How many other nations use drones in this manner? Is it just us and US?
I think that the use of armed drones undermines the status and virtues of military service.
There is a huge void of public awareness of the role and method of use of the RPAS in the RAF. There is a big difference between the manner of our use and that of the USA. For example, unlike the CIA, we do not use the RPAS for political assassination.
We are our own worse enemies when it comes to publicising these systems. The word "Drone" has connotations and why on earth did we stick with the American name of "Reaper" which implies that it is there to assassinate! We also readily show on TV the steady pictures as a manned aircraft launches a LGB without showing the difficulties of the crew who have to make very fast judgement decisions about release (unlike the RPAS where every man and his dog can see and assess the picture before weapon release) and of course, our latest manned ground attack aircraft is single seat! Everyone remembers John Peters and John Nichol from the GW - sadly, in this conflict the pictures would be of the public beheadings on Al Jazirah TV.
The RPAs is basically a flying CCTV camera with its own police enforcement attached. It has long loiter and can be placed into harms way as an adjunct to putting our own troops into an area. By saving weight and size by being remotely piloted (no seats/emergency kit/oxygen/toilets/galley etc) it can carry out a much more successful anti-insurgent mission. At the end of the day, the important issue is to make the area safe for our ground troops - the RPAS method is an excellent method of achieving this.