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The Hand Behind Unmanned
Podcast

The Hand Behind Unmanned

A podcast about the people who design, direct, and deploy America’s arsenal of unmanned weapons.

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The Hand Behind Unmanned is a podcast about the people who design, direct, and deploy America’s arsenal of unmanned weapons. The limited series podcast tells stories about their beliefs, identities, and the ways in which human ideas about warfare created and continue to shape today’s drone revolution. It is a history of US investment in mines, torpedoes, missiles, satellites, bombs, and drones from the point of view of the generals, admirals, career bureaucrats, academicians, politicians, and entrepreneurs that guided, dictated, and sometimes manipulated technology to create autonomous systems.

Episodes document the rise of autonomy in the US military from floating mines and tethered torpedoes to unmanned planes dropped from WW2 bombers; rockets, ballistic and cruise missiles to laser-guided bombs and satellites; and finally the dominance of remotely piloted aircraft over two decades of a war on terror. Throughout, the series traces the origins and pathways of ideas behind revolutions in military technologies, risk mitigation strategies, the effects of the 24-7 news cycle, and the power of armed service and occupational identities to explain not just what the US chose to put on the battlefield, but why it did so.  

The Hand Behind Unmanned

The Hand Behind Unmanned: Origins of the US Autonomous Military Arsenal

What explains the current US arsenal of unmanned systems? Why, for example, is the contemporary arsenal dominated by aerial unmanned systems versus the munitions that dominated earlier developments?

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