Terrorism

• At least eight drone strikes hit Moscow in the early morning of May 30, 2023, damaging several buildings and injuring civilians.
• This follows Russia’s targeting residential buildings in Ukraine with a wave of drone attacks in late May, killing civilians.
• Today, drones are used in various other conflicts but are also used to deliver packages, track weather and entertain drone hobbyists.

A buying spree

• Terrorists have also been known to deploy drones because they are relatively low-cost weapons with high degrees of civilian damage.
• Consumer drone shipments, globally, topped 5 million units in 2020 and are expected to surpass 7 million by 2025.
• Each country is free to decide when and where drones fly, without answering to any other country or international authority governing drones.

Different purposes

• China is increasingly using sophisticated drones for covert surveillance, especially in international waters to patrol the disputed islands in the South China Sea.
• Its expanding drone program has influenced other countries like the U.S. to also invest more in the technology.
• And South Korea is considering starting a special drone unit after it failed to respond to a recent North Korean drone incursion.

No rules in the air

• The countries with armed drones are individually navigating their own rules instead of an international agreed-upon set of regulations.
• International law prohibits the use of armed force unless the United Nations Security Council authorizes an attack, or in the case of self-defense.
• Figuring out the national and international rules of the sky for drone usage is hard.

US and drones

• The U.S. killed a top al-Qaida leader with a drone strike in Afghanistan in 2022.
• But there have been other instances of drone strikes that resulted in unintended casualties and damage.
• There is scant public opinion research on how American feel about the use of drones overseas, which makes building public support for their military use difficult.

Drone dangers

• Drone dangers are real.
• Traditional radar detection has grown more sophisticated with new drone detection platforms to more accurately decipher the exact location of the drone operator.
• In my view, the world needs new and consistent rules on drone usage for the decade ahead – better international monitoring of drone incursions and more transparency in the outcome of drone attacks.

• The local and regional elections that took place the 28th May have shaken up the political chessboard in Spain.
• The right-wing Partido Popular took the largest proportion of votes and now has the largest number of seats in local and regional governments.
• In one fell swoop the socialist party has lost around 70% of the local and regional power it had.

National identity

• Ideas about identity and nationalism came to play an important part in what were supposed to be elections about local matters.
• During the last week of the campaign in particular, national issues dominated the discourse.
• The Partido Popular has constructed a rhetoric of being the only party defending the constitution and the union of the country.
• The party, presided over by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has absorbed the main voters from Ciudadanos, the Catalan political start-up that was at first phenomenally successful when it came to national prominence in 2015 but has already almost disappeared.

Political leadership

• He has managed to boost his international image with good performances in Europe and occasional visits to Washington and Beijing.
• But there is little time for Sumar to establish a strategy that can turn a social movement into a political entity with representation in the provinces.
• Meanwhile, Alberto Núñez Feijoo, of the Spanish People’s Party, proposes a quiet style of leadership.

Plebiscite

• He lost three MPs in the 2019 rerun election and now he has lost ground in many regions.
• In Catalonia, his acceptance is growing, but the seats it brings to the general elections are not enough.
• In this situation, Sánchez’s only chance is to get as near to his current 120 parliamentary seats as he can.
• Whereas local elections weren’t supposed to be a plebiscite on national government, next 23rd of July seems to be the rerun of a general election whose first round took place last weekend.

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