I think we can’t assume that an adversary like Iran is going to discount what the President says on Twitter is just Trump being Trump.”īeyond the current situation, Gettinger, of the Center for the Study of the Drone, argues that the U.S. So messaging discipline––which has never been a hallmark of this administration––is all the more important with this particular adversary. “There are a lot of mixed messages coming out of the Administration whether you’re listening to the National Security Adviser or the President or the Secretary of State. “The President’s use of Twitter is perhaps the biggest wildcard here,” says Zegart. Zegart warns that the situation is “very dangerous” and that the Trump Administration should take the potential for escalating tensions seriously. So the simple fact of sending a surveillance drone over a conflict area does not in itself lead to escalation necessarily.” “You can imagine in some circumstances, gathering intelligence can be deescalating, because everyone has a better picture of what’s going on on the ground. It was an escalatory move by Iran,” Zegart says. “Regardless of where you come down on is this international airspace or Iranian airspace, this was not an escalatory move by the United States. efforts to collect surveillance don’t mean that the drone was being used in an aggressive way, she says. “It’s a signaling device that Iran has capabilities that we might not have anticipated before––but it’s certainly less aggressive than shooting at something that would risk human lives,” said Zegart. Zegart warns that while the diplomatic situation isn’t as dire as it would be if an aircraft with American pilots had been shot down, she considers Iran’s attack to be an aggressive move for Iran, especially since the drone wasn’t carrying weapons. “Here, it’s a much more public event.” What does it mean that a drone was shot down? “It was a very secret drone on a secret mission,” Gettinger says. In 2011, the United States declined to claim the aircraft. Gettinger argues that what’s happening now is a very different, and that now there’s a higher risk of escalation. military claims that the drone was never closer to Iran than 21 miles, and released a map which allegedly showed the drone’s launch site and the location where it was shot down.Īmericans may remember that Iran allegedly captured a smaller drone––the RQ-170 Sentinel––in 2011. General Joseph Guastella, said Thursday that Iranian claims that the drone entered Iranian airspace were “categorically false.” Air Forces Central Command for the region, Lt. has resoundingly denied that the drone entered Iranian airspace. Central Command, said in statement Thursday. surveillance asset in international airspace,” Navy Capt. “Iranian reports that the aircraft was over Iran are false. The Strait is especially significant because much of the world’s oil supply flows through it. Central Command, which is in charge of military operations in the Middle East, says the drone was attacked in international airspace at the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman. “Iran is not seeking war with any country, but we are fully prepared to defend Iran,” Salami said. It is large, heavy and slow compared to combat aircraft, Dan Gettinger, the co-director of the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College, tells TIME. The drone has a 130-ft wingspan, similar to a Boeing 737 passenger jet. Global Hawks may be used for surveillance, but they’re not considered to be stealth aircraft. The cost of a single drone was more than $176 million in 2011, according to the military––more than 10 times the price of drones like the Predator and Reaper. Global Hawks are also expensive, says Zegart. In some ways, the shoot down is a signaling mechanism to the United States that Iran is more capable than we might have assumed.” “It flies at a very high altitude, so the fact that the Iranians were able to shoot it down shows that they have some pretty significant capabilities. “This drone typically has as its most important defense altitude ,” says Amy Zegart, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies. At that height, the drone can see beyond the curvature of the Earth. To do this, they fly at altitudes of up to 60,000 feet–– almost twice as high as a commercial airliner. Unlike the missile-launching MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones that are used to conduct airstrikes, Global Hawk drones are unarmed are used only to collect information.
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