Throughout history intelligence gathering has been left to forward observers, those who infiltrate the enemy, and those within the enemy organization who leak out information. In all these scenarios people are put at risk. Actual lives where on the line gathering this information; information that was changing in real-time. This put militaries in precarious situations. What information is outdated? What information has been doctored? What information is reliable? Is this where the enemy still is? Many of these questions have become answered through the US drone program.

The RQ-4 Global Hawk drone can provide real-time, continuous images, of enemy troop movements for 24 hours before needing to be refueled during that time  another RQ-4 Global Hawk drone can continue the information gathering. This capability is unheard of in military history and still is the sole domain of the United States military. The RQ-4 Global Hawk drone has advantages over both deploying troops and satellite images. Deploying troops to gather what a drone can easily gather means those troops cannot do another task. Satellites usually rotate around the world and are cost ineffective to remain parked over a certain mountain range in Afghanistan monitoring for enemy troop movements. The RQ-4 Global Hawk drone allows for the US armed forces to conduct surveillance in a cost effective manner compared to a satellite while simultaneously not exposing US military personnel to risk of field action.

Furthermore as recently as 2016 the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone provided real-time intelligence gathering over Germany, with respect to Russia violating airspace, as well as providing visuals of troop movement in Eastern Ukraine. This could be done traditionally but that would expose a pilot to the risk of being shot down or plane malfunction. One of the benefits of a drone malfunction mid air is no loss of life. At no other time in human history has man been able to project this form of power with little to no human life at risk- a veritable game changer moving forward.

For the absolute cynics out there who are unconcerned about the loss of human life one RQ-4 Global Hawk drone costs roughly 222 million US dollars now while an F-22 Raptor costs 339 million US dollars. Those figures include research and development costs but future costs still prove the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone cheaper than an F-22 Raptor costing 131 million USD to 139 million USD respectively. So yes, once again the drone program is more cost friendly than a manned plane and in case of emergency, or mechanical failure, no pilot is put at risk if the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone fails.