In this photo, an airman inspects an MQ-9 Reaper in Afghanistan. (Credit: US Air Force)
I’ve been seeing references like that everywhere over the weekend. Only one problem, I wasn’t aware that anything had changed.
Picking one at random, Elias Groll over at Foreign Policy penned a piece titled “The Sudden and Unexpected Return of the Drone War.” With journalistic flair, he hits all the salient points from the past few months mentioning President Obama’s speech in May along with the administration’s broader public offensive to tighten standards regarding the use of strikes.
He concludes by mentioning the recent choice for CIA director, John Brennan, and the usual beltway narrative which suggests drone strikes might fundamentally change with the oversight of the Defense Department. Like me, he ends on a skeptical note.
Such skepticism, however is certainly warranted. If you’re watching satellite imagery and paying attention to the debate, then you know all the talk has suggested one thing while the ground reality has been something different altogether. The latest round of drone strikes do nothing but reinforce the law of the instrument: if all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.
Regardless of where you come down on the drone debate, there’s very little substantive evidence to indicate a change in US policy. Most recent imagery may even suggest that the use of drones from Djibouti may increase, not decrease, reinforcing a fairly institutionalized view of the technology.
That’s bad news for drone critics and those who see drones as creating more problems than they solve. But unfortunately that’s where we’re at, and it looks as if we’re going to be in that place for the foreseeable future. The use of drones has become an important part of counterterrorism CONOPS, and as I’ve shown in the past, they are among some of the first considerations for any pending intervention, or as noted most recently, an ongoing intervention.
That being said, let’s take a look at what commercial imagery has to say.
Google Earth imagery from 29 October 2011 shows our first glimpse of a dedicated drone apron at Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, complete with three clam-shell shelters. Although it’s difficult to discern how many drones were deployed at this time, at least one full combat air patrol (four Reapers) were thought to be at the airfield. In addition to the Reapers, a flight of six F-15Es capable of carrying out strikes in Yemen were observed on the auxiliary parking ramp immediately to the east.
Next up, imagery from May of the following year shows some additional improvements. One of the clam-shell shelters was repositioned while a new large support shelter — which subsequent imagery shows housing Reapers — was added to the ramp. At the same time, a new Ku-band array was noted on the signals apron, suggesting an increase of deployed drones, probably two combat air patrol of 8 Reapers. A flight of seven F-15Es were also observed on the auxiliary parking apron.
Finally, the latest update from November 2012 appears to show further improvements to the ramp. This time the large shelter noted in May was repositioned and a second large support shelter had been added. Although we’re uncertain if this second shelter will support additional RQ-9s, there’s a strong possibility as it appears the Reapers over in the Seychelles have been relocated.
As evidence, a comparison of historical imagery and that from July 2012 shows the removal of the Ku-band array — further supporting the assessment.
Of course the removal of the Reapers shouldn’t be surprising considering the decrease in Somali piracy and the very public drone crashes reported between 2011-2012. The diplomatic cables from wikileaks further suggest that drones deployed to the Seychelles were a politically sensitive issue, and may have been removed making way for additional P-3 deployments. (Two P-3 and a C-12, a possible unmarked surveillance aircraft, were noted in December 2012).
So what does this all mean? In the short-term it’s hard to say. With the use of drones now in Mali, it’s certainly starting to confirm fears that Africom’s role has increasingly become more concerned with, excuse the DoD vernacular, “killing bad guys” or “pulling triggers” than with building the capacity of regional states.
While I’ll leave the conclusion to you, in the long term it’s blatantly obvious there’s some serious risk to entering another battlefield in a complex area of the world, whose understanding too often eludes our military and intelligence officials.
