U.S. State Dept. prepares to give armed drones to allies

[SouI]

State Dept. prepares to give armed drones to allies — RT USA

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Drones, USA
Government officials in the United States say the White House is readying to announce a policy change that will let armed unmanned aerial vehicles, or weaponized drones, legally be given to allied nations.

The Washington Post was first to report on Tuesday this week that the Obama administration is preparing to reveal details about an arrangement that will for the first time let American allies receive the controversial counterterrorism tool that has become a hallmark of recent US-led wars.

“The United States is committed to stringent standards for the sale, transfer and subsequent use of US-origin military UAS,” or unmanned aerial systems, the State Department said in a statement on Tuesday.

“The United States’ new UAS export policy establishes the standards by which the United States will assess, on a case-by-case basis under the US Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, potential exports of military UASs, including armed systems,” the State Dept. said.

READ MORE: US gives Afghanistan fleet of drones

The US has long provided partners with UAVs which lack advanced weapons systems and instead are equipped with surveillance technology. In 2013, for example, Afghanistan’s then president, Hamid Karzai, said his American counterpart offered to provide a fleet of spy drones to the Afghan army. But Washington’s reluctance to sell weaponized drones has let other countries, including Israel, take advantage of the budding UAV market up until now, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Reporting for the Washington Post, however, journalist Missy Ryan wrote on Tuesday this week that the Obama administration’s new policy change will permit the widespread export of armed drones for the first time, potentially allowing partners as wide-ranging as Italy and Turkey to take advantage of America’s armed, unmanned aircraft.

“The technology is here to stay,” an unnamed senior State Department official told Ryan on condition of anonymity. “It’s to our benefit to have certain allies and partners equipped appropriately.”

It is not yet been announced what nations will benefit first from the program, but the State Dept. said the Obama administration new policy “provides a disciplined and rigorous framework within which the United States will exercise restraint in sales and transfers and advance its national security and foreign policy interests, which includes enhancing the operational capabilities and capacity of trusted partner nations, increasing US interoperability with these partners for coalition operations, ensuring responsible use of these systems and easing the stress on US force structure for these capabilities.”

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported out of the UK that at least 2,464 people have been killed by US-led drone strikes since President Barack Obama took office in Jan. 2009, including a minimum of 314 civilians. According to the bureau’s research, at least 26 people were killed as a result of five drone strikes launched by the US Central Intelligence Agency last month alone.




PS: Well, I know that we have our own programs regarding UAV, but IMHO it would still be cool to take a look inside of what our dear ally U.S. has for us

 

[-SINAN-]

PS: Well, I know that we have our own programs regarding UAV, but IMHO it would still be cool to take a look inside of what our dear ally U.S. has for us

Reapers...


Edit: I realized article coming from RT..... not a very reliable source.

 

[SouI]

Reapers...


Edit: I realized article coming from RT..... not a very reliable source.

Obama administration to allow sales of armed drones to allies - The Washington Post

The Obama administration will permit the widespread export of armed drones for the first time, a step toward providing allied nations with weapons that have become a cornerstone of U.S. counterterrorism strategy but whose remotely controlled power to kill is intensely controversial.

The new policy, announced Tuesday after a long internal review, is a significant step for U.S. arms policy as allied nations from Italy to Turkey to the Persian Gulf region clamor for the aircraft. It also is a nod to U.S. defense firms scrambling to secure a greater share of a growing global drone market.

But in a reflection of the sensitivity surrounding sales of the lethal technology to allied countries, some of which have troubling records on human rights and political freedoms, the new policy lays out principles that foreign governments must embrace to receive the aircraft.

“The technology is here to stay,” said a senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the regulations. “It’s to our benefit to have certain allies and partners equipped appropriately.”


[Read: Obama: U.S. at ‘crossroads’ in fight against terrorism]


How drones are controlled View Graphic


The new policy is a delicate balancing act for the Obama White House, which has sought to elevate human rights in its foreign policy but also has employed drone strikes like no other government in history. The strikes, conducted by the Pentagon and the CIA, have become a central part of U.S. efforts against militants in places such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

Globally, a few countries — including the United States, Israel and China — already operate their own armed drones.

To date, U.S. officials say, the United States has sold its armed drones only to Britain. Unarmed military drones, used primarily for intelligence, have been sold to a larger number of countries, including NATO allies such as France and Italy.

Under the new rules, which remain classified, foreign governments’ requests for drones will be examined on a case-by-case basis, officials said. In addition to regulations governing all military sales, the sale of armed drones would be subject to Cold War-era rules establishing a “strong presumption of denial,” meaning that foreign governments would have to make a strong case for acquiring the aircraft.

They also would have to agree to a set of “proper use” principles created by the United States, promising to use the drones for national defense or other situations in which force is permitted by international law. The drones are not to be used “to conduct unlawful surveillance or [for] unlawful force against their domestic populations,” an unclassified summary of the new policy said.

“If you fall back on what our objective is, it’s really more than anything to provide an extra level of scrutiny with respect to these transfers,” the official said.

[Related: Panel warns of ‘unintended consequences’ of U.S. drone policy]

Foreign governments also will have to accept potential U.S. monitoring of how the drones are used.

The new policy covers both armed and unarmed drones and builds on the Obama administration’s update last year to rules on conventional weapons transfers, which emphasize human rights protections in decisions about arms sales.

The policy may nevertheless heighten concerns among rights groups, which maintain that the remote strikes have killed civilians without proper U.S. accountability.

The policy also may face some opposition in Congress. Like all major weapons sales, drone exports above a certain dollar value would be subject to congressional notification, giving lawmakers an opportunity to hold up some if they have concerns.

In 2012, a State Department plan to arm U.S.-made drones owned by Italy drew objections from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

“Despite the best intentions, we will not be able to guarantee that purchasers of U.S. UAVs [drones] will be able to develop the same level of intelligence to discriminate between potential targets, take the same level of care to limit the number of innocent civilians killed, or follow our restrictions against assassination,” Feinstein wrote in a letter to then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Micah Zenko, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the new guidelines fill a gap in U.S. policy, given the growing global reliance on drones for military, surveillance and law enforcement purposes.

“The important thing to know with armed drones is that based on America’s record, they lower the threshold for when countries use armed force,” Zenko said. “And when you have that lower threshold, it can change the calculus of countries.”

[Graphic: How drones are controlled]

There is likely to be additional congressional scrutiny in the wake of the Islamic State’s seizure of much of Iraq this summer, and with it millions of dollars in U.S.-made military equipment that had been provided to Iraqi security forces.

The United States has long taken a secretive approach to its use of drone strikes. In 2013, President Obama nudged the drone program partly out of the shadows when he called the strikes an effective tool when foreign governments cannot or will not address militancy within their borders.

A green light to sell drones overseas would help U.S. firms gain a larger foothold in the global drone market that Steve Zaloga, a senior analyst at the Teal Group Corp., an aerospace research firm, said is now worth more than $6 billion a year. The new policy also covers the export of commercial drones. China and Israel are actively promoting their drones to foreign buyers.

Zaloga said drones commonly used by the U.S. military, such as the Reaper, can cost $10 million to $15 million.

Officials said it would take months, but not years, to approve requests.

Greater drone capability for U.S. allies also could ease the high demand for U.S. surveillance flights, particularly in the Middle East. The Air Force is grappling with a shortage of drone pilots and other military specialists needed to run drone operations.



Craig Whitlock contributed to this report.

 

[-SINAN-]

So, what do you guys think about this part ?

"The new policy also maintains the United States’ long-standing commitments under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which subjects transfers of military and commercial systems that cross the threshold of MTCR Category I (i.e., UAS that are capable of a range of at least 300 kilometers and are capable of carrying a payload of at least 500 kilograms) to a “strong presumption of denial” for export but also permits such exports on “rare occasions” that are well justified in terms of the nonproliferation and export control factors specified in the MTCR Guidelines."

U.S. Export Policy for Military Unmanned Aerial Systems

 

[T-123456]

So, what do you guys think about this part ?

"The new policy also maintains the United States’ long-standing commitments under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which subjects transfers of military and commercial systems that cross the threshold of MTCR Category I (i.e., UAS that are capable of a range of at least 300 kilometers and are capable of carrying a payload of at least 500 kilograms) to a “strong presumption of denial” for export but also permits such exports on “rare occasions” that are well justified in terms of the nonproliferation and export control factors specified in the MTCR Guidelines."

U.S. Export Policy for Military Unmanned Aerial Systems

Competition getting stronger in the missile and drone ''business'',either the US sells or others will.

 

[SouI]

So, what do you guys think about this part ?

"The new policy also maintains the United States’ long-standing commitments under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which subjects transfers of military and commercial systems that cross the threshold of MTCR Category I (i.e., UAS that are capable of a range of at least 300 kilometers and are capable of carrying a payload of at least 500 kilograms) to a “strong presumption of denial” for export but also permits such exports on “rare occasions” that are well justified in terms of the nonproliferation and export control factors specified in the MTCR Guidelines."

U.S. Export Policy for Military Unmanned Aerial Systems

We don't really need these UAV's. As said before, we already have our own programs and there are many other different markets that we can use to acquire new foreign UAV's if needed.

 

[Paksanity]

Competition getting stronger in the missile and drone ''business'',either the US sells or others will.

That's the real reason. Many nations have developed their own programs for Armed UAVs. It is no longer exclusive US technology.