Then again, this seems to be one issue where there’s very little daylight between the two parties. Even the two separate fall 2011 drone strikes that killed Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son, both American citizens, in Yemen raised few official eyebrows.

And because it’s all so incredibly classified, there’s not even an opportunity for informed public debate over the use of drones.

Perhaps the news that China has joined the ranks of the drone-possessing community, having unveiled an operational vehicle that looks suspiciously like the American Reaper but reportedly at a fraction of the per-unit cost, will finally force a major debate, much as Russia’s acquisition of nuclear weapons did in the last century.