Future “Top Guns” Will Be Battle Managers Flying Bigger, Slower Aircraft

Debates over manned versus unmanned military aircraft can overshadow the fact that today's jets and weapons are already heavily automated. Peter Singer, a strategist at the New America Foundation and author of the upcoming novel Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next War, says that modern fighter pilots describe their jobs as being less about “Top Gun joystick handling” and more about serving as a “battle manager” who makes top-level decisions. He added that there is already a “really fuzzy line” between cruise missiles and drones.