Smart warfare

After the Normandy landings and the Soviet Union??s invasion of Germany, it took the Allies almost a year to get their hands on Nazi leaders and end the Second World War. It cost all sides millions of lives ?? many of them civilian. Ever was it so: the previous century, Napoleon had marched into Russia, lost 70,000 men and hadn??t even got past Moscow??s gates; the USA faced similar problems shutting down the enemy in Vietnam, as did the Russians in Chechnya. However, one technological revolution later, if the US wants to take out a suspected Al Qaeda leader, it sends in an unmanned drone aircraft to drop a bomb from 50,000ft. No risk of US casualties. Less risk, they say, of civilian deaths. And no pitched battle through the streets of the town in which target is living. With no pilot, it doesn??t even really matter if the drone crashes.