The privatisation of air power

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Layton, Peter
Griffith University Author(s)
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Townsend, N

Pandey, K

Pendlebury, J

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2023
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Abstract

Air power has traditionally been wielded solely by large, well-financed government organisations composed of highly skilled people but no more. With the rise of low-cost, commercial off-the-shelf drones, small armed non-state actor groups can today also employ air power. This change was initially convincingly demonstrated with the use of such drones offensively in Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) during 2014–2017. This chapter initially discusses the technological developments that made this revolution possible and the early employment of drones by ISIS, particularly during the battle for control of Mosul. The second section considers the potential implications of these developments for future defence force operations including non-state actors fielding air reconnaissance capabilities in urban battlefields, that non-state actor drones may be armed, and that drone defence will be required on the future battlefield. The conclusion reflects on changes needed to generic air power theory. Air superiority can no longer be assumed in wars against non-state actors, consumer technology can now provide useful air power and that such drones have shifted air power away from governments and to the people. Consumer drones have privatised air power.

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Australian Perspectives on Global Air and Space Power: Past, Present, Future

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1st

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This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Australian Perspectives on Global Air and Space Power on 1 March 2023, available online: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003230656. It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

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International relations

Military law and justice

Arts & Humanities

Engineering

Engineering, Aerospace

Government & Law

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Layton, P, The privatisation of air power, Australian Perspectives on Global Air and Space Power: Past, Present, Future, 2023, 1st, pp. 104-112

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