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viii Preface allow the conduct of warfare with impunity, from a distance. However, the very fact that an armed attack becomes so easy makes an armed attack infinitely more likely. Thus, they serve to reduce some (but certainly not all) of the consequences of a war and make the decision to go to war carry far fewer political costs. When the United States decided to engage in a series of airstrikes against Libya in 1986 (Operation El Dorado Canyon), President Ronald Reagan and his closest advisors spent weeks discuss- ing the potential ramifications before deciding to conduct a single night of aerial bombardment against very specific targets. They knew full well that they were risking the lives of the pilots involved and that they might be condemned by the international community for what was undoubtedly an act of war. The last three American presidents (George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump) have all had at their disposal the ability to attack against individual targets anywhere in the world through remotely piloted aircraft. Collectively, they have ordered airstrikes in at least a dozen countries, none of them an active conflict zone, in pursuit of mem- bers of al Qaeda and the Islamic State, including U.S citizens. It is hard to say how much each president wrestled with the decision to launch strikes into the sovereign territory of other nations—but it is undeniable that the means to do so eroded any prohibitions against the activity. Military robots are here to stay—there is no way to put the genie back in the bottle, and they are simply too effective as a tool of war to be vol- untarily relinquished. However, to date, no nation has fielded a fully autonomous platform allowed to make lethal decisions without human intervention in anything but a defensive role. The capability to build such platforms already exists, and, when they are unleashed upon the battle- field, they will likely to be extremely effective, so much so that other nations will scramble to produce their own variants. Coupled with the increased willingness to use force as a tool of diplomacy, such weapons are likely to trigger a catastrophic conflict that will quickly spread around the globe, unless preventive measures are taken to avert this develop- ment. This work seeks to place the development of such machines into an historical context and then examine the likely futures if the current path does not change. As any author can attest, no book is ever completed in isolation. I have been fortunate to have the support of family, friends, and colleagues in this endeavor. In particular, in 2015, I was fortunate to be selected as the chair of the Department of Research at Air Command and Staff College. Accepting the position created ridiculous delays in the production of this manuscript, which tried the patience of my editor, Pat Carlin, to its very limits. However, the position has been the most rewarding period of a very happy career, and I owe the fellow members of the department a very deep vote of gratitude. Professor Kenneth Johnson has served as the deputy chair for my entire stint at the head of the department, and the two