US To Cut Troops In Afghanistan, Double Drones

US To Cut Troops In Afghanistan, Double Drones

This post is also available in: heעברית (Hebrew)

The United States is looking to reduce its man presence in Afghanistan, and instead “the Air Force aims to double the number of drone squadrons over the next five years,” the Hindustan Times reports.

Drones are already a major presence in Afghanistan in particular, and in US missions around the world at large. “In the wars we fight, this is the future,” said drone pilot Lt. Shaw, who operates out of the US Air Force drone base in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. The US doesn’t release detailed statistics of drone involvement in Afghanistan, but it is clear that they play a major role in operations in the country.

What is playing a diminishing role is human involvement. At its peak, the US mission to Afghanistan had around 100,000 soldiers stationed in the country. Now, there are around 9,800 troops left, and the Pentagon plans to cut their numbers to 5,500 by beginning of 2017.

To compensate for this, late last year the Air Force announced plans to provide some $3bn in funding to the expansion of its drone attack force by 75 Reaper drones. It already has 93 Reapers, 150 MQ-1 Predators, and 33 Global Hawk surveillance drones. And then there are 130 MQ-1C Gray Eagles, which are an upgraded version of the Predator.

With sufficient numbers of drones, what the Air Force is lacking is personnel to operate them. As many as 3,500 new positions may be opened to operate the drones, on top of the already existing 1,700 pilots and sensor operators.

For the Pentagon, it seems, drones are invaluable. They save American lives and make missions more viable. This is only the beginning of the trend.