever had a totally robotic, trans-oceanic-capable ship.”

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Drones: The Bitter with the Sweet?

Richard Epstein
By Richard Epstein
Richard Epstein Contributor
Known to students at the University of Chicago and NYU law schools as “the libertarian,” Richard Epstein has established himself as an expert in constitutional law, contracts, corporate law, real estate law, torts, labor law—and even Roman law. He is reputed to be more knowledgeable about Justinian’s Code than anyone since the Emperor Justinian himself. The Peter and Kirsten Bedford senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Richard Epstein is the author of several books including, The Cas… [more]
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29 COMMENTS
 

shutterstock_188506913A recent post in the tabloid British press offers an early warning to an issue that is surely percolating up right now in the United States. Quite simply, what should be done with privately owned drones.

The problem has become insistent because as the price of drone technology goes down, the deployment of drones for both good and for evil raises some difficult choices. On the positive side it is easy to see how drones can ease the work of legitimate surveillance needed to determine boundary lines in remote locations, track the movement of herd animals in order to manage their behavior, or to deliver everything from hot food to needed documents promptly. Here the ends are legitimate and the means chosen are conducive to these ends. The appropriate response is yet another salute to technological progress that makes things better for us all.

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We’re Not Going to Regulate the Drone Industry Out of Business, Are We?

James Pethokoukis
By James Pethokoukis
James Pethokoukis Contributor
James Pethokoukis is a columnist and blogger at the American Enterprise Institute. (Previously, he was Washington columnist for Reuters Breakingviews, the opinion and commentary wing of Thomson Reuters.) In addition, he is an official CNBC contributor.  Pethokoukis has written for many publications, including The New York Times, The Weekly Standard, Commentary, National Review, The Washington Examiner, and The Daily.  Pethokoukis has appeared numerous times on MSNBC, Fox News Channel, Fo… [more]
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9 COMMENTS
 

shutterstock_242529727_dronesI really loved this Politico piece by Marc Andreessen from 2014:

But policymakers shouldn’t be trying to copy Silicon Valley. Instead, they should be figuring out what domain is (or could be) specific to their region—and then removing the regulatory hurdles for that particular domain. Because we don’t want 50 Silicon Valleys; we want 50 different variations of Silicon Valley, all unique from each other and all focusing on different domains. Imagine a Bitcoin Valley, for instance, where some country fully legalizes cryptocurrencies for all financial functions. Or a Drone Valley, where a particular region removes all legal barriers to flying unmanned aerial vehicles locally. A Driverless Car Valley in a city that allows experimentation with different autonomous car designs, redesigned roadways and safety laws. A Stem Cell Valley. And so on.

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Brian Watt
By Brian Watt
Brian Watt Member
Brian Watt is a humorist, writer and author of The Man In Lafayette Park (available for Kindle and from Apple iBooks and Nook). He lives in California with his special needs son. Brian is currently completing his novel, The Curious Globe of Cornelius Crain. Visit: https://www.gofundme.com/the-cornelius-crain-novel. For over 30 years he has carved out a career in marketing as a writer, designer and creative director, as well as leading teams to bring hundreds of products to market.
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4 COMMENTS
 

I noticed this disturbing news story yesterday… Fort Collins, Colorado. A man from a residential Fort Collins neighborhood is under arrest tonight for allegedly shooting a drone with a 12-gauge shotgun after finding his wife in bed with the aerial, camera-equipped device. According to a statement released from the Fort Collins Police Department earlier this afternoon, […]
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Do We Still Need Aircraft Carriers?

Titus Techera
By Titus Techera
Titus Techera Contributor
Executive Director, American Cinema Foundation. Contributor: National Review, Law&Liberty, American Conservative, The Federalist, Modern Age, University Bookman.
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172 COMMENTS
 

08_uss_nimitz_cvn_68Have you seen Mr. Jerry Hendrix’s writing against aircraft carriers in National Review? I’m a sucker for speeches against the sophisticated, so I took the time to read the 2,700-word piece. Then I found this reply by Mr. Seth Cropsey, whose work I read as often as I can, and Mr. Hendrix’s rejoinder.

These capable, honored men are quarrelling about the status of the aircraft carrier in American strategy. World War II, the Cold War, and the coming Chinese war are the past and imagined political conflicts in which the aircraft carrier features prominently.

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Titus Techera
By Titus Techera
Titus Techera Contributor
Executive Director, American Cinema Foundation. Contributor: National Review, Law&Liberty, American Conservative, The Federalist, Modern Age, University Bookman.
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0 COMMENTS
 

Have you seen Mr. Jerry Hendrix writing against aircraft carriers in National Review? I’m a sucker for speeches against the sophisticated, so I spent the time reading the 2700-word piece. Then I found this reply by Mr. Seth Cropsey, whose work I read as often as I can, & the reply to it. More
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UFOs Over Paris?

Claire Berlinski, Ed.
By Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Claire Berlinski, Ed. Editor
Since earning her doctorate in international relations from Oxford University, Claire Berlinski has lived and worked in Britain, Thailand, Laos, Turkey and now France as a journalist, academic, editor, translator and freelance writer. She is the author of Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis is America's, Too and There is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters. She has also written two spy novels. Her writing has been published in publications including the Wall Street Journal, Th… [more]
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32 COMMENTS
 

Well, I confess I haven’t seen them. I’ve been inside catching up on work. I checked the local news, though, and it seems I should have looked out the window: 

ParisParis-Eiffel-Tower_1280x1024 police say they have spotted at least five drones flying over the French capital overnight, and an investigation is underway into who was flying them and why.

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Drones at Sea

Rob Long
By Rob Long
Rob Long Founder
Rob Long, Hollywood writer and producer, started his career as a screenwriter for the TV show "Cheers." You can find his musings on National Review, Newsweek International, and the Los Angeles Times. Rob's weekly commentary "Martini Shot" is broadcast on L.A.'s KCRW and can be found on iTunes. Rob is a co-founder of Ricochet.
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23 COMMENTS
 

Even the US Navy is getting into drones:

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A Return to Coercion

John Yoo
By John Yoo
John Yoo Contributor
John Yoo is professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. From 2001 to 2003, he served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department of President George W. Bush. He also served as a law clerk to Judge Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court, and as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary… [more]
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15 COMMENTS
 

With Iraq collapsing, Russia attacking, and China rising, the Obama administration is only now taking the first steps toward forceful action. It will have at its disposal a broad spectrum of options, thanks to new military technologies such as cyber-weapons, unmanned drones, precision munitions, and robotics. But it has yet to free itself from outmoded ways of thinking of war.

In an article just posted, co-written with Jeremy Rabkin of George Mason University, I argue that the United States should use these new weapons in the way it has used economic sanctions and blockades (as means to coerce other nations to pressure their leaders to change policies, rather than consider them kinetic weapons like artillery or armor.

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Wanted: A Jealous Congress

Tom Meyer, Common Citizen
By Tom Meyer, Common Citizen
Tom Meyer, Common Citizen Contributor
Conservative libertarian, former Ricochet East Coast/Morning Editor. I post on Twitter @tomdmeyer
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9 COMMENTS
 

One of the more depressing aspects of recent constitutional history is the decline in institutional opposition between the branches of our Federal government.

Institutional opposition stems from the separation of powers described in the Constitution, in which the three branches of government exist as separate and co-equal institutions, each with their own prerogatives and responsibilities. If Congress were, for instance, to negotiate a treaty directly with a foreign power, the President should oppose the action on the grounds that Congress has usurped his rightful authority. Likewise, if the President attempted to take out a loan on behalf of the country, Congress should should rightly raise Hell. Whether the president and congress* agree on the substance of these issues should be irrelevant; the point is that each is wrongly poaching on the other’s territory.

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Misthiocracy secretly
By Misthiocracy secretly
Misthiocracy secretly Member
misthios (ancient greek): salaried, hired, hired labourer krátos (ancient greek): power, strength misthiocracy: Rule by the staffers.
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23 COMMENTS
 

No, this isn’t from The Onion. It’s from the official White House Twitter account: Source: http://www.westernjournalism.com/white-house-tweets-picture-obama-throne/ More
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