Best Place for the Navy to Test Secret Drones? Lake Michigan
Experimental unmanned vessels are now being shifted to the Caribbean — just as China steps up its spying operations there.
Drones in Dairlyand?
Photographer: Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty Images
China’s recent enhancement of its spying operations in Cuba — likely to focus on surveilling the many US military facilities in Florida — should have the Defense Department thinking about safer locations for some of its most sensitive testing and scientific programs. One idea is to place them away from ocean coasts in the less-vulnerable American Midwest.
The debate is quite timely: This spring, the Navy relocated the testing of some cutting-edge experimental unmanned vehicles to the Caribbean, under the authority of the 4th Fleet in Mayport, Florida. It’s a perplexing decision given how US adversaries such as China, Russia and Iran are spreading their influence in Latin America and the Caribbean — and finding willing partners in not just Cuba but also Venezuela and Nicaragua, for example.