It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
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.
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Sunday, August 07, 2022
Beyond Agent vs. Instrument: The Neo-Coloniality of Drones in Contemporary Warfare
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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Ukrainians and Russians alike are making massive use of aerial drones in their conflict. But from underground bunkers, the Ukrainians are also piloting terrestrial drones. Wheeled or tracked, these devices have become essential for logistical and rescue missions.
For Ukrainian soldiers, movement around the front line is becoming ever more perilous. The primary threat comes from aerial drones, which Moscow is using with increasing intensity. To try and limit troop movement at the front, companies have developed terrestrial drones – remote-controlled vehicles capable of undertaking logistical missions. These include delivering vital supplies, such as food and ammunition, or evacuating the wounded from the front line to the rear. They are more expensive and rarer than their airborne equivalents, but their use is constantly increasing.
Kate Bondar, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the FRANCE 24 Observers team:
“The most common mission for ground vehicles is logistics. From my conversations with the Ukrainian military, it’s from 60 to 70 percent [of missions]. For resupply, basically, you transport the ground drone as close as possible to the combat zone using a pickup truck. And once it's at the right distance, you let it reach the position of the soldiers who need resupplying.
High price, slow pace
The deployment of terrestrial drones in Ukraine was made possible largely through Starlink, SpaceX's satellite internet service. Starlink allows the devices to be controlled from up to 100 kilometres away.
But Bondar said these drones are not without their flaws:
“Most of these systems have batteries, and batteries emit heat, and that’s how they get detected."
Terrestrial drones are therefore a prime target for aerial drones, especially given their relatively slow speed. Another disadvantage is that they are expensive to manufacture, unlike aerial drones such as FPV (first-person view) drones, which are being used massively by Russia and Ukraine.
However, unlike aerial drones, their ground-based counterparts possess a greater resilience to jamming. Once jammed, an aerial drone will fall to the ground. In contrast, on the ground, if the link between the pilot and the ground drone is interrupted, the vehicle can simply wait before resuming its route once communication is restored.
The Russia-Ukraine War is not just a geopolitical earthquake—it is a tactical and technological inflection point. While many initially focused on tanks and artillery, the war’s defining feature has become the mass deployment of cheap, disposable, and networked technologies—especially drones, loitering munitions, and small-scale electromagnetic warfare systems.
In Ukraine, we are witnessing an Uberization of warfare—the use of low-cost, on-demand, and ubiquitous weaponry—alongside the dawn of the robotization of war. In World War II, Germany introduced the concept of blitzkrieg, combining new equipment with the idea of mobile warfare. Today, drone swarms—capable of saturation, connectivity, real-time surveillance, and precision targeting—are not only a tactical revolution, but also a profound disruption of operational art, much like blitzkrieg once was. Moreover, a major shift in the acquisition and technology-development processes made this tactical revolution possible. This revolution—sometimes called a crowdfunding war—should be both a wake-up call for those in charge of defense procurements and a call for a revolution in military affairs.
Yet questions remain about the true strategic impact of drone warfare. Indeed, the rapid development of counter-drone measures raises doubts about the long-term dominance of aerial drones as a decisive tool in future conflicts.1
Land, Sea, and Aerial Drones in Ukraine
On land, both militaries increasingly use wheeled and tracked ground drones for logistical tasks such as delivering supplies, transporting spare parts, and evacuating people who are wounded.2 A handful of armed variants exist, but their operational impact remains marginal. Their effectiveness is constrained by the difficulty of navigating rough and uneven terrain near front lines and by their high vulnerability to aerial drones, which dominate the battlefield and can easily detect and neutralize them.
At sea, Ukraine employs naval drones, which are primarily kamikaze surface and underwater drones equipped with anti-ship missiles. Kyiv no longer has a conventional navy—Russia destroyed its entire fleet in 2022—but it has nevertheless succeeded in pushing the Russian navy out of the western part of the Black Sea. The Russian fleet has lost around 20 vessels as a result. These low-cost naval drone systems, which can bypass traditional naval defenses, have proven to be an effective asymmetric tool in contested waters.
In the air, these systems have undergone their most significant and spectacular developments, reshaping tactics on both sides. Three main categories of drones are currently operating on the Ukrainian battlefield:
1. Medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) drones
MALE drones—primarily the Bayraktar TB2—had their moment of glory at the beginning of the conflict when they could destroy armored columns. Today, however, they have been largely relegated to surveillance missions over the Black Sea, as they are highly vulnerable to Russian air defenses.
2. One-way attack (OWA) drones and pre-programmed loitering munitions
Both militaries mainly use these long-range suicide drones, designed to strike deep into enemy territory, often hundreds of kilometers away, to target infrastructure. These systems function as low-cost cruise missiles, and the most emblematic—and notorious—is the Iranian Shahed, which Russia and Iran manufacture at a joint plant in Yelabuga, Tatarstan. The Ukrainians use several types of longe-range OWA drones of their own, including the Liutyi. Yet these drones are not particularly sophisticated, and their warheads are relatively small. They are ineffective against hardened infrastructure, slow, and vulnerable to air defenses. Between 70 and 90 percent are intercepted and destroyed in flight. Their real strength lies in their numbers and volume—they overwhelm defenses through mass deployment.
3. Mini and micro tactical drones
These weigh less than 150 kilograms (roughly 330 pounds)—in many cases less than 25 kilograms (55 pounds)—and they typically have a range of around 15 kilometers (9 miles). The militaries use them in a wide variety of missions, particularly for reconnaissance. These drones are now omnipresent along the front lines for close-contact operations, making it nearly impossible for troops or equipment to remain hidden. They provide real-time intelligence, target acquisition, and battlefield awareness at the tactical level. They are also used in kinetic roles and are equipped with explosive charges. This includes bomber drones and first-person-view (FPV) kamikaze drones, which pilots operate while wearing virtual reality headsets. These systems were central to Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, a coordinated drone strike against Russian air force bases and facilities.
Other drone variants have also emerged, expanding the scope of battlefield applications:Dragon drones, which have flamethrowers Mother drones, which (like Russian nesting dolls) can carry and deploy FPV drones or act as radar relays
Mine-laying drones and mine-hunting drones
The number of use cases continues to multiply along with the sheer volume of drones deployed on the battlefield. An estimated 10,000 drones per day are now being used. A Tactical Warfare Revolution
Since February 2022, the conflict in Ukraine has served as a vast laboratory for the use of drones on a high-intensity battlefield. Within months, these systems became indispensable, reshaping doctrines, saturating defenses, and driving a permanent technological war of attrition.
Three Phases of Drone Development
The first phase of drone development, in 2022, was mass deployment. Ukraine launched its Army of Drones program through crowdfunding, which distributed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) down to the company level and trained thousands of operators. The drone quickly became a tactical survival tool, used for reconnaissance and artillery fire adjustment.
Russia, initially more reluctant, later developed parallel networks. In the early stages, it relied almost exclusively on heavy military drones such as the Forpost3 and Orion.4 Russian doctrine, shaped by Western concepts, focused on achieving air superiority through a centralized combination of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and deep strikes designed to saturate the theater of operations.
However, this approach revealed significant weaknesses. By concentrating drones within specialized units and keeping them largely disconnected from battalions and frontline formations, Russia created a rigid, top-down system. This lack of integration reduced reactivity, limited tactical flexibility, and exposed the entire structure to vulnerabilities—particularly when faced with more agile, decentralized, and adaptive models of drone warfare.
The second phase, between 2022 and 2023, saw the rise of strikes and counterstrikes. Both sides strengthened their air and electromagnetic defenses, leading to massive attrition of drone fleets. MALE drones virtually disappeared from the tactical battlefield, and kamikaze systems and loitering munitions—such as Russia’s Lancets or the Iranian Shaheds, which were deployed in swarms—began to dominate. The battlefield became a saturated space where a drone’s lifespan was measured in flights. During this phase, both sides steadily increased their use of drones, with Ukraine losing roughly 10,000 per month by mid-2023.5 In line with the Soviet doctrine of deep strikes, these drones were launched in massive waves, often alongside highly capable cruise missiles, including hypersonic missiles. Cheap drones overwhelm air defenses so that more advanced missiles can more easily hit their targets.
Finally, from 2023 onward, FPV drones became the new standard for Ukraine. Comparable to miniature anti-tank missiles, they have been produced by the tens of thousands each month. Ukraine integrated them into assault brigades with dedicated UAV companies. As a result, the battlefield has become highly transparent to a depth of 10–20 kilometers (about 6–12 miles). The FPVs’ effectiveness against troop concentrations and heavy vehicles is remarkable despite jamming and the massive need for trained operators. In some Ukrainian units, up to 60 percent of assets deployed in assaults now consist of drones.6
Each of these phases was defined by a relentless contest of innovation and countermeasures.
An Extremely Low-Cost Force Multiplier with Massive Tactical and Operational Impact
Drones have been successful in Ukraine largely because of their remarkable cost-effectiveness. However, costs vary dramatically by category—from a few hundred dollars for improvised FPV and consumer quadcopters, to tens of thousands for purpose-built loitering munitions like the Lancet, and millions for large MALE or high-altitude long-range (HALE) drones or other weaponized systems. Yet the vast majority of drones used in Ukraine fall at the very low end of this spectrum: €300–€5,000 ($350–$5,800) per unit. This low cost is precisely what makes them strategic—they provide a technological effect delivered at minimal cost, and are deployable at massive scale.
Initially, Ukraine relied on commercial off-the-shelf drones (primarily Chinese DJI models) and components. Yet it rapidly developed a domestic production base, integrating technologies drawn from everyday consumer electronics, such as smartphones, with genuine military capabilities in navigation, communication, and autonomy. Crowdfunding on the United24 platform makes this production possible.7
The rapid proliferation of low-cost, easy-to-produce drones—most notably loitering munitions such as Iran’s Shahed-136—has become a force multiplier that fundamentally reshapes the battlefield. These platforms provide affordable, continuous real-time surveillance over extended periods, allowing commanders to maintain situational awareness at scales previously possible only with far more expensive systems. At the same time, they confer asymmetric strike capabilities that are accessible to resource-limited states and non-state actors alike, so precision attacks become easier to launch. Swarm tactics can overwhelm conventional air defenses: massed, inexpensive drones saturate sensors and interceptors, forcing adversaries to take costly and complex countermeasures or accept persistent vulnerability. In short, cheap drones marry technological utility with sheer quantity, changing the calculus of both reconnaissance and strike in modern conflict.
This saturation effect is operationally transformative. Swarms of low-cost drones overwhelm radar and interceptors, draining high-value air-defense ammunition and imposing disproportionate costs on the defender. In many sectors of the front, tanks and armored vehicles have ceased maneuvering altogether, remaining concealed or dug in to avoid instant detection and destruction. Today, drones are responsible for up to 75 percent of combat losses on both the Russian and Ukrainian sides.8 These systems have not replaced traditional airpower, but they have profoundly disrupted the conduct of ground combat.
Today, Ukraine’s drone ecosystem has become a powerful engine of innovation,9 bringing together young soldiers and tech “geeks,” more than 300 startups dedicated to drone development, and a philosophy rooted in an economy of means and rapid responsiveness to frontline demands.
Drones are designed to meet real, immediate operational requirements, with design loops often completed in a matter of days or weeks—not months. There are no excessive technical specifications, no long procurement cycles, and typically no maintenance plans. Drones are treated like ammunition: single-use, expendable, and entirely focused on delivering a specific effect at a specific time. Each month, 200,000 are delivered to Ukrainian troops—up from 20,000 a month in 2024. Looking ahead, Ukraine can produce more than 4 million drones annually—an industrial mobilization effort that signals just how central unmanned systems have become to modern warfare.10 The Cognitive Dimension of Drone Warfare
Beyond their tactical utility, drones exert a disproportionate influence in the realm of cognitive warfare—shaping perceptions, morale, and decision-making at both the military and political levels. Their ubiquity and unpredictability create a sense of constant exposure: no place, from the front lines to rear areas, is entirely safe. This psychological saturation erodes soldiers’ endurance, instills fear in civilian populations, and forces adversaries to divert disproportionate resources to defense.
Attacks using so-called spiderweb tactics—swarms of small, networked drones that surround and harass enemy positions—illustrate how drones can immobilize troops not just physically, but mentally, creating the impression of trapping them in an inescapable net. The audacity of such attacks—like Israel’s beeper attacks—demonstrates that no part of a nation’s territory is a sanctuary. They underscore the vulnerability of open-air air force bases, which are exposed targets in an era of precision strikes and low-cost drone incursions. Likewise, the recent drone strike against Poland,11 though limited in scale, had an outsized psychological and political effect, demonstrating the permeability of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s borders. This event also showed that low-cost systems could trigger debates about escalation, deterrence, and alliance credibility. So while the physical damage was minor, the cognitive impact was major.
This development highlights an important paradox. While drones have not yet achieved strategic disruption in the Clausewitzian sense (they do not decide wars or redefine their political logic—see below), they do play a strategically significant cognitive role. By amplifying uncertainty, weaponizing viral imagery, and challenging perceptions of security, drones shape the information environment in ways disproportionate to their material power.
In that sense, drones may be comparable to airpower in its earliest psychological form—when bombers were valued as much for their ability to terrorize cities as for their actual destructive capacity. Drone warfare thus straddles the line: tactically revolutionary, strategically bounded, but cognitively destabilizing.
Toward an Algorithmic War of Attrition
Increasingly, militaries are integrating drones with artificial intelligence, especially to guide them automatically during the terminal flight phase when they approach their target—a phase highly vulnerable to electromagnetic jamming. These developments mark early steps toward drone autonomy and, more significantly, the rise of low-cost battlefield robotization. The Ukrainian command, constrained by limited human resources, has been compelled to advance autonomous systems. The Saker Scout drone, developed by a Ukrainian startup, exemplifies this evolution: It identifies targets and thermal signatures, though it does not initiate strikes independently. Other platforms go further, integrating autonomous navigation with final guidance, achieving strike success rates of 70–80 percent.12
The dronization of warfare requires militaries to rethink of command-and-control (C2) chains. Indeed, drones’ capabilities are quickly outpacing the capacity of traditional C2 chains. As the number and pace of precision strikes and ISR tasks grow, conventional human-led C2 becomes a bottleneck. Modern drone warfare will therefore force a shift: C2 architectures will need to embed AI technologies to manage sensing, targeting prioritization, tasking, deconfliction, and maneuvering at machine speed—while preserving appropriate human authority and legal accountability. Dronization demands a faster, more distributed, and more autonomous C2 than legacy chains—but it should still have human accountability. The practical path combines sensor fusion, AI decision-support, resilient communications, strong cybersecurity, and explicit legal and ethical guardrails. Done right, AI enables commanders to manage scale and pace while retaining control over the most consequential decisions; done wrong, it risks brittle automation, unintended escalation, and legal exposure.
What matters most, however, is how quickly an adversary adapts.
The Strategic Dimension of Drone Warfare, or Lack Thereof
Traditionally, the operational art depended on a clear chain: strategy set objectives, operational planning structured campaigns, and tactics delivered battles. With drones, tactical actors (small units or even individuals) now have operational reach. A drone team can strike logistics nodes 50 kilometers (31 miles) behind the front, blurring the boundary between tactical action and operational effect. Drones have transformed the operational art by reshaping the way operations are conceived and executed: eroding surprise, collapsing depth, flattening hierarchies, and accelerating the tempo. They make the operational environment more transparent, more saturated, and more fluid than ever before—but stop short of rewriting strategy itself. So far, drones have not altered the fundamental political nature of war—Clausewitzian theory still applies. They have not replaced the need for territorial control, nor have they eliminated the centrality of manpower, logistics, and morale. In Ukraine, despite their massive tactical impact—enabling real-time surveillance, precision strikes, and unprecedented saturation of the battlefield—drones have not decisively shifted the overall course of the war. Neither side has gained a strategic breakthrough solely through their use.
This situation highlights a crucial distinction: drones are a tactical revolutionbut are not yet a strategic disruption. They enhance lethality, amplify firepower, extend reach, expand situational awareness, and accelerate the pace of operations, but they do not by themselves deliver victory or alter the balance of power. Their effects remain bound by traditional strategic imperatives: holding ground, sustaining forces, and breaking the enemy’s will.
Historical parallels make the limits clearer. Blitzkrieg in World War II fundamentally changed how militaries fought wars by combining speed, mechanization, and airpower into an integrated strategy that reshaped entire campaigns, the balance of power. Nuclear weapons redefined the very logic of conflict by introducing deterrence on a global scale, changing not just tactics but also the structure of international relations itself. Drones, by contrast, have not reached this level of transformation. Their effects remain confined within existing strategic frameworks: wars are still decided by territory, industrial capacity, alliances, and ultimately political will.
Furthermore, the rapid emergence of counter-drone measures underscores their limitations. Just as armor led to anti-tank weapons and aircraft spurred air defenses, drones are already being met with electromagnetic warfare, jamming, and intercept systems. Far from being a decisive revolution, drone warfare appears to be part of the iterative cycle of innovation and adaptation that has always characterized military history.
Vulnerabilities and a Constant Race Against Obsolescence
The pace of innovation and counter-innovation is so rapid that any operational advantage can be eroded within weeks. A military therefore has to continuously update its platforms, or they will otherwise become irrelevant. In practice, adaptability—in software, tactics, and production—matters more than sheer numbers. So drone warfare is less a competition over who can develop a one-time technological breakthrough, and is more about who can perpetually upgrade and update the fastest.
Drones quickly become obsolete.
The adaptation cycle between offense (the sword) and defense (the shield) is extremely short—militaries can often develop effective countermeasures in mere weeks. This constrains the long-term dominance of drones, ensuring that they remain a tool that is powerful—yet not transformative at the strategic level.
New counter-drone defense systems are rapidly being developed, such as Russia’s Repellent-1 or Israel’s Iron Beam, which use lasers and jamming technologies. To remain operationally relevant, drones have to constantly evolve. Most are modular systems, with airframes that change very little over time. The real innovation—and vulnerability—lies in their software. Every four to six weeks, updates are required across critical systems—communication protocols, navigation systems, and flight control algorithms—to stay ahead of evolving electromagnetic warfare tactics, including jamming and signal interference.
Most drones are vulnerable to jamming.
Drones are still remotely piloted and have very limited autonomy. Claims about fully autonomous drones like the Russian Lancet-3 or Ukrainian Saker Scout are exaggerated. Ukrainian developers have created object recognition and terminal guidance technologies, but these tools are currently limited in complexity and trustworthiness. Tethered drones are less susceptible to electromagnetic warfare as their wired connection shields them from jamming and interference, but this technique presents other vulnerabilities.
In this sense, drone warfare is a continuous software arms race where agility, not just quantity, determines success.
Drones involve production and scaling challenges.
Ukraine’s drone innovation has been largely startup-driven and artisanal, whereas Russia has moved to industrial production. Although Ukraine often fields more advanced and better-performing systems, it risks being overwhelmed by Russia’s sheer manufacturing capacity.
Maintaining an edge in drone warfare requires investment not only in software development—artificial intelligence, autonomy, and communication systems—but also in industrial-scale production. Yet mass production alone is not enough. For drones to remain effective, manufacturing needs to stay flexible and adaptive, continuously evolving in response to changing battlefield conditions and the rapid development of counter-drone measures. The future of drone warfare will be determined not just by innovation at the design stage, but by the ability to scale, adapt, and sustain production at an industrial level.
Drone warfare presents human resource challenges.
Drone warfare is not just about producing drones—it is also about producing the people who can operate them effectively, at scale, and through constant technological change. This may prove as decisive as industrial capacity in shaping who holds the long-term advantage.
The need for numerous operators presents a major constraint on drone warfare. Unlike many other weapons systems, many drones—especially commercial quadcopters adapted for military use—require individual operators for piloting, targeting, and coordination. Training a single operator takes from three to four weeks, which may seem modest, but when scaled across thousands of systems, the burden on manpower and training infrastructure becomes significant.
Because drones need human operators, several challenges emerge:High demand for operators. The proliferation of drones means that armies need large numbers of trained personnel. Each destroyed or lost drone requires not just hardware replacement but also the reallocation of trained operators.
Skill retention and turnover. Many drone operators come from civilian or volunteer backgrounds (e.g., gamers, hobbyists, engineers). While this brings innovation and agility, it also leads to issues of retention, burnout, or rotation back into civilian life. Maintaining a consistent, professionalized cadre is resource intensive.
Cognitive and psychological load. Operating drones is mentally taxing. Constant surveillance, real-time decision-making, and remote lethality blur the lines between combatant and observer. Operators may be physically distant from the battlefield, but psychologically they remain deeply exposed, contributing to fatigue and stress.
Training vs. innovation gap. Rapid technological evolution means that operators must continuously adapt to new systems, software updates, and countermeasure environments. A four-week training cycle is only the baseline; sustaining competence requires ongoing education, which further strains resources.
Organizational integration. In countries like Ukraine, where drone innovation is highly decentralized, training and integrating thousands of new operators from startups, volunteer groups, and the military create a coordination challenge. In Russia’s more centralized model, the rigidity of doctrine slows training adaptation, limiting operator effectiveness.
Implications for Western Militaries
Drones have transformed modern warfare, making rapid integration, adaptability, and scalable innovation as crucial as platform sophistication and firepower. Therefore, Western militaries need to learn from the Russia-Ukraine War and rethink doctrines, operational models, and force development.
Addressing the Challenges of This New Warfare
In Ukraine, we are witnessing the rise of mass-produced, technologically capable systems at an affordable price. This symbolizes the reconciliation of two concepts once thought contradictory: mass and technology.
Drones have redefined ground tactics, creating battlefield transparency, saturating defenses, and paralyzing large-scale maneuvers. In an order of the day.13 issued on April 23, 2025, French Chief of Staff General Pierre Schill called on the cavalry to reinvent itself. Praising its historic power, he recalled that it has long been the arm that unbalances the enemy and whose intervention secures victory. Yet the advent of drone warfare has relativized the strength of armored forces, with fronts increasingly static and maneuvers slowed. A growing gap is emerging between the costly sophistication of combat vehicles and the inexpensive, rugged means available to destroy them.
Western militaries thus need to decide: Should drones remain limited to optimizing existing forces, or should they be integrated as an organic tool of maneuver, as in Ukraine?
The latter path demands a profound transformation: an agile civil-military model; rapid innovation cycles embracing not only tech innovation but also new doctrine based on a multi-domain approach integrating the effects of drones; and an army capable of absorbing large numbers of reservists and operators.
Without such a transformation, Western technological superiority could quickly become a weakness when confronted by adversaries capable of flooding the skies with cheap, disposable swarms. Responding requires a paradigm shift: instead of investing in rare, exquisite platforms, belligerents are betting on “cheap, fast, many.”
The Need for an Industrial Revolution
The Russia-Ukraine War shows the need for speed in the adaptation cycle. Every innovation almost immediately triggers a countermeasure. The battlefield has become a space of permanent research and development, where superiority is measured by the ability to innovate and produce at scale not only drones but also counter-drone systems. The conflict has triggered a race among nations to adapt their defense industries for large-scale drone production, battlefield integration, and counter-drone measures. The United States,14 Turkey, and Israel—not to mention China, which was already the largest producer of commercial drones—have developed supply chains and production capabilities tailored to meet this new demand.
The war in Ukraine has exposed long-recognized weaknesses that militaries have ignored, which raises multiple issues. How relevant are current Western capabilities and programs in light of the rapid evolution of drone warfare? Can traditional defense planning cycles keep pace with the tempo of innovation emerging from the field?
In France, for example, armament processes remain slow and overly centralized, shaped by an industrial logic based on long timelines. They are also often burdened with unrealistic requirements concerning French control of components, software, and digital transformation, or by the complexity of European partnerships. Acquisition mechanisms are equally rigid, and until recently, actors outside the traditional defense industrial base were not considered as suppliers.
For years, France treated drone programs as conventional programs and required heavy specifications that constrained agility, rapid innovation, and field experimentation. Moreover, France faces a delay of nearly 15 years in combat drone development due to an operational culture that prioritizes human control over firepower and manned airpower, often at the expense of adapting to new paradigms. Despite its delay, France has now entered the drone race with two priorities: (1) developing effective protection against hostile systems and (2) fostering startup creativity to build drone capabilities. This shift, anchored in a targeted €5 billion ($5.8 billion) investment, reflects both an acknowledgment of strategic vulnerabilities and a determination to stimulate innovation. The policy has unleashed a surge of initiatives. The French Army’s Future Combat Command has launched an ambitious equipment plan that includes the creation of drone pilot schools, while the Defense Airborne Drone Pact seeks to structure a low-cost drone industrial base—drawing not only on traditional defense players but also on civilian industries such as the automotive sector.
The Russia-Ukraine War shows that Western militaries need nothing less than an industrial revolution in armaments.15 They should invest in the modular, open-source, rapid manufacturing of drone and counter-drone technology, while also accelerating traditional procurement cycles. This transformation should rest on three complementary pillars:
1. Creativity and ExperimentationEncourage rapid prototyping, field testing, and integration of civilian technologies.
Foster innovation ecosystems that connect startups, engineers, and frontline operators. Embrace a culture of iterative design in which failure accelerates adaptation rather than hindering it.
2. Mass Industrial ProductionShift from artisanal or startup-driven approaches to large-scale manufacturing capacity.
Secure supply chains for critical components and raw materials to ensure continuity under pressure. Invest in modular designs that can be mass-produced while allowing upgrades.
3. Flexibility and AdaptabilityBuild industrial processes that can pivot rapidly in response to new threats or countermeasures.
Shorten acquisition cycles to match the pace of battlefield innovation. Maintain a balance between standardized platforms and the ability to integrate new payloads, software, and tactics.
What is at stake is not simply catching up, but redefining the balance between protection, innovation, and industrial scalability in a domain where agility and mass production increasingly determine operational superiority.
Only by reconciling creativity, scale, and flexibility can states sustain technological and operational superiority in future wars. The revolution in armaments is not merely about producing more but about producing smarter and faster while remaining resilient to the relentless pace of innovation.
Beyond Drones: Toward a Doctrinal Revolution
Drones alone are not transforming the battlefield. Instead, they are disrupting the battlefield by working with other weapon systems as a networked whole. For example, both Russia and Ukraine have paired unarmed drones with artillery, which dramatically accelerates targeting timelines and enables responsive, precise, ground-based fires. Drones have become the critical link in what Russia calls its reconnaissance-strike complex—the network that acquires, processes, and transmits targeting data to artillery units.
Because artillery remains the decisive weapon of this war, drones have assumed a vital enabling role as spotters, identifying targets and adjusting fires by feeding data through virtual battle networks, such as Kropyva and Strelets. Increasingly, this role is carried out not by a single drone but by stacks of drones operating in the same airspace, each with distinct functions. The result is a highly distributed, resilient kill chain—driven by a decentralized and agile C2, which is far harder to disrupt. This evolution highlights the need for a doctrinal revolution, not just new technology
From the three Ds to air and information superiority. Once defined as handling “dirty, dull, dangerous” tasks, drones now reshape the very meaning of airpower. Air superiority is no longer only about jets and helicopters; it is also about achieving drone superiority—outmatching the adversary in numbers, resilience, and electromagnetic warfare dominance.
From kill chains to kill webs. Rigid, linear targeting models are insufficient against an adaptive, contested environment. The future lies in kill web architectures—decentralized, data-driven, and resilient to attrition—that are capable of integrating drones seamlessly with ground fires, electromagnetic warfare, cyber operations, and space-based assets.
Rethinking defense. Traditional air defense systems were never designed to counter mass drone swarms. Ukraine and its allies have had to improvise, combining electromagnetic jamming, AI-assisted targeting, and layered interception strategies. These adaptations point to the urgent need for multi-domain defense doctrines that integrate drones not as adjuncts but as central actors.
Drones are forcing militaries to move from platform-centric to network-centric warfare, multi-domain operations in which adaptability, integration, and resilience matter as much as firepower itself. On the conceptual level, the French armed forces have launched several exploratory efforts—one focused on drone swarms and another on deep-strike operations—and have reflected more broadly on the robotization of the battlefield. These initiatives reflect a growing recognition that drones are not merely tactical enablers but drivers of doctrinal and operational change. Still Pending Questions and New Political-Strategic Dilemmas
Even as drones reshape the operational art of war, fundamental questions remain unresolved:
Responsibility. Who is accountable in the event of mishaps, accidents, or unintended autonomous attacks?
Thresholds for force. Does the ability to strike without immediate political risk lower the threshold for the use of force?
The doctrinal gap. Traditional militaries are still lagging in formulating doctrines for the mass deployment of drones, leaving a gap between theory in staff colleges and practice on the battlefield.
Ethical and trust questions. While the reality of AI on the battlefield is still far removed from the scenarios imagined in Terminator or Black Mirror, key debates center on maintaining human control and ensuring accountability. Building trust in AI technologies also presents major challenges, from the integrity of data and algorithms to the growing exposure of these systems to cyber threats.
The future of drones. Are drones truly the future of warfare, or merely a transitional phase? The development of sophisticated countermeasures—electromagnetic warfare, directed-energy weapons, and systems like Iron Beam—could eventually render the air drone obsolete.
Conclusion: Between Innovation and Obsolescence
Drone warfare may or may not represent the future of combat, but it is undeniably the reality of today’s wars and a pressing challenge to national security. Ignoring its doctrinal implications risks repeating the mistakes made with tanks after World War I—focusing narrowly on platforms while failing to grasp their revolutionary impact on operational art. Therefore, the strategic question is not over whether drones will last, but on two other issues. First, how can militaries harness their disruptive potential, adapt to their vulnerabilities, and integrate them into a truly multi-domain doctrine that is resilient to technological change? Second, how can procurement agencies create a new ecosystem able to face the challenges of this new industrial revolution and the expectations of soldiers in the field?
Drone warfare may or may not be a revolution in military affairs, but it certainly offers a strong reminder: true revolutions lie not in the platform itself, but in the doctrines, organizations, and military and industrial strategies that integrate it. Whether drones become the future of war or only a passing phase, the challenge is to transform their tactical disruption into lasting operational and strategic effect.
About the author: Tsiporah Fried is a visiting senior fellow at Hudson Institute, focused on transatlantic relations, European defense and military strategy, and defense and tech innovation.
Hudson Institute is a nonpartisan policy research organization dedicated to innovative research and analysis that promotes global security, prosperity, and freedom.
