Why We Need Drones and AI in Defense
Drones, or rather unmanned aerial vehicles, have been used in warfare for almost two centuries. The first documented case dates back to 1839, when soldiers of the Austrian Empire attacked Venice with unmanned balloons filled with explosives. Since then, unmanned aerial vehicles have become an increasingly important part of national security strategies, and over the past two decades, the democratization of the market, their increasingly affordable price and widespread distribution have allowed various users to acquire their own drone, which can then be used both with completely bona fide intentions and as a method for purposefully undermining public order and national security in all domains (air, water, ground military operations, and why not the new field of struggle for supremacy – space, satellites and communications).
Use in Military Conflicts in the 21st Century
The War on Terror the period of deployment of various operational theaters in the Middle East – during the twenty-year war on terror, the topic of the use of drones in military and other actions was focused mainly on the issue of the legality (both under federal and international humanitarian law) of the so-called “targeted killings” – purposeful, in most cases precise strikes against enemy targets to eliminate key figures of Al Qaeda and later ISIS. For the period until the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, a number of cases of killings of civilians due to negligence or insufficient/wrong information took the lives of thousands of local residents. The most famous such incidents are the airstrike carried out by American troops in 2008 in the village of Azizabad, as a result of which 76 civilians, 56 of whom were children, were killed as a result of incorrect information provided by a group of contractors hired by the army, the airstrike carried out in 2009 against the village of A shelling that killed between 140 and 146 civilians, including 93 children, and the 2010 Allied airstrike on the village of Sangin, which destroyed one of the large buildings in the village, housing 52 civilians, most of them children. 39 of them died, the rest were injured.
Naturally, with the development of military equipment and proven effectiveness, after the initial tactical superiority of the United States, more and more terrorist and paramilitary groups in the region began to recognize drones as an effective way to attack strategic targets or to instil panic among the local population.
Lessons Learned from the Ukrainian War, the Gaza Flare-up and Other Recent Regional Conflicts
Drones have indeed transformed the battlefield in Ukraine by providing accessible and affordable capabilities at a scale that did not previously exist. They are making it difficult to concentrate forces, achieve surprise, and conduct offensive operations. While drones are not more survivable than crewed aircraft, they enable greater risk acceptance. At the same time, small commercial drones are easy to acquire in mass, could be produced relatively cheaply and do not require months of training for the operator to achieve acceptable accuracy.
Since the start of the 2023 Gaza War, drones have played a key role in the military strategy of both Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah. The Israeli military has used remotely piloted quadcopters for a variety of tasks, including espionage and surveillance, issuing orders to move military units, and striking individual members of Hamas’s command structure. Israel’s anti-drone and anri-missile defence, the Iron Dome, originally designed to protect Israel from short-range missiles and drones, consists of batteries located throughout the country and uses radar to track incoming targets and interceptor missiles to destroy them. During one of the most massive attacks in mid-summer, it was clearly demonstrated that the system has a saturation point, after which the need to recharge and cool the batteries makes it practically unusable. When using multiple small drones in a swarm formation, this is not only easily achievable, but also much more cost-effective for the opposing side compared to the resources required to maintain the Iron Dome in full combat readiness.
In the first 24 hours of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2020, Azerbaijani drones destroyed nearly 50% of Armenian air defense (AD) systems and nearly 40% of the country’s artillery.
Use by Terrorist Groups and Paramilitary Groups in Regional Conflicts, Especially in Africa
*The last UN assembly raised the issue of 2 seats on the Security Council for African countries, this changes the role of the continent in the field of international security and the processes that affect the countries there will have an increasing impact on security on a global scale. Thus, any developments and power struggles between the “strongmen” of the continent are predicted to have a ripple effect throughout global politics.
Drones are used as a method for local struggles for influence between various military and paramilitary groups in various regions with localized localized conflicts (Mozambique, Nigeria, Somalia, Congo, Sudan and Ethiopia):
Since 2020, more and more African countries have acquired unmanned aerial vehicles. Ethiopia, Morocco, Niger, Togo, Botswana, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa, Sudan and Zambia are gradually adding unmanned aerial vehicles to their counterterrorism repertoire. South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya are expected to be the main African participants in the global commercial drone industry, which is expected to reach $43 billion by the end of 2024, but drones are increasingly being used by various paramilitary groups other than the official government in the respective country, including for the purpose of provoking political tension.
Places like the Lake Chad Basin, where ISWAP and Boko Haram operate, and the Sahel, where AQIM and ISGS operate, have large porous border areas and unsecured spaces where drones can be smuggled or transported between states. In addition, the region has a weak and fragmented security apparatus that lacks the capacity and coordination to detect and respond to drone threats. In Sudan, even during sporadic negotiations, both sides continue to use drones, primarily to drop missiles and bombs on targeted locations, contributing to a significant expansion of the geographical scope of hostilities.
In countries where there are clusters of terrorist organizations or training bases for their fighters, drones are used both to protect the training camps themselves and as an effective way to maintain consistent levels of terrorist pay (ISIS in Libya, Syria and Iraq) – between 2015 and 2017, the Islamic State modified quadcopter drones to drop munitions on coalition forces on the ground, and carried out several kamikaze attacks in its operational areas. Between 2014 and 2020, 256 cases of the use of unmanned aerial vehicles were recorded in Iraq and Syria.
A slightly more exotic in terms of planning and complexity of execution is the use of drones as part of a strategy to carry out a coup or political destabilization – the Wagner Group in Mali and the Central African Republic after the death of Prigozhin.
In Myanmar, small rebel groups are using cheap drones in the fight against the far better-equipped military junta, as their use requires almost no training, access to the drones themselves and spare parts for them is relatively easy and cheap, and the packages also come with assembly and maintenance instructions that do not require an engineering education.
Drones as Part of the Business Model of Latin American Cartels and Other Forms of Organized Crime
The use of drones is drastically changing the usual way of operating for cartels in Latin America, who use them to deliver food, weapons, etc. small packages to prisons and detention complexes, which allows them to continue to be active participants in the cartel’s activities. A curious fact – this is not a phenomenon limited to Latin America – in the last few years, a new, quite profitable segment of illegal activity has been established in French prisons – arranging drone deliveries of all kinds of items, from drugs to weapons, mobile phones, even food. According to official information from the French Ministry of Justice, as of July 2023, the government had spent more than 12 million euros on equipment to prevent “95% of drone-related threats” related to overflights of places of detention.
Small-scale deliveries or cash deliveries to hard-to-reach locations or under increased surveillance by authorities in a given area, as well as larger deliveries to specific areas. According to various reports and analyses by US law enforcement and independent analysts, there has been a significant increase in the use of drones to transport drugs across border areas since 2010, with some regions even exceeding the volumes transported by ‘mules’. For example, in 2014, the US intercepted 150 drones carrying almost two metric tons of contraband, mainly marijuana, cocaine and heroin.
Initially, cartels purchased ready-made solutions (mainly from manufacturers in Israel, China and South Africa), but since 2016 they have begun to manufacture their own platforms. Over the past 4 years, drone platform assembly complexes have been discovered in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Querétaro and Tijuana. The new developments focus on a simple structure, increased payload and optimization of flights without refueling. Depending on the purpose, they can carry between 60 and 100 kilograms of product, and in-house production allows them to be used as one-day flights and not rely on setting a return trajectory after arriving at the drop off point.
Monitoring of resources/fields with production, drug processing warehouses, patrolling and early warning of potential operations by local authorities against production facilities. swarm formation drones for patrolling and bypassing different territories, monitoring the activities of law enforcement agencies, as well as protecting plantations. The Colombian group Army of National Liberation (ELN), dissidents from the disbanded Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and Mexican cartels in Colombia use them to gather intelligence for local security forces, monitor drug shipments or monitor drug trafficking routes.
As weapons in local power struggles, changes in territory under the control of a particular cartel, or political assassinations of local activists. Since 2020, it has been found that cases of explosive devices carried by drones have begun to exceed the volume of traditionally used car bombs in some parts of Mexico, Colombia, and Ecuador. According to information from local NGOs that have surveyed the local population of some of the most affected areas, residents of some areas of the western state of Michoacán report daily bombings by drones. In 2023, in one area alone, 42 soldiers, police officers, and suspects assisting the police were injured by these devices, compared to 16 in 2022. The most active in using drones as a new form of weapon of mass destruction are the FARC in Colombia, the CJNG, the Sinona Cartel and the Cárteles Unidos in Mexico, and Los Perrones Orientales in Guatemala, with more and more cartels adopting “best practices” as they are cheaper than full-scale wars using human resources.
How Can We Improve National Security Protection – Good Practices of Other Countries
Good Practices from the Conflict in Ukraine
In general, the main conclusion that can be drawn after reviewing the role of drones in the conflict in Ukraine is that drones are not a magic weapon that can “patch” existing deficiencies or insufficient human resources, but certainly the current state of the military and security field requires the presence of unmanned aerial vehicles. The other main point on which more and more analysts and representatives of the armed forces in the field agree is that the era of large combat drones is coming to an end and small maneuverable platforms are increasingly being used, which can be used both for observation and information collection, and for striking targets, as their price is significantly more economically affordable and the time for replenishing the armament with small drones is much more operational than when using large combat drones. A major factor is also anti-drone systems, which are also undergoing increasingly rapid development, but are still not able to neutralize the majority of small maneuverable drones available on the market, which can be used in a large swarm formation and are still cheaper than a single combat drone.
Last but not least, given the presence of a maritime front on which military operations are conducted, the importance of water and amphibious drones, which are difficult to locate, can bypass standard coastal security measures (mines and blockades) and can approach enemy objects and ships undetected, is becoming increasingly crucial.
New Doctrine on the Use of Drones by India
China is by far the world’s largest drone manufacturer, which poses challenges in building a defense strategy with unmanned aerial vehicles without using Chinese products or components. Given the sporadic escalations in their shared border regions, India’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) has imposed a strict ban on the use of Chinese components in military drones, a move that reflects the government’s growing concern about national security vulnerabilities. On June 25, the Ministry of Defense Production (MODP) sent a letter to key industry organizations, including FICCI, Assocham, and the Society of Indian Defense Manufacturers (SIDM), urging them to warn their members about the risks of using Chinese parts. The ministry is asking manufacturers to focus on equipment functionalities that are suited to the country’s terrain and climate, so that its military can use them optimally when needed.
On the other hand, the Indian Navy is also taking steps to modernize its technological base, which focuses on warships that can also be used as a platform for transporting and launching drones, even in international waters, if a potential threat to national security necessitates it.
Other Major Players in the Field of National Security
An interesting case study in real time – the use of drones in a potential conflict in Taiwan, why the country has built an entire doctrine around drone defense, as well as making the strait so difficult to conquer.
Seasonal environmental changes have a major impact on shipping in the strait. The China Coastal Current flows south in the western part of the strait from moving at maximum strength in the winter months, weakening in the summer. In the eastern part of the strait, however, the northward-flowing Kuroshio Branch Current reverses its direction due to the northeast monsoon in the winter, after exiting the Penghu Strait, but continues to strengthen throughout the rest of the year, reaching its maximum strength in the summer. Every year from July to September, an average of six major (and accordingly named) tropical storms and typhoons affect the strait. The strait is known for its strong winds, waves and fogs throughout the year (156.3 days per year with a Beaufort scale of 6 or higher), but these effects are exacerbated in the winter months, and the monsoons intensify the storms in the summer. On the other hand, since there are very few places on the island that are suitable for mooring military ships, they are also relatively easy to secure from a potential invasion using limited resources.
This requires rethinking the strategy for a potential invasion of the island, using other methods. However, if an air invasion is attempted with airplanes, helicopters and parachute jumps, a large part of the personnel could again be caught in monsoon vortices or the aircraft could be shot down by ground units scanning the coast while the pilots themselves try to orient themselves in the fog.
Analysts at the US Department of Defense warn that these features could potentially encourage China to deploy amphibious drones and swarms of mayfly drones to distract Taiwan’s forces, as well as kamikaze drones that can inflict significant damage to security infrastructure without requiring warships to come within range of the enemy.
The aforementioned prerequisites for future military actions in the region also determine the US strategy, which is embodied in the Pentagon’s “Hellscape” plan, which proposes that the US military compensate for the difference between the drones that China has (and which it can produce in addition to destroyed devices) by creating and deploying something like a huge screen of autonomous drone swarms designed to confuse enemy aircraft, provide guidance and targeting for allied missiles, disable surface warships and landing craft, and generally create enough chaos to blunt (if not completely stop) Chinese pressure through the Taiwan Strait.
Over the past few years, Taiwan has made significant investments in defense, focused primarily on making a potential invasion too expensive to sustain in the long term, especially considering that in order to obtain supplies, replace equipment, or reinforce personnel, the troops of an invading enemy (regardless of which country) would have to cross the strait again, with all its navigational challenges. The inclusion of drones in Taiwan’s defense strategy is key to preventing the need to use human resources to repel an enemy (the island has a population of about 23 million and does not have the capacity to meet a 1 million enemy army advancing along the coast in conditions of land or trench warfare), and for this reason, at a Drone Expo organized in Taipei last year, Taiwan’s defense minister stated that by 2028 Taiwan will purchase 3,422 units of six types of domestically produced military drones, including mini-drones, and that by 2026 Taiwan will separately purchase two types of missile-powered drones, totaling 976 units, to enhance strike precision and counter-armored vehicles or missile launchers.
In addition, the Taiwanese government has set a goal for domestic manufacturers to produce 15,000 drones per month by 2028. This is three times the current production levels, according to official data estimates for 2023.
Given the levels of production on both sides of the strait, the inclusion of drones in military operations may not have the expected impact in favour of Taiwan, as China can produce many times more equipment, but at least for the time being, the resources that would have to be invested in such an invasion are one of the main deterrent factors.
Conclusion
Drone warfare is here to stay. The wide availability of small commercially available platforms makes them unvaluable in any defence strategy framework. The unmanned aircrafts have become a fixture of modern security from both sides of the fence, thus in order to keep up with the fast passed developments, the governments need to let go of legacy armaments and traditional tactics who disregard the autonomous ability of small groups of dedicated individuals to disrupt critical infrastructure or inflict major damage to fighting capabilities with small or non-chance of retaliatory actions on the part of the conventional military.
