Additional monitoring of the situation

A benefit of drones, the U.S. Airforce says, is the ability to continue to monitor an airstrike after the missile has hit its target.

During WWII, according to David Deptula Lt. General USAF/Ret., it took months of work to assemble intelligence from the ground and then determine targets to hit, and then took hundreds of aircraft dropping thousands of bombs to destroy a target. Today, those capabilities are all-in-one -- drones allow the cycle to be accomplished in minutes, rather than months.

As the U.S. government continues to struggle with an official policy toward the rules of engagement for drones, the technology marches on, and the operational capabilities of our human-less war become stronger every day.