Iran shot down a US military drone last week. This coming after announcements about their current level of uranium refinement was bad timing. Seeing that event and Trump’s initial response and I was expecting the potential start of a shooting war. We would retaliate, Iran would then retaliate, and the war with Iran that some people in the US have wanted for years would finally happen.

Then, amazingly, Trump called off the retaliatory strike. According to one report, the attack was ready to go, planes were in the air and on their way and then Trump asked how many people it would kill. When he learned upwards of 150 he called it off. You could argue, justifiably, how that should have been the first question he asked and he should never have given the order to attack without knowing that. You could also argue that tensions are high in the first place because Trump broke the deal the US had made with Iran last year.

But, credit where it is due, Trump made a good call and avoided killing 150 people over the loss of a piece of equipment. We’ve avoided another pointless war. I am not entirely convinced that we still won’t end up in one before the 2020 election. For now, though no one has died.

This whole incident highlights another facet of the use of drones in warfare. For years, we have used drones for surveillance and for missile strikes. There are a lot of moral questions you could debate about the missile strikes but it’s still a human pulling the trigger. For most cases, a human in a fighter jet would have been in no danger during those incidents either. That it was a drone that launched the missile is secondary.

However, that this incident involved a drone is crucial. Whether the drone violated Iran airspace is almost irrelevant. The US was pushing up against that line and Iran reacted to the provocation. Before drones, we would have had a dead US pilot which would definitely lead to dead Iranians. Now, we’ve had a brush with war and have a chance to step back and rethink things with no deaths.

What happens next time is the big question. Some will argue that by not retaliating, the US has shown that anyone can destroy our drones without consequences. This will result in more people shooting them down. They will claim this will make us look weak.

Others would argue that this is the exact reason we build drones. So they can go into dangerous situations without the risk of life. If they are destroyed, so what? It’s a financial loss only. Now, this mentality could lead down a path where the US no longer cares about consequences and will send drones anywhere and everywhere. They won’t flirt with the border line but blatantly violate it.

All of these possibilities could have dire consequences, up to and including a full-scale robot war and eventual machine uprising. But for now, no one has died. Weapons have been fired and heated words exchanged. But no one has died. Here’s to it staying that way.