Agree we're talking past each other a bit. Sorry. I agree with you that proliferation is bad, but I'd like to elaborate. Summarising as I see it: OP's point w

Agree we're talking past each other a bit. Sorry. I agree with you that proliferation is bad, but I'd like to elaborate. Summarising as I see it: OP's point was that WMDs (of all kinds) are an equalizer between nations. Your response was that nuclear proliferation creates instability. You also I think unfairly characterised OP's position as being pro-nuclear proliferation. You assumed OP was talking about nukes but I believe they were making a broader point. My response to you was that nuclear anti-proliferation efforts create a kind of hegemony where dominant nations get cemented in power forever. For the record, I'm also anti-nuclear-proliferation, but I wanted to point out that from the point of view of anyone not under the protective nuclear umbrella of a dominant nation there's a heavy element of hypocrisy involved. Circling back around to drones, I can see why the U.S. might want to restrict them or classify them as WMDs. I think the following is where OP was coming from: They have the potential to undermine conventional power and effectively turn war into a competition of mass cheap manufacturing capability. It's not at all clear in 2020 that the U.S. (in particular) would be able to dominate in such a situation. They're super hard to regulate in the sense that a nation aligned to a major manufacturing power could acquire or stockpile them in massive quantities with little oversight. It would create a possibly surprising shift in power where the U.S. might not be able to project conventional force into areas where they would normally expect to be able to do that. They're also tricky in terms of message management (big part of warfare) because when used defensively, a nuclear response to them is not politically credible. So you can't use the big stick. This doesn't create nuclear instability but it does create "instability" in the sense that it has the potential to shift the balance of power for the existing nuclear and conventional hegemony. Which I think was the crux of the OP's original point.