As is usual, the US is so blinded to the technology of force projection that they do not hesitate to consider the possible drawbacks to such a policy.

I like the calm way in which we see signature strikes becoming the preferred methodology. What a signature strike pretends to be is a precisely targeted warning to others. But strip away the fancy technobabble and it's really just another version of the payload from a B-52. And politically far more dubious, simply because the US tend not to send a B-52 halfway around the world to destroy a village, but seem to think it's okay if a predator does it. This is sloppy thinking and seems entirely typical of the way policy proceeds in DC these days.

And the largest flaw is information. they admit this policy is a substitute to counter insurgency rather than an adjunct. So they take away the people on the ground who could tell them who to hit. So they're either firing blind or relying on local people providing information and, given the experience of how this has worked up to now in Afghanistan and Iraq, I'd be amazed if the system isn't being used by the Taliban as much as at them.

And given that this is just a variation on a dumb policy, rather than an entirely new idea, we are looking at the same major weakness of the policy; blowback. And the more the US throws its weight around the world, the more certain that blowback will be.

And the US is so terribly vulnerable to such things.

If it weren't that people will die, this would be funny. But they will, it isn't and I draw no pleasure from the prospect whatsoever.

keep to the Fen Causeway