Sorry, your flight is delayed due to: DRONES
Why are mysterious drones appearing over airports?
Commercial air travellers in Europe are being impacted by mysterious drones appearing near airports, leaving thousands of passengers fuming and economic costs mounting.
But where these drones are coming from, and who is responsible, remains a mystery.
Munich Airport was temporarily shut down Thursday after several drone sightings in the area, cancelling flights for over 3000 people.
Unidentified drones have been reported in Denmark and Norway, when sightings forced the closure of Copenhagen and Oslo airports.
Belgian defence officials are also investigating sightings of multiple drones over a military base.
“Anybody” could be behind the flyovers
Nobody is sure where the drones are coming from, or who is controlling them.
Hans-Christian Mathiesen, vice president of a Danish drone maker, said, “it could be anybody” who could carry out a drone flyover like the one at Munich airport.
“If you have a drone, you can always fly it into restricted airspace and disrupt activity. So everything from boys not thinking about what they’re doing — just fooling around — to someone that is doing it with a purpose: Criminal organizations, state actors, you name it,” said Mathiesen.
Finger-pointing at Russia
Not surprisingly, many suspect that Russia is behind the drones in what have been called, “hybrid attacks.”
“From a European perspective there is only one country... willing to threaten us, and that is Russia, and therefore we need a very strong answer back,” said Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. Russia’s Danish embassy denied responsibility, “The Russian side firmly rejects the absurd speculations of involvement in the incidents.”
French Navy commandos boarded a ship suspected to be part of the Russian so-called shadow fleet that was in the vicinity of Denmark when the drones were launched. However, no sign of drones or launchers was found on board.
Why would anyone do such a thing?
The presence of drones near an airport obviously poses a threat to air passenger safety. But downing an aircraft may not be the reason a malicious actor would do such a thing.
According to a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, drones offer many advantages from a military standpoint.
First, drones operate at congested lower altitudes, where the line between the military battlespace and the civilian air traffic system is as blurred.
Second, drones can generate disproportionate effects at low cost. A single drone, far cheaper than any modern aircraft, can shut down an airport handling tens of thousands of passengers and millions of dollars of cargo.
Finally, drones offer more reward than risk. Because these systems lack human operators onboard, and are typically unarmed, adversaries can operate with plausible deniability, making it hard for authorities to determine ownership and hold the perpetrators accountable.
Goading NATO into spending more defence dollars to counter cheap drones
As PeaceQuest readers might recall from my article two weeks ago, some assume that Russia’s airspace violations last month over Poland were aimed at pushing NATO countries to spending billions countering drones. This could draw money away from military aid destined for Ukraine.
Drones are inexpensive, especially compared with the costs of intercepting them. In Polish airspace, for example, NATO used missiles costing between $500,000 and $1 million each to shoot down Russian drones worth about $10,000 apiece.
Is Canada next?
Should these mysterious drones appear in Canada and disrupt commercial air travel, one might expect political pressure to build for Canada to buy expensive anti-drone weapons – or possibly join Trump’s ridiculous Golden Dome system at whatever the cost.
Leave a comment explaining your vote.
Readers want PM Carney to reject more taxes and budget deficits
Last week, we covered predictions that the federal budget deficit is set to balloon under PM Carney’s tax cuts and planned spending increases – including for the military. Most readers were nearly three times more likely to advise Carney to reduce planned spending (67%), than cut taxes (13%) or run budget deficits (11%).
Readers comments:
“Spending less means to me spending less on war and related war equipment / machinery!” - Hugo
“Canada should be spending the wasted military budget (on no known enemy unless it is the U.S.) on the climate crisis that is the greatest security threat to Canadians.” – M. Lumly
“Although I voted for increasing taxes, I also think we should drastically decrease the military budget.” – G. Doctorow
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Thank you for everything you do for peace.
Steve
Even before the drones, my odds of flying again were zero.
I think what they do demonstrate is that the F-35 and other manned military aircraft are obsolete.