The arrival of U.S. killer drones over Libya is a psychological boost for rebels fighting Moammar Gadhafi and for European NATO allies but no "magic bullet" to break the stalemate in the war.
President Barack Obama's decision to send armed Predator drones was significant in showing Washington being drawn back reluctantly into the front line after European powers France and Britain showed their limits in leading the NATO air campaign.
While a boost to Western capabilities against Gadhafi's forces, the deployment also shows how unwilling NATO allies are to risk casualties among their forces by employing low-flying manned aircraft that could tip the balance in the conflict.
Shashank Joshi of London's Royal United Services Institute said their deployment reflected U.S. reluctance to provide low-flying manned aircraft, such as the A-10 Tankbuster and the AC-130 gunship, that France in particular had pressed for.
"It's a way of satisfying the French and the British. And it draws the Americans back in further than Barack Obama and (U.S. Defense Secretary) Robert Gates wanted because their ideal point was merely to support European forces and facilitate NATO without taking the lead role," Joshi said.
"But it's a recognition that with only six other members of NATO conducting air strikes and resource constraints, they are providing something the British and French couldn't."
Uncertain debut
Deadly in the clear skies of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Predators, made an uncertain debut in Libya. They are being deployed from the Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, Italy, NBC News reported.
Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the first two dispatched Thursday had to turn back because of bad weather.
Cartwright's boss, Admiral Mike Mullen, sought to manage expectations downwards, saying that while Western airstrikes had destroyed 30-40 percent of Gadhafi's ground forces, the conflict in Libya was "moving toward a stalemate."
"Predators are not going to be a magic bullet — in a military context, it's very difficult to have a single magic bullet," said Douglas Barrie, a military aviation expert at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies.
"But putting unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into the operation in a bigger way will provide the coalition with a persistent presence over areas of interest and will help cover the relative shortfall of strike aircraft."
Tim Ripley, a military expert at Jane's Defense Weekly, said there was a clear psychological motive to the announcement, given that the Pentagon had said earlier this month that two unarmed Predators and a larger "Global Hawk" drone were taking part in the Libya operation.
"It's being pitched as a ramping up of the air war, so it's capitalizing on the mystique and terror potential of these weapons to put pressure on the Libyan regime and to placate Western domestic opinion (worried) that the war is stalemating."
More time over battlefield
Joshi said the Predators would not on their own be enough to break the seven-week-old siege of the city of Misrata, the last rebel stronghold in western Libya.
"A lot of people will be suggesting that this is yet another instance of intervening powers trying to effect serious military change from thousands of feet in the air rather than takes risks with their own personnel," he said.
Drones have some advantages over helicopters and low-flying attack planes as they can stay over a battlefield longer and hit ground targets with comparative impunity, but in the numbers envisaged for Libya, there are limits to what they can achieve.
The Pentagon said the U.S. deployments involve two patrols of Predators — each of which can carry two Hellfire missiles.
Analysts say this would mean a total of perhaps six to 10 aircraft, or which only two to four might be over Libya at any one time, compared with the 50 patrols employed in Afghanistan and Pakistan — a smaller land area than Libya.
"You'd want more UAVs if they were available," said Barrie, noting there were limits to how many could be deployed without affecting missions in Afghanistan and Yemen.
"The Predators have the potential to change things, but only in a limited area," said Ripley. "They are only going to have two patrols, so that means a very narrow area. So it's more of a tactical operational thing than a strategic impact."
The psychological impact on Gadhafi's forces could be significant, discouraging them from venturing into the open, but Predators could not fully replace lower-flying aircraft.
"Helicopters are far closer to the action and pilots can see what's going on and say hunt down a street," Ripley said.
Barrie said drones has been effectively employed in Iraq against insurgents in Sadr City, but then they were backed by U.S. attack helicopters.
The worry for Western forces discouraging such a combination in Libya is Gadhafi's strength in shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons, which are difficult to detect and counter.
"They have a significant number of man-portable surface-to-air missiles and some very modern Russian vehicle-mounted systems, so there's a genuine and credible low-altitude threat," Barrie said.
