Popular Mechanics, as repeated at FoxNews, notes the US Army’s increasing reliance on and acquisition of UAVs.

Maj. Gen. James Barclay III, the commanding general in charge of Army aviation, today released the “Unmanned Aircraft Systems [UAS] Roadmap 2010–2035” at an Army aviation conference in Fort Worth, Texas. Its subtitle, “Eyes of the Army,” hints at the plan’s early focus on reconnaissance, but the scope of the roadmap expands…

The article describes a “rivalry” between the Air Force and the Army–from which the Air Force was born–over the control and innovation of UAVs.  This isn’t a new problem, and the GAO even chided the Department of Defense over the lack of cooperation between the services over UAVs.  It noted, for example, that the Air Force and Army have procured essentially identical UAVs without combining their efforts, which would have likely saved the government money.  The degree of cooperation with the Navy, too, is not without critique.

To this point, the other services have resisted ceding authority to the Air Force over UAVs that operate with Air Force aircraft.  This is largely a statement of the growing influence of UAVs in the battlespace, and their key to accomplishing the mission (as well as acquiring service-specific funding).

Still, perhaps the Air Force should acquire unmanned ground and sea vehicles, and then see how the other services respond to the Air Force’s encroachment into their area of expertise.