When the Pentagon announced a “joint interagency task force” in July to bring the U.S. military up to speed on drone warfare, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. James Mingus compared drones to the threat of improvised explosive devices two decades earlier in Iraq.

The Black Hornet’s imminent deployment to Afghanistan is the latest indication of how drone technology is playing an increasingly important role on the battlefield.

U.S. veterans who served in Afghanistan told a commission reviewing the conflict that their experience was confounding, demoralizing and at times humiliating. The Afghanistan War Commission aims to reflect such experiences in a report due next year.