The rules of the Missile Technology Control Regime unfairly and unreasonably erect obstacles to the export of remotely piloted aircraft, said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz Tuesday. Therefore, they should be revisited, he stated during an address at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C. Schwartz said the MTCR was intended to slow the proliferation of missiles, but the regime has hampered the export of RPAs by its strict reading of what counts as a missile. Schwartz suggested an exception for RPAs, possibly based on “ISR only,”—that is, RPAs that can only perform intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance roles, but not kinetic missions—or possibly based on speed, since RPAs are fairly slow fliers easily seen and characterized.
The Air Force is launching an effort to develop a new stand-off missile with a range of 1,000 nautical miles, or 1,150 miles, that would eventually be used for both air-to-air and air-to-surface missions.