When Western 'Concerns' Take Flight: The Curious Case of Drone Warfare
CASE A: Sudan and the 'Grave Threat' of Indigenous Drones The report details the RSF's use of 'suicide drones' and the Sudanese military's deployment of Turkish and Iranian-supplied Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The framing often emphasizes the novelty and devastating impact of these weapons in a regional conflict. The implication is often that these are either destabilizing new developments
or, perhaps, a sign of 'rogue states' equipping proxies with advanced tech. Curiously, the article also notes the Sudanese army has employed its own locally manufactured drones, such as the 'Anka', suggesting a growing self-sufficiency in this area. The narrative tends to focus on the immediate humanitarian toll, which is undeniable, but it rarely delves into the broader context of drone
proliferation. CASE B: The Unspoken Architects of Drone Dominance Now, let's contrast this with the historical and ongoing use of drones by Western powers, particularly the United States. While Sudanese drones are framed as a 'grave threat' or a 'new chapter' in aerial warfare, the US drone program, initiated more formally under the Bush administration and vastly expanded under Obama (Council on
Foreign Relations, 2023), conducted thousands of strikes across Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan. For instance, the US drone program in Pakistan alone reportedly killed between 2,500 and 4,000 people from 2004-2018, with significant numbers of civilian casualties (Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 2019). Yet, mainstream coverage of these operations often centered on 'precision strikes'