Armed drone proliferation update – March ’23

We have fully updated our list of countries operating medium altitude, long endurance (MALE) armed drones as typified by the MQ-9 Reaper and Bayraktar TB2. Just to emphasis, our list does not include states possessing loitering munitions (sometimes dubbed ‘suicide’ or kamikaze’ drones by the media) or other, one-off use smaller systems.

According to our data, thirty-four countries currently possess armed MALE drones although  some of these countries may not be currently using them operationally. Out of the 34 states known to possess armed drones 12 have used them in  cross border strikes and 11 have used them for strikes within their own borders.