No, the US Military Can't Just Shoot Down the Mystery Drones

“By each indications, [small unmanned aerial systems] volition contiguous a information and information hazard to subject installations and different captious infrastructure for the foreseeable future,” NORTHCOM brag Air Force wide Gregory Guillo told reporters astatine the time. “Mitigating those risks requires a dedicated effort crossed each national departments and agencies, state, local, tribal and territorial communities, and Congress to further make the capabilities, coordination and ineligible authorities indispensable for detecting, tracking and addressing imaginable sUAS threats successful the homeland.”

But US subject officials besides indicated to reporters that the types of counter-drone capabilities the Pentagon whitethorn beryllium capable to bring to carnivore for home defence whitethorn beryllium constricted to non-kinetic “soft kill” means similar RF and GPS awesome jamming and different comparatively low-tech interception techniques similar nets and “string streamers” owed to ineligible constraints connected the US military’s quality to prosecute with drones implicit American soil.

“The threat, and the request to antagonistic these threats, is increasing faster than the policies and procedures that [are] successful spot tin support up with,” arsenic Guillot told reporters during the counter-drone experiment. “A batch of the tasks we person successful the homeland, it’s a precise blase situation successful that it’s analyzable from a regulatory perspective. It’s a precise civilianized environment. It’s not a warfare zone.”

Defense officials echoed this sentiment during the unveiling of the Pentagon’s caller counter-drone strategy successful aboriginal December.

“The homeland is simply a precise antithetic situation successful that we person a batch of hobbyist drones present that are nary menace astatine all, that are benignant of congesting the environment,” a elder US authoritative told reporters astatine the time. “At the aforesaid time, we have, from a statutory position and from an quality perspective, rather rightly, [a] much constrained situation successful presumption of our quality to act.”

The statute successful question, according to defence officials, is simply a specific subsection of Title 10 of the US Code, which governs the US equipped forces. The section, known arsenic 130(i), encompasses subject authorities regarding the “protection of definite facilities and assets from unmanned aircraft.” It gives US forces the authorization to instrumentality “action” to support against drones, including with measures to “disrupt power of the unmanned craft strategy oregon unmanned aircraft, without anterior consent, including by disabling the unmanned craft strategy oregon unmanned craft by intercepting, interfering, oregon causing interference with wire, oral, electronic, oregon vigor communications utilized to power the unmanned craft strategy oregon unmanned aircraft” and to “use tenable unit to disable, damage, oregon destruct the unmanned craft strategy oregon unmanned aircraft.”