Fortune Magazine Quotes Partner Eric McClafferty on Whether the 1987 Missile Control Treaty is Hindering the U.S. Unmanned Vehicle Industry

Partner Eric R. McClafferty was quoted in the Fortune Magazine article enttitled ​“The 1987 missile treaty holding back America’s drone industry.”

The article discusses the impact of the 1987 missile export ban on today’s burgeoning unmanned aerial systems industry. The Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) was developed to prevent the proliferation of technologies that could be used to deliver a long-range nuclear or chemical/biological strike, but many of its criteria are seen as a hinderance to UAS manufacturers who wish to shop their wares internationally, where there is a huge demand for the capabilities that unmanned aerial systems can provide to militaries as well as civilian authorities and scientific missions.

Mr. McClafferty tells Fortune that while national security should be an interest, there’s a competing interest in not stifling a world-leading technology sector, pointing to restrictions placed on U.S. satellite technology development causing the U.S. to lag behind other countries in development.  He goes on to say ​“there’s a belief in the community that folks are going to develop these technologies internally using their own resources, and it’s tough to slow this development that a lot of these technology control regimes are designed to slow. So as the rest of the world catches up, the export control rules definitely hurt U.S. manufacturers, and there are a lot of people who would love to see the rules change.”

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