Q: How many drones are we bombing ISIS with? A: That's secret, mmkay

Group Captain Mark Flewin

A nice bit of nominative determinism there

Most likely answers

> trying to find out how many British Reaper drones are being used for warlike missions in the Middle East.

Given the reluctance, it is reasonable to assume the answer is one of the following MoD responses:

None. We're thinking about building the drone-craft carrier for them. It should be ready by 2050

One. Yeeeeees, of course we have drones! We have lots of drones. So many that it's a secret. Look! here's a photo.

We don't know. Well, we bought a load of them. Some have been delivered. Some will arrive next month. We've crashed a few, Some don't work. We haven't got the right batteries for some (they do use batteries, don't they? The Minister of Defence's son has one, that's got batteries). And some are in Afghanistan - or is it Syria or Iraq? I get terribly confused with all these foreign names.

I would assume a good reason they don't disclose the numbers is so it's not used in promotional videos for the medieval terror bastards.

Ted Striker: My orders came through. My squadron ships out tomorrow. We're bombing the storage depots at Daiquiri at 1800 hours. We're coming in from the north, below their radar.

Elaine Dickinson: When will you be back?

Ted Striker: I can't tell you that. It's classified.

Interesting stuff

I read it through, learned a few things.

One key thing I couldn't glean though is I think quite crucial;

Why on earth do they care? Why do we need to or want to know this? Does it matter if we are using unmanned (piloted by a person or people still) drone, or a more traditional aircraft?

What I don't get it why does it matter?

"Part of the three-judge tribunal’s unanimous decision that the public interest was not strong enough to order disclosure rested on reasons given in its closed judgement."

That's the really crappy part - can't even challenge the validity of their judgement because the grounds on which they made the judgement are secret. Huh. Love a secret kangaroo court, me.

Slippery slope?

Presumably the MoD would like to maintain the option of not disclosing how many aircraft/ships/personnel are in a given theatre. Just because they currently do disclose how many manned fighters are operating in the area doesn't mean they might later decide it's a bad idea, or the possibility of lying about it to confuse an enemy's intelligence estimates. If they hadn't fought the FOI request they may have set a precedent that would be hard to back down from.

Incidentally although ISIS don't have a counter-air component, that I'm aware of, that doesn't mean they don't have the means to destroy the drones. Vans seem to be a popular attack medium at the moment, so the less information they have on what's operating where the better. I suspect the manned aircraft numbers are only widely available because there are people who stand at the end of runways counting these things anyway.

Link to judgment

Link to the open judgment and background papers: https://dronewars.net/2017/08/17/information-tribunal-dismisses-drone-wars-appeal-over-british-drone-secrecy/

A laosy analogy

Possibly they're gearing up for War 11.0, against you-know-who, an opponent with more war wains. He maketh the sun to rise and a Nobel prize to descend upon the evil and on the good. To paraphrase.

So either, or

Either the number is shockingly low and would show Britain is throwing away money hand over fist on it's drone "capability" OR the number is higher than they want to admit for fear of losing funding on manned flight/aircraft carriers/other white wales.

Easy..

Freedom of Information request seeking to find out how many RAF MQ-9 Reaper drones are being used to bomb Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

If you guessed all of them (so 10) you'd probably hit pretty close to the mark. Not really much point keeping any in reserve, they probably have some being serviced and whatever at any given time but principally.. all of them.

It's moot. If it's > 0 the kind of person who gets upset about this stuff is going to get upset, and it's definitely at least 1 so... But.. all of them.

Published military strength numbers are always bullshit. No defence force will ever disclose real numbers.

The main reason the MOD does not comment on Reaper deployments is then unlike manned aircraft they are primarily an Intel and SF asset. Intel and SF assets are deployed under the executive authority of the Prime Minster and the Service Chiefs. Just as the MOD doesn't comment on Special Forces operations so they are not going to comment on Reaper deployments. Simple, no conspiracy, no waging of war without the authority of Parliament because even SF deployments are scrutinized by the appropriate committees - they are just nor commented upon in the public domain - and quite rightly so.

Also Drones do not 'lower the threshold for violence' as is often claimed. They level the playing field in asymmetric conflicts where the threshold of violence has already been lowered by the terrorist who cares nothing for the laws of armed conflict or for civilian lives.