Drone patrols grew 1,200 percent from 2004 to 2012 while defense shrank.

Evidence

The use of this weapon has grown exponentially: the number of patrols by American armed drones increased by 1,200 percent between 2004 and 2012.11 In the United States today, more drone operators are trained than all the pilots of fighter planes and bombers put together. Whereas the defense budget decreased in 2013, with cuts in numerous sectors, the resources allocated to unmanned weapon systems rose by 30 percent. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 113

Related

• Drones designed for foreign wars await domestic use unless blocked (similarity 0.81)
• Drones transformed from surveillance eyes into weapons almost by chance. (similarity 0.81)
• Drones evolved from surveillance eyes into lethal hunter-killer weapons. (similarity 0.80)
• Drone missiles have larger lethal radii than conventional infantry weapons (similarity 0.80)
• Drone strikes constitute weapons of state terrorism (similarity 0.80)
• Drones multiplied ballistic reach by adding remote-control distance to weapon range (similarity 0.80)
• Drone use lowers the threshold so violence becomes the default foreign policy option. (similarity 0.80)
• Drones add the remote control’s range to the weapon’s range. (similarity 0.79)
• Drone strikes amount tactically to the state’s version of insurgent bomb attacks. (similarity 0.79)
• Present-day drones combine remote control and autonomous piloting. (similarity 0.79)
• Drone war turns strategic evaluation into disconnected body counts. (similarity 0.78)