From Ukraine To Myanmar, Drone Warfare Marks A Paradigm Shift – Analysis

Ukrainian soldiers pose with a drone. Photo Credit: Anton Sheveliov, Ukraine Ministry of Defence

 September 16, 2024

By Geopolitical Monitor

By Antonio Graceffo

On September 10, Ukrainian forces launched the largest drone attack of the war to date, targeting Moscow with 144 drones. The assault resulted in 20 drones being shot down, while several multi-story residential buildings near Moscow were set ablaze. Flights from Russia’s most important airports were temporarily suspended. In response, Russia launched a retaliatory strike using 46 drones.

The strikes from both sides highlight a now indisputable fact: drone warfare is playing a determining role in the Ukraine war.

Armed drones, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), are pilotless aircraft used to locate, monitor, and strike targets, including individuals and equipment. Since the September 11 attacks, the United States has significantly expanded its use of UAVs for global counterterrorism missions. Drones have key advantages over manned weapons. They can stay airborne for over 14 hours, compared to under four hours for manned aircraft like the F-16, allowing for continuous surveillance without risking pilot safety. Additionally, drones offer near-instant responsiveness, with missiles striking targets within seconds, unlike slower manned systems, such as the 1998 cruise missile strike on Osama bin Laden, which relied on hours-old intelligence.

There is much discussion in the US defense establishment regarding the use of drones, drone policy and how they should be incorporated into military strategy. According to the Marine Corps University, in order to calculate the effectiveness of a drone strike, several factors must be considered, including Tactical Military Effectiveness (TME), Operational Military Effectiveness (OME), and Strategic Military Effectiveness (SME). TME assesses how well the drone strike achieves its immediate objective, such as neutralizing a specific target. OME evaluates the broader impact on military operations, such as troop movements or operational coordination. Lastly, SME considers the long-term consequences of drone warfare, including the effects of drone strikes on enemy leadership, public opinion, and international relations. All three factors are critical in ensuring that drone strikes align with both short-term and long-term military objectives.

Drones are being deployed in large numbers in the Ukraine war, having already played a major role in the battles between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. They are also becoming an increasingly key platform in the Myanmar civil war and conflicts across the Middle East. Advanced militaries, including the Pentagon, are closely monitoring these theaters to refine their own drone strategies. For example, recently the U.S. released a ‘drone hellscape strategy’ for the defense of Taiwan, while China has been conducting simulations of a drone-only attack on the island. Yet even the world’s most advanced militaries seem to lack a definitive approach to drone warfare. And, ironically, they continue to learn valuable lessons from underfunded and undertrained rebels in other far-flung global conflicts.

Drone warfare in the Myanmar civil war

The Free Burma Rangers, a frontline aid group in the Myanmar civil war, has been reporting on the increasing incidence of drone warfare in the conflict. On September 6, 2024, a Tatmadaw drone strike resulted in the deaths of four civilians—two men and two women, and one person was also wounded in the attack. Another drone dropped a handmade bomb on a civilian home in Loi Lem Lay Village, Karenni State. During the same incident, a Tatmadaw drone with six propellers experienced mechanical issues while flying over the battlefield and was subsequently captured by the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF), a pro-democracy ethnic army. Taken together, these incidents underscore how drone warfare is still in its tactical infancy, with numerous failed deployments, and how payloads and weaponization are often being improvised by soldiers on the ground.

Other rebel armies in the Myanmar civil war, particularly the People’s Defense Forces (PDF), have developed their own drone units. For instance, a PDF unit reportedly carried out 125 drone strikes during the Battle of Loikaw in Kayah State. Another unit claims responsibility for around 80 drone strikes last year, resulting in the deaths of 80 to 100 junta troops. These forces are either manufacturing their own drones or repurposing civilian models by adding deployable explosives. The drones are inexpensive, widely available, and highly effective. Even the junta, supported by China and Russia, has adopted similar tactics by attaching mortar shells to their drones, while ethnic armiesoften use homemade explosives based on mortar shells captured from the Tatmadaw. These devices can range from 40 to 60mm, carry up to 2.5 kg of explosives and shrapnel, and are capable of killing or injuring anyone within a 100-meter radius in open terrain.

FPV drones a game-changer in the Ukraine war

In addition to homemade and modified drones, first-person view (FPV) drones can cost around $500 USD each, while reconnaissance drones equipped with advanced cameras can run into the thousands. Ukraine is deploying these drones at a rate of 100,000 per month, with plans to produce one million FPV drones in 2024. For a sense of just how important drones have become in the Ukraine war, consider the fact that this figure far exceeds the number of artillery shells supplied by the entire European Union over the past year.

FPV drones, launched from improvised platforms, can fly between 5 and 20 kilometers depending on their size, battery, and payload. Controlled by a soldier using a headset for a first-person view, with another providing guidance via maps on a tablet, these drones are often used to target vulnerable points such as tank hatches or engines. Their real-time video feed, transmitted through goggles or a headset similar to VR gaming, gives the operator precise control, especially in complex environments like urban warfare or dense terrain. FPV drones are effective for reconnaissance, targeted strikes, and even suicide missions, where they carry explosives and fly directly into a target. Unlike planes or helicopters, they are not hindered by anti-aircraft systems near the front lines. In fact, a $500 FPV drone can target the open hatch of a Russian tank worth millions of dollars, demonstrating their cost-effectiveness in modern warfare.

The rise of counter-drone and jamming technologies

As drone warfare becomes increasingly common on the battlefield, a need arises for effective drone jamming technologies. While Russian, Ukrainian, and other armies have access to jammers, ethnic armies in Myanmar lack them almost entirely. Jammers start at $2,400, but many cheap, commercially available models are essentially useless due to significant design flaws. Some have fixed antennae that point upward, despite attacks coming from the side, and many generate excessive heat without proper cooling. This raises concerns about their effectiveness in harsh environments, such as the deserts of the Middle East or the humid jungles of Myanmar.

Moreover, electronic jamming devices work on specific frequencies and drone pilots are adapting by switching to less commonly used ones. To counter this, new technologies like pocket-sized “tenchies” and backpack electronic warfare (EW) systems have emerged, jamming signals across a broader 720-1,050 MHz range, making them more effective against Russian drones. Despite Ukraine’s deployment of these newer jammers, Russia’s use of hunter-killer drone systems like the Orlan-10 for spotting and the Lancet for strikes, along with missile-equipped Orion drones, continue to challenge Ukraine’s drone defenses.

In response, Ukraine has created the Unmanned Systems Force (USF), a military branch dedicated to drone warfare. Additionally, semi-autonomous drones using AI are being developed to bypass jamming altogether. We remain in the nascent stages of drone warfare, where evolution is playing out in real time via innovations on the battlefield. In this sense, US defense spending in Ukraine is serving as an investment in research and development for the drone wars of tomorrow.

• This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com

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Beyond Agent vs. Instrument: The Neo-Coloniality of Drones in Contemporary Warfare

Niklas Balbon

Aug 3 2022 •

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This content was originally written for an undergraduate or Master's program. It is published as part of our mission to showcase peer-leading papers written by students during their studies. This work can be used for background reading and research, but should not be cited as an expert source or used in place of scholarly articles/books.

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On the 7th of December 2021, a new coalition government in Germany took office that contractually agreed on equipping the German military with armed drones (Koalitionsvertrag 2021: 149). To people familiar with drone programs of countries like the US, this might not seem like a newsworthy decision. However, given the year-long—and in part bitterly held—debate around the acquisition of armed drones in Germany (Franke 2021), it underscores an important point: armed drones are a highly contested technology. In fact, evaluations of drones range all the way from the most humane and accurate mode of warfare (Strawser 2012) to “inherently colonialist technologies” (Gusterson 2016: 149). While far away from unanimity, there has been a recent shift in scholarship on drones, which increasingly investigates its ties to neo-colonialism (Shaw 2016; Gusterson 2016; Parks 2016; Vasko 2013; Akther 2019; Espinoza 2018). However, literature on the coloniality of drones remains unspecific on the question of whether drones should be seen as a tool or as a driver of neo-colonialism. For instance, Akther identifies drones as “the latest technological manifestation of a much older logic of state power” (Akther 2019: 69), which implies an instrumentalist view. In contrast, other scholars argue that the development of drones has influenced our understanding of what constitutes legitimate warfare (McDonald 2017: 21), thus offering a substantivist view on technology. These diverging claims raise a fundamental question about the relationship between military technology and neo-colonialism: can military technology be seen as more than a mere tool to achieve neo-colonial ambitions?

To answer this question, I conduct a case study on drone technology, which has been discussed as an instance of the intersection of neo-colonialism and technology. The case study design is fruitful because it allows for a high degree of detail and contextualization (Gerring 2007: 103) while granting the possibility to test the theories (Muno 2009: 119) of instrumentalism and substantivism. As I will show, neo-colonial theory presupposes an instrumental character of the means through which colonial relationships are being maintained. Accordingly, drones can be seen as instruments of neo-colonialism, as they give the Global North new means to assert necropower, (re)create peripheries of insecurity and engage in social policing and ordering. However, the potential for instrumentalization of drones should not overshadow their own transformative character. As I will show, the development of drones has led to a discourse around unilateral, precise, and surgical drone warfare, which changed perceptions, policies, and interpretations of law on what constitutes legitimate warfare and intervention. Therefore, I argue that we should conceptualize drones both as instruments as well as drivers of neo-colonialism, thus challenging the dichotomy of instrumentalist and substantivist views on the nexus of neo-colonialism and technology.[1]

To make this case, I will start by reflecting upon the theoretical foundations of this essay (neo-colonialism, instrumentalism, substantivism, and agency) and by showcasing that neo-colonial theory implies an instrumental understanding of technology. This will be followed by investigating how drones can be used for neo-colonial purposes. Finally, I will illustrate the transformative character of drones and discuss its implications for our understanding of the relationship between technology and neo-colonialism.

The Continuation of Colonialism by Other Means

In 1965, Kwane Nkrumah introduced the concept of neo-colonialism as “imperialism in its final and perhaps most dangerous stage” (Nkrumah 1965: 1). For Nkrumah, colonial relationships between states did not end with the formal process of decolonization. Instead, a post-colonial state is “in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside” (Nkrumah 1965: 1). Accordingly, the transition from formal colonization to neo-colonialism only changes the means through which colonial power relations are maintained, but it did not end colonial aspirations of the Global North per se (Rahman et al. 2017: 9f.). In Nkrumah’s work, neo-colonial means are foremost of economic nature (Nkrumah 1965: 239ff.). In this tradition, scholars have pointed out a multitude of mechanisms through which the global north exerts influence on economic decision-making of post-colonial countries (Chang 2002: Stiglitz 2003). However, neo-colonial scholarship has also considered other means, including those of cultural, political, and militaristic nature (Uzoigwe 2019: 66). This is important to recognize as there is no a priori justification to focus the study of colonial continuities solely on economic mechanisms. Neo-colonialism can thus be understood as a regime of interconnected economic, political, and cultural mechanisms, through which colonial power relations are (re)constructed in a (formally) post-colonial age. Or to put it in Clausewitzian words: neo-colonialism is the continuation of colonialism by other means.

This understanding of neo-colonialism implies an instrumentalist view of the means through which (neo)colonial power relations are maintained. It assigns agency to the colonizing subjects while reducing the mechanisms through which colonial power is exerted to mere tools, thus offering a distinction between colonial aspirations and colonial capabilities. When looking at the intersection of neo-colonialism and military technology, the instrumentalist character of neo-colonial theory corresponds with instrumentalist views on the relationship between war and technology. Instrumentalist theory conceptualizes technology as a neutral tool, which can be used by actors to achieve a variety of ends (Bourne 2012: 142). This principle can be illustrated by the National Rifle Association in the United States, which argues that it is not the gun that harms people, but the person using the gun (Jones 1999: 70). In instrumentalist theory, technology is understood as “subservient to values established in other spheres i.e. politics and culture” (Jones 1999: 70), which means that technology as such is not involved in the construction of social norms on the use of violence. Rather, the use of technology is determined by socially constructed norms (Bourne 2012: 143). Despite their resonance in the literature (Jones 1999: 70), instrumentalist accounts of the relationship between war and technology do not remain uncontested. As hinted at in the introduction, they are challenged by substantivists (also known as deterministic) understandings of technology (Bourne 2012: 143). Substantivist approaches identify technology as a driving force of social change and thus war (Jones 1999: 108). Accordingly, substativist theory understands technology as more than just a mere tool and attributes technology with agency (Bourne 2012: 143).

As agency is a very contested term in the social sciences and in philosophy, it is worth taking a closer look at what the concept means. Understandings of individual agency range all the way from voluntarism, which sees society as the mere sum of decisions of autonomous individuals, granting them full agency; to determinism, which sees individual decision-making as solely determined by societal structures and norms, thus neglecting individual agency (Sibeon 1999: 139). Embarking from a social-constructivist perspective, I join deterministic theories in acknowledging the importance of social norms and structures in influencing the decision-making of individuals (March/Olsen 2004: 3; Dahrendorf 1965: 45f.). Nevertheless, we should not fall into a deterministic trap, thinking that this denies individuals any form of self-determined decision-making or agency (Weissmann 2020: 47). Additionally, as structures and norms are social constructs, individuals also possess agency in their (re)construction (Hess et al. 2018: 253). Therefore, I reject both a strictly voluntaristic as well as a deterministic view on agency. The identification of agency is further complicated by the question of whether material objects can possess agency, as for instance argued by Latour (2005), or if agency is exclusive to humans. Based on the understanding of agency introduced above, it is possible to conclude that the ability to make autonomous decisions should not be seen as a necessary condition for agency. Instead, it can be argued that by influencing the construction of social norms, even material objects can possess agency.

The understanding of agency introduced above corresponds with both instrumentalist and substantivist theories. From an instrumentalist perspective, it is possible to argue that agency lies exclusively with humans because they construct norms about the instrumentalization of technology. A substantivist perspective challenges this assumption by arguing that technology determines the construction of social norms and therefore deserves to be attributed with agency. In the following, I will examine both assumptions by looking at the nexus of neo-colonialism and drone technology.

New Methods for Old Games? Neo-Colonialism and Drone Technology

As argued above, the concept of neo-colonialism implies an instrumentalist interpretation of the means through which neo-colonial power relations are maintained (e.g. technology). Indeed, the literature on drone technology[2] offers accounts that support this claim. For instance, there is a growing amount of literature that ties drone technology to neo-colonial forms of necropolitics (Allinson 2015; Espinoza 2018; Qurratulen/Raza 2021; Wilcox 2017). Deriving from Foucault’s notion of biopolitics (Foucault 1976), Mbembe developed the concept of necropolitics to problematize how (colonial) states subordinate the lives of people they deem worthy to die, to people they deem worthy to live (Mbembe 2003). Accordingly, the “ultimate expression of sovereignty resides (…) in the power to dictate who may live and who may die” (Mbembe 2003: 11). Necropolitics are a decisive characteristic of colonial rule (Mbembe 2003: 18), which for example could be observed in the province of Punjab in colonial India, where the British colonizers terrorized and killed parts of the population to protect themselves and their colonial rule (Condos 2017). In Punjab, the British established a practice of ‘cannonading’, during which Indian rebels and individuals suspected of undermining the British colonial state were placed in front of a cannon and brutally killed (Condos 2017: 158).

However, as the example of drone technology shows, necropolitics is not exclusive to the age of formal colonization but can still be observed as tools of neo-colonialism today (Vasko 2013: 86). Espinoza argues that within the ‘global war on terror’, drones are used to identify and attack people that are deemed dangerous and thus subordinate to the national security of the west (Espinoza 2018: 383). Beyond targeted killings, this logic of protection is taken even further by so-called ‘signature strikes’—a version of drone warfare in which unknown individuals are identified and targeted by drones because they resemble characteristics similar to those of terrorists (McQuade 2021: 2). In a case study on drone warfare in the Afghan region of Uruzgan, Allinson shows how Afghan military-aged men are essentialized as “a threat that must be eliminated by death” (Allinson 2015: 126) and consequently met with lethal force. The similarities between the necropolitics during the time of formal colonialism and current necropolitical forms of drone warfare can therefore be seen as an instance of the neo-colonial instrumentalization of drone technology.

Necropolitics further manifest themselves through assigning the colonized others with spaces of insecurity, while creating spaces of security for colonizers (Mbembe 2003: 26ff). As pointed out by Fanon (1967), this practice of spatialization is an integral part of colonial endeavors that can also be observed in neo-colonial drone warfare (Akther 2019; Gregory 2017). With the help of drones, states can create neo-colonial spaces, where racialized groups are subject to surveillance and state violence (Akther 2019: 65). Drones are therefore constitutive for the construction of global peripheries that are subordinate to the security of the center, i.e. western nation-states (Akther 2019: 65). The resulting construction of socio-spatial inequalities between center and peripheries resembles practices observed during the formal age of colonialism and can thus be seen as another instance for the neo-colonial instrumentalization of drone technology.

A final example of the neo-colonial instrumentalization of drones can be seen in their use for social ordering and policing. This is important to recognize because the impact of drone warfare on civilians goes far beyond lethal violence (Cavallaro et al. 2012: 73ff.). In a case study on the effect of drones on civilians in Afghanistan, Edney-Browne found that drones have an ordering and policing effect on civilians in two ways. Firstly, populations that are aware of the possibility of them being surveilled by a drone at any given time, change their behavior by avoiding social gatherings and not leaving their houses at night (Edney-Browne 2019: 1942). This benefits western militaries as it makes civilians restrained from forming groups that could organize resistance (Edney-Browne 2019: 1349). Secondly, the possibility of signature strikes forces Afghans to consider their appearance to drone operators and self-police their behavior to avoid being identified as possible threats (Edney-Browne 2019: 1350)—a behavior similar to what could be observed during the time of colonial air policing in the early 20th century (Edney-Browne 2019: 1350).

In sum, the above-mentioned practices of necropolitics, peripherization and social policing and ordering provide evidence for an instrumentalist view on drone technology. As demonstrated, the phenomena per se are not new. Instead, drone technology provides new opportunities to pursue colonial ambitions. Nevertheless, this should not lead us to the conclusion that drones are mere instruments of neo-colonialism, as I will show below.

More Than Means to an End? Drones and the Construction of Norms

Despite their potential for instrumentalization, the transformative character of drones should not be overlooked. The development of drones has led to a discourse around so-called humane forms of warfare that are characterized by “efficiency, surgical precision, and minimal casualties” (Parks/Kaplan 2019: 4). This is important because through promoting the idea of ‘clean wars’ (McDonald 2017), drones have changed our collective perception of what forms of violence are deemed appropriate (Bode/Huelss 2018: 404f). and thus promoted neo-colonial intervention. To understand this normative shift, it is necessary to unpack how drones have influenced our perception, policies, and interpretations of law on the use of violence in international relations.

As pointed out by Chamayou, public opinion on the use of force in foreign policy is heavily shaped by the fear of losing their own troops (Chamayou 2013: 127f.). This makes the drone the optimal weapon for intervention as it removes troops from battlegrounds and eliminates any chance of reciprocity, leading to a ‘unilateralization’ of violence (Chamayou 2013: 13). Additionally, the alleged precision of drone technology allows governments to present drones as the solution to the problem of collateral damage (Espinoza 2018: 377). This is important because it seemingly increases the congruence of drone warfare with the liberal values of the western public (Agius 2017: 371). In conjuncture, these factors can be seen as constitutive for a normative liberalization of our perception of when the use of violence is deemed appropriate (Bode/Huelss 2018: 405). The translation of this normative shift into policy becomes visible when looking at the proliferation and the use of drones. For instance, the Obama administration had administered ten times more drone strikes than the previous Bush administration (Purkiss/Serle 2017), despite its seemingly more liberal stance on foreign policy. The change of policy is accompanied by a change in interpretations of international law. This was necessary because—be it for manned or unmanned weapons—international law requires justification for (violent) intervention in foreign countries (Hajjar 2017: 72ff). To describe the process of states re-interpreting international law to legalize their actions such as drone warfare, Hajjar has coined the term “state lawfare” (Hajjar 2017: 61). For instance, Israel and the United States have re-interpreted the right of self-defense to accommodate for conducting drone operations against non-state actors within countries that they have not been attacked by (Hajjar 2017: 64ff).

The abovementioned examples illustrate that drones pose transformative power regarding the construction of norms in warfare. But how does this tie to neo-colonialism? As explained in the previous section, drone warfare can be regarded as inherently neocolonial (i.e., necropolitics, peripherization, social policing). The transformative power of drones however questions assumptions that drones are only involved in neo-colonial power relations as instruments. Because drone technology causes a liberalization of norms, policies, and interpretations of law on warfare, it can be argued that drones do not merely execute, but also actively promote neocolonial violence. In other words: by inflicting normative changes on the use of violence, drones have contributed to a normalization of neo-colonial warfare. Therefore, they should be regarded both as an instrument and as a driver of neo-colonialism and attributed with agency. This offers valuable insights into the relationship between military technology and neo-colonialism in general: instead of thinking about technology and neo-colonialism in the dichotomous categories of instrumentalism and substantivism, we should embrace an approach that considers the co-constitutive relationship between the two. Both perspectives offer valuable insights into the relationship between neo-colonialism and technology and must not be seen as mutually exclusive. Simply put, military technology both executes and constitutes neo-colonialism.

Conclusion

By conducting a case study on drones, I have investigated the relationship between military technology and neo-colonialism and examined instrumentalist and substantivist theories on technology and war. The case study shows that the dichotomy between instrumentalism and substantivism is overly simplistic and cannot accurately capture the relationship between technology and neo-colonialism. Instead, I have argued that drones provide an example of military technology that executes and drives neocolonial power relations. These results are important as they underline that military technology, even (or especially) when described as humane and precise, can never be politically neutral. The multilayered relationship between military technology and neo-colonialism further indicates a fruitful avenue for future research. For instance, despite being touched upon above, the role of capitalism and the military industry remains under reflected. In this regard, the role of the drone industry is to promote the narrative of a ‘clean war’ to increase revenue from drone sales. Questions like this can help to better understand the multilayered entanglement of neo-colonialism and technology and should thus be investigated in future research.

Footnotes

[1] This technopolitical understanding of drones leads to a more nuanced analysis of multiple agencies involved in neocolonial drone warfare. From a critical perspective, this is crucial as it helps to assign responsibilities as well as to identify points for resistance and emancipation. Accordingly, I situate myself within the domain of critical scholarship, which – alongside knowledge production – regards emancipation as a fundamental scientific objective (Horkheimer 1992: 58; Fierke 2015: 180f.).

[2] As pointed out by Chamayou (2013: 13), drone technology encompasses a variety of remote-control devices that operate on land, in the sea, and in the air. In this essay, I restrict myself to the analysis of unmanned, airborne drones that can be used for surveillance and to apply lethal force through rockets.

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Further Reading on E-International Relations

The Meaning of US Drone Warfare in the War on Terror
“Fake It Till You Make It?” Post-Coloniality and Consumer Culture in Africa
‘Drone Vision’: Precision Ethics Theory and the Royal Air Force’s use of Drones
The Coloniality of Gender and the Politics of Difference
The Use of “Remote” Warfare: A Strategy to Limit Loss and Responsibility
Do Advances in Synthetic Biology have the Potential to Transform the Future of Warfare?

Ukraine: How drones are changing the way of war

The war in Ukraine shows that unmanned aerial vehicles are part of modern warfare. Drones have various tasks from aerial surveillance to missile defense.


The Switchblade is known as a backpack drone because of its convenient travel-size when folded

Drones meet the requirements of modern warfare — that's the line from the US Department of Defense. And the Pentagon says it has just the drone to meet all of Ukraine's requirements. It's a new drone, or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), called Phoenix Ghost.

"We believed this particular system would very nicely suit their needs, particularly in eastern Ukraine," Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said in a press briefing.

Kirby said the US had started developing the Phoenix Ghost before the outbreak of war and that work would now be accelerated to meet Ukraine's requirements even better.

The plan is to deliver more than 120 of the drones as part of a $800 million (ca. €750 million) military assistance package.

But what does Phoenix Ghost do? How does it differ from other weapon systems?

Well, not much is known. There are no pictures. What we do know is that Phoenix Ghost was developed by US defense contractor Aevex Aerospace with the US Air Force. And that according to Kirby, personnel won't need a lot of training to operate it.

Kirby said the new drone was like older, Switchblade drones, which were made by US company AeroVironment for use by US special forces in Afghanistan in 2012.

Switchblade kamikaze drone

The Switchblade backpack drone belongs to the category of "loitering munitions" or "loitering weapons."

"It's a mix between a missile and a drone," Arthur Holland Michel, author and senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in Barcelona, told DW.

Watch video 03:31 Drone warfare in Ukraine explained

Loitering munitions get their name from the way they work. They are launched without a specific target and circle over an area until a target is assigned by an operator on the ground, and that's when it strikes.

It has sensors that can detect emerging targets. Depending on the model's size and weight, it can stay in the air for between 15 and 40 minutes, with a range of 10 to 40 kilometers (6-25 miles).

"Unlike a large drone, it doesn't need an airfield or lots of infrastructure to launch," Michel said. "And unlike a missile, it gives you time to identify the target, get situational awareness, and then literally drive the missile drone into the target."

The Switchblade 300 weighs roughly 5.5 pounds and can stay in the air for 15 minutes

Switchblade drones are also known as kamikaze drones because they self-destruct on impact.

Optimized: Phoenix Ghost

Phoenix Ghost drones have similar capabilities but are not exactly the same as the Switchblade, Kirby said.

David Deptula, a retired lieutenant general who sits on the board of directors at Aevex Aerospace, was quoted by Politico as saying that Phoenix Ghost can fly for longer than Switchblade — up to six hours.

Deptula is reported to have said that Phoenix Ghost was a single-use drone that launches vertically and that it can operate at night with infrared sensors. The drone was effective against "medium armored ground targets," Politico quoted Deptula as saying.

Vector: German technology for Ukraine

The Ukrainian armed forces also use a surveillance drone from the German company Quantum Systems.

"Our drones are already in Ukraine," Florian Seibel, CEO of the Bavaria-based company, told the German news network RND.

The German "Vector" drone is not a weapon as such — it cannot drop bombs but it can form part of a weapons system. It is said to be best used for its flight and video capabilities. Ukraine might use it to optimize the aim of its artillery, for example.

Vector delivers high-resolution real-time video over 15 kilometers and can remain airborne for up to two hours.

Japan has also supplied drones to Ukraine. But Ukraine uses local drones as well.

The most common Ukrainian drone is the Leleka-100, which weighs about five kilograms and is produced by Deviro, a company in Dnipro in central Ukraine.

The Vector drone is intended for surveillance and reconnaissance missions

Fewer Russian drones

The Russian military seems to rely less on drones, but does use them. Its main drone is the Orlan-10, a small reconnaissance and surveillance UAV made at the Center for Special Technology in St. Petersburg.

With a wingspan of 3.1 meters (10 ft), Orlan-10 can fly up to 100 kilometers. The reconnaissance system is simple in design: It uses commercial Canon EOS-D series cameras for aerial photography, as well as thermal imaging and video cameras.

But with all these developments in automated warfare, drone expert Michel says we should be aware there are risks and concerns with drones.

For example: Do users have sufficient situational awareness to make decisions about whether to use force? Are the weapons vulnerable to hacking? If a drone causes unintended damage, how can people be held accountable for that damage? How can civilians be protected?

"With each additional autonomous feature that gets added to such weapons, these concerns multiply," Michel wrote on Twitter.

UKRAINE'S CIVILIANS PROVIDE SUPPORT FOR THE WAR EFFORT
Anti-tank obstacles instead of sculptures
In peacetime, artist Volodymyr Kolesnykov creates metal sculptures in his workshop in Uzhhorod, near the Hungarian border. These days, his time is spent welding anti-tank obstacles, or "Czech hedgehogs," along with other artists and metalworkers.
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This article was originally written in German.

OBAMA WAS DRONE PREZ
The future of drone warfare


The Week Staff
Sun, June 20, 2021

The view from a military drone. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Unmanned aerial weapons are reshaping the battlefield — and starting to think for themselves. Here's everything you need to know:

When were drones first deployed?

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been in use for decades. Radio-controlled B-24s were sent on bombing missions over Germany in World War II, and American forces used remote-controlled surveillance aircraft to snap photos during the Vietnam War. But the real breakthrough in drone warfare came in 1995 with the development of the Gnat — later renamed the Predator — an American UAV with a 49-foot wingspan that could stay airborne over a target for up to 12 hours, transmitting a live-video feed to a pilot who could be stationed hundreds or even thousands of miles away. On October 7, 2001, the first targeted strike by a remotely piloted aircraft took place in Afghanistan. A CIA Predator blasted a Hellfire-missile at a compound housing Taliban leader Mullah Omar; it missed and destroyed a nearby vehicle, killing several bodyguards. The U.S. drone program steadily expanded in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, and by 2014 the Air Force was training more drone pilots than airplane pilots. Some 20 countries now have UAVs in their arsenals, up from eight in 2015.

What advantages do drones have over warplanes?

Unlike fighter jets, which need to be refueled regularly and have crews that get tired, drones can loiter in the air for up to 24 hours while carrying out surveillance, probing air defenses, or waiting for a suitable target. While drones such as the Predator are armed with missiles, a new generation of low-cost "kamikaze" drones are flown into their targets and then explode. Pentagon officials worry that the spread of these cheap and deadly-effective drones could help shift the global strategic balance away from the U.S. "Our adversaries are already fielding technologies that will hold our legacy platforms at risk," acting Air Force Secretary John Roth recently told Congress.


Where are these drones being made?

NO MENTION OF ISRAEL
China is a top exporter. At least 10 countries — including Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates — have used Chinese-made UAVs to kill adversaries. Turkey has also emerged as a drone powerhouse. Its utilitarian Bayraktar TB2, a 21-foot-long UAV armed with four laser-guided missiles, first grabbed international attention in Syria in February 2020. After 36 Turkish troops were killed in a Syrian government airstrike, Turkey used a fleet of radio-guided TB2s — which are quiet and hard to spot on radar — to destroy Russian-made air defenses and kill hundreds, possibly thousands, of Syrian troops. TB2s also proved crucial in the Libyan civil war last year, helping the central government repel an assault on the capital, Tripoli, by the Russian-backed forces of rebel leader Khalifa Haftar. But the biggest demonstration of how drones are changing the nature of warfare was the 2020 conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan.

How were drones used there?

At the start of the war, Azerbaijan sent slow-flying Soviet-era aircraft that had been converted to drones to bait Armenian air defense units — tempting them to fire and expose their location, at which point they could be hit by TB2s or Israeli-made kamikaze drones. Having achieved aerial dominance, Azerbaijani drones then devastated Armenian forces, destroying at least 106 Armenian tanks, 146 artillery pieces, and scores of other vehicles. After six weeks of fighting, the Armenians had no choice but to sign a humiliating truce. Nagorno-Karabakh, said Malcolm Davis of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, was "a potential game changer for land warfare."

How else are drones changing warfare?

Experts worry that the proliferation of UAVs could make bloody conflicts more common, because countries that are reluctant to start a war and risk their soldiers' lives won't hesitate to send in drones. "For states that seek to break long-standing geopolitical deadlocks, the rise of relatively cheap, disposable, armed drones offers a tempting opportunity," says Jason Lyall, an expert in military technology at Dartmouth College. Others fear a rise in autonomous drones that don't need a human controller. The United Nations recently reported that a 15-pound Turkish-built quadcopter independently targeted and launched a suicide attack on retreating rebel forces in Libya. If anyone died in that March 2020 strike, said security consultant Zachary Kallenborn, it would be the "first known case of artificial intelligence–based autonomous weapons being used to kill."

Are other nations making AI drones? 

NO MENTION OF ISRAEL

The U.S., China, Russia, and India are all experimenting with AI-driven drone swarms, in which dozens or hundreds of UAVs act in concert to overwhelm enemy forces. Some human rights organizations and AI researchers are calling for a ban on killer robots, saying that even if this technology does not result in the nightmare scenario from the Terminator movies — in which intelligent bots turn on their human inventors — drone proliferation is dangerous. "Lethal autonomous weapons cheap enough that every terrorist can afford them are not in America's national security interest," says MIT physicist Max Tegmark. But the major countries developing intelligent drones have shown no interest in a ban that they believe their rivals would not honor. "We're moving toward a situation with cyber or autonomous weapons," said German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, "where everyone can do as they please."

Defending against drones

The drone arms race has sparked an anti-drone arms race. In 2019, the U.S. Army began using the Raytheon-developed Howler system, which can be attached to tanks and other vehicles and scans for enemy UAVs with radar. If it detects an incoming UAV, the Howler launches a 3-foot interceptor drone called the Coyote that detonates on impact, destroying itself and the threat. But using such a defense in a heavily populated area carries a high risk of civilian casualties, and so researchers are examining less explosive options. One interceptor drone created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) blasts what appears to be silly string at the UAV, gumming up its rotors and causing it to fall from the sky. China, meanwhile, has developed a 20-barrel Gatling gun, which weapons experts believe is intended to counter the threat of drone swarms by throwing up a wall of bullets. But anti-drone research is still in its infancy, says Dartmouth's Lyall. "The defense is playing catch-up, while the offense marches downfield."

Video appears to show Ukraine's new 'Ironclad' drone vehicle machine-gunning a Russian outpost

Nathan Rennolds
Updated Sun, January 28, 2024 


Video footage shows Ukraine's new "Ironclad" combat drone in action.


It portrays the vehicle firing its M2 machine gun on a Russian outpost.


The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense shared the video on X, formerly Twitter.

Video footage released by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense earlier this month appears to show Ukraine's new "Ironclad" combat drone vehicle in action against Russian forces.

The video, which the ministry shared on X, formerly Twitter, bears the insignia of Ukraine's 5th Separate Assault Brigade, and it appears to show the remotely controlled drone firing its M2 machine gun on a Russian outpost.

Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's minister of digital transformation, said in a Facebook post in September that the military was using the drone to "assault enemy positions, conduct reconnaissance and provide fire support to the military."

"This is a revolutionary product from Ukrainian engineers at Roboneers that changes the way warfare is conducted and helps save the most valuable thing - the lives of our military," Fedorov said.

He continued that the drone can hit speeds of more than 12 mph and comes with a Shablya M2 machine-gun turret, adding that it also had "an armored shell that protects it from small arms."

Screenshot from the video.Ukrainian Ministry of Defense

The Shablya system is a remotely operated "combat platform" designed to be attached to certain vehicles or objects, the manufacturer, Roboneers, says on its website.

The manufacturer says the system can rotate 360 degrees and detect human-sized targets up to 1,800 meters, or around 5,900 feet, away. It also features a thermal-imaging camera.

The prevalent use of drones and technological advances has marked the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has repeatedly turned to Iranian-made Shahed "kamikaze" drones in its attacks on Ukraine.

Ukraine has also looked to develop drones that can attack enemy positions from land and sea.

In July, Ukraine unveiled a new sea drone designed to limit the Russian fleet's operations in the Black Sea to CNN. The report said the drone was packed with hundreds of pounds of explosives and could hit targets 500 miles away.

One video shared on X also highlighted how Ukrainian soldiers were building their own "kamikaze" ground drones, with the footage appearing to show a vehicle strapped with 55 pounds of explosives traveling through over "4 km of enemy-controlled territory" to take out a road bridge.

But drone warfare has arguably ground the war to a halt, especially along the eastern front and the Dnipro River, where fighting has been particularly fierce in recent months.

"Nobody really knows how to advance right now. Everything gets smashed up by drones and artillery," Gleb Molchanov, a Ukrainian drone operator, told The Guardian.

"It's a war of armor against projectiles. At the moment, projectiles are winning," he added.



ECOCIDE

Ukraine appears to be attacking Russia's oil-and-gas industry with small, cheap drones that can bypass its air defenses

Alia Shoaib
Updated Sun, January 28, 2024 


Firefighters extinguish oil tanks at a storage facility in the Bryansk Region in Russia on January 19, 2024.Russian Emergencies Ministry/Reuters

Oil and gas facilities in Russia have caught fire in recent weeks following suspected drone attacks.


Ukraine appears to be targeting energy infrastructure to hamper Russian supply lines.


Russia's air-defense systems have proven to be less effective against small drones.

Ukraine appears to be targeting Russia's oil-and-gas industry with small, cheap drones as it seeks to disrupt Russian supply lines.

Fires have broken out at several Russian energy-infrastructure locations over the past few weeks following suspected drone strikes, including at a Rosneft oil refinery in Tuapse, a Rosneft storage facility in Klintsy, and Novatek's Baltic Sea Ust-Luga terminal.

Videos posted on social media appeared to show fires at facilities in Tuapse and Klintsy.

Ukraine is likely targeting the facilities to disrupt Russia's military operations.

"Strikes on oil depots and oil storage facilities disrupt logistics routes and slow down combat operations," Olena Lapenko, an energy security expert at the Ukrainian think tank DiXi Group, told The New York Times.

"Disruption of these supplies, which are like blood for the human body, is part of a wider strategy to counter Russia on the battlefield," Lapenko added.

The strikes also aim to damage a lucrative industry that the West's economic sanctions have not badly hampered. Lapenko told The Times that Moscow had made more than $400 billion from oil exports since the war started in February 2022.

But the attack on the Baltic Ust-Luga terminal and bad weather in the region have helped disrupt Russia's seaborne crude shipments, which fell to their lowest rate in almost two months, Bloomberg reported.

If the attack is confirmed to have been carried out by Ukraine, it would show Kyiv can hit targets deeper inside Russian territory than usual with what are thought to be domestically produced drones, Reuters reported.

To add insult to injury, a military source claimed that Ukraine sent a drone flying over President Vladimir Putin's palace during an attack on a St. Petersburg oil depot.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his purported secret palace in Valdai, Russia.Getty Images, Navalny.com

En route, one of the drones that flew 775 miles into Russian airspace traveled over one of Putin's palaces in Valdai, an unnamed special-services source told the Ukrainian news agency RBC.

The vast woodland complex, next to Lake Valdai, halfway between Moscow and St. Petersburg, is one of Putin's favorite boltholes.
Why Ukraine can embarrass Russia's air-defense systems

Russia's air-defense systems have proven to be less effective against small drones because they struggle to detect them.

"Russia boasted of having layered defenses before the war, the sensor electronic warfare, different missile batteries, kinetic batteries, radars, that can sort of identify and interdict the threat," Samuel Bendett, an analyst and expert in unmanned and robotic military systems at the Center for Naval Analyses, previously told Business Insider.

But "most of these defenses were built to identify and destroy larger targets like missiles, helicopters, aircraft. Many were not really geared towards identifying much smaller UAVs," or unnamed aerial vehicles, he added.
'Bringing the detonator'

Ukrainian soldiers build homemade drones.Ignacio Marin/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Forbes noted that Ukraine's effective approach reflected a drone-warfare strategy of "bringing the detonator," or the tactic of using small amounts of drone-carried explosives to detonate larger amounts of explosive materials in or on the targets, which are often aircraft, vehicles, fuels, and ammunition dumps.

T.X. Hammes, a research fellow at the National Defense University, wrote that small, low-cost drones with a minimal bomb load could wreak havoc if used against flammable targets.

"Even a few ounces of explosives delivered directly to the target can initiate the secondary explosion that will destroy the target," Hammes wrote.

Ukrainian forces are using 'flocks' of FPV drones led by 'queen' drone to attack Russian positions, soldier says

Rebecca Rommen
Sat, January 27, 2024 

Ukrainian forces are using "flocks" of FPV drones led by "queen" drones, a Russian soldier said.

It may allow smaller drones to land and conserve battery power.

FPV drones have been particularly crucial to Ukraine's war effort.

Ukrainian forces are using "flocks" of FPV (first-person-view) drones led by "queen" drones to attack Russian positions, a Russian serviceman said in an interview with Russian newspaper Izvestia.



In a video shared on X, formerly Twitter, by a military blogger, the soldier described an encounter with a swarm of drones led by a "repeater drone queen."

He said Ukrainian forces sent a "large wing with a repeater" that broadcasted a signal to a group of smaller FPV drones flying underneath it.

These then dropped onto Russian positions, he added.

"A flock of around 10—the Queen is somewhere above at a high altitude in a small detection range. It brings the flock of drones, which then descend onto positions and start working," he said.

Izvestia correspondent Dmitry Zimenkin, who interviewed the soldier, said the tactic allowed Ukrainian drone operators to "land and wait" with their smaller drones, "saving batteries," Newsweek reported.

"When a large mother drone spots targets, the kamikazes take off, sometimes several meters from the target, and attack. If the Queen is eliminated, then her entire flock can be neutralized," Zimenkin said, per Newsweek.

FPV drones have been used by both Russian and Ukrainian forces since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, and they have proved to be an effective and low-cost weapon.

They have been particularly crucial to Ukraine's war effort, enabling Ukrainian drone squads to attack deep into Russian territory while helping to limit losses to their ground forces.

But drone warfare has meant both sides are struggling to make any advances, Gleb Molchanov, a Ukrainian drone operator, told The Guardian.

"It's a war of armor against projectiles. At the moment, projectiles are winning," he added.