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Only Shamash the hero crosses the ocean:

apart from the Sun God, who crosses the ocean?

T ABLET X, E PIC OF G ILGAMESH

H eld up by three lawn mowersized wheels, two of them attached to the slimmest of metal poles bolted to its fuselage and the front one strengthened by struts and shock absorbers, the Predator drone has been described as spindly, as if something weighing more than a ton and standing higher than a tall man, with wings extending the length of four automobiles, should nevertheless be thought of as fragile. The lone push propeller at the rear gives off the familiar whirr and swoosh of a baseball bat, and the engine whines away as it prepares for takeoff. The drones body is all curves and humps, with that unmistakable rotating bug eye protruding under the cockpit up front, except that there is no cockpit, just as there is no pilot on board.

With its characteristic inverted-V tail, the drone trundles down the taxiway looking from a distance like any commuter plane, slightly flapping as the body turns. But when it takes off, with surprisingly little runway, those long wings capture the friction just perfectly to provide lift. Every second of every day, about fifty of these Predator-type drones are airborne worldwide, over Afghanistan and Pakistan, quietly flying over Yemen or Syria, working in Africa and Latin America, patrolling the US border, monitoring the oceans, conducting civilian and scientific missions These airplane-sized drones, which have become so much the staple of American military power, have amassed over a million flight hours in the past decade, hardly the toil of something fragile. They fly at an altitude of 15,000 to 40,000 feet and can stay airborne for as many as forty-five hours. Though they have been flying for over twenty years, they are also hardly static. Constantly updated models and accessorized packages leave the secret showrooms for duty, videotaping anything that goes on below, some even in high-definition. They have sensors that can see both day and night, in clear weather or in sandstorms, at narrow views or at wide ones. Some contain equipment that can listen in to radio and cell phone communications, even precisely locate where these communications are coming from.

The US military operated fewer than 200 unmanned aerial vehiclesdrones

Though one might conclude from the global drone debate France has even flown its own lethal drone missions in Africa. Smaller countries strapped for manpower but heavily invested in their militariesIsrael, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates, to name a fewplay an outsized role in unmanned research, development, and adoption. The unlikeliest of US allies in the war against terrorBurundi, Uganda, Yemen, and of course Afghanistan and Iraqfly American-made drones. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea have healthy unmanned programs and innumerable growing inventories. And all these countries dont just have the drones: China uses them to spy on Japan near disputed islands in Asia. Bolivia uses them to spot coca fields in the Andes. Hamas in the Palestinian territories and the Lebanon-based Hizballah state-within-a-state both have and have used Iranian-made drones, Hamas even armed ones. Even NATO ally Turkey pilots drones that increasingly cross its neighbors borders, American style.

Meanwhile, the unmanned civilian market quickly evolves into law enforcement, scientific research, industrial and consumer services, education, and even entertainment. Border agencies and local police have begun emulating their military brethren in acquiring drones not just for bomb disposal and other dangerous missions, but also for intelligence collection and surveillance. UAVs are playing greater and greater roles in agriculture, in weather forecasting, in identifying and locating forest fires and oil pipeline leaks, in assisting archeological and environmental research, and in relaying radio signals, and are increasingly present in businesses from real estate to journalism.