Smaller drones don't let the US off the hook for war crimes Charli Carpenter , US Air Force The US has relied heavily on drones for many missions — including lethal strikes — for decades. Drones are only a platform, and what matters for international law is how those platforms are used. In the US, focus on the drones themselves has overshadowed debate with the wider ethics of armed violence. When it comes to armed drones, is smaller and more precise necessarily better? The question came to my mind upon seeing the news that the US Air Force just successfully test-launched a new weaponizable drone, the ALTIUS-600, making it the smallest drone in operation. Even more remarkably, this tiny aircraft was launched from the second-smallest-drone, the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie, while the Valkyrie was in flight.