The Age of Drones

  • March 25, 2015
Michael J. Boyle

Senior Fellow, FPRI

Associate Professor of Political Science, La Salle University


Although the US has been the world’s pre-eminent user of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs, or drones), our technological advantage is eroding as drone technology spreads across the world, with some 80 countries now building active drone programs. This new arms race in drones is sure to have important strategic consequences both in respect to surveillance as well as war. Michael Boyle will explore the history of drones, the potential for proliferation and conflict (whether by accident or design), and the availability of new institutional mechanisms to govern the use and sale of drones.

Michael BoyleDr. Michael J. Boyle is an Associate Professor of Political Science at La Salle University in Philadelphia and a Senior Fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was formerly a Lecturer in International Relations and Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He holds an M.Phil and a Ph.D. in International Relations from Cambridge University, and an MPP from Harvard University. He has held fellowships at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. His most recent book is Violence after War: Explaining Instability in Post-Conflict States (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014).

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