On March 27, 2020, Libyan Prime Minister Faiez Serraj announced the commencement of Operation Peace Storm, part of the larger Western Libya campaign, with the assistance (to put it mildly) of the Turkish military in support of the UN-recognized Government of National Accord. During an early combat engagement, while attacking a retreating logistics convoy, rebel forces were hunted down and remotely engaged by the unmanned combat aerial vehicles, autonomous weapons systems such as the STM Kargu-2 and other loitering munitions. The lethal autonomous weapons systems were programmed to attack targets without requiring data connectivity between the operator and the munition: in effect, a true “find, fire, and forget” capability. To put a better spin on it, the Kargu-2 carried onboard AI that identifies and engages targets independently of someone pulling a trigger, making it the first autonomous kill in recorded history. Remote air technology, combined with effective fusion intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, turned the tide of the conflict in what had previously been a low-intensity, low-technology conflict in which casualty avoidance and force protection were priorities for both parties.
Military technology advances by leaps and bounds during war. The war in Ukraine has led to an above-average increase in technological development, considering the rapid advances in virtual reality, Starlink-like technology, lithium battery longevity, video clarity, and so on. Never forget World War II started on horseback and ended with an atomic bomb all within a six-year time frame. The war in Ukraine is now four and a half years long and we have witnessed the reduction and at times outright abandonment of armored personnel carriers, surface warships, and helicopters. It is comical to see what we envisioned as future battle tanks look like only to see T-72 tanks draped in what are called “cope cages” as a form of anti-drone protection. Ukraine has entered a new phase, one defined less by territorial gains than by intense technological competition. The war does not echo what transpired over 100 years ago at the Battle of Verdun or the Somme but rhymes, as the steppes covering about 40 percent of Ukraine’s territory offer a great equalizer for warring nations to test their latest and greatest gadgets. It’s as if World War I and Star Wars slammed into each other. No longer is there a clear distinction between front and rear across the entire depth of the battlefield. Thus, much like World War I, methods for advancing tactics or strategy have been rendered obsolete, leading to a war of attrition. What has emerged on the battlefield is a decentralized, improvised, and brutally efficient form of unmanned combat.
As war itself becomes decentralized, so too does technology. What was meant to be their secret advantage is becoming open information. Drones, in their bare state, are nothing more than toys composed mostly of parts made in China. It is no secret that China leads in drone technology with its weaponized Alibaba Express model, a mass-produced and distributed model of cheap plastic parts. The CPP is not hampered by having to work with donors, lobbyists, red tape, and bureaucratic procurement. China makes 90 percent of the world’s commercial drones and controls 80 percent of drone components. China has the ability to destabilize the entire world far more than Russia did with AK-47 exports.
If we look at how the U.S. has handled the situation in Iran, they remain ossified in half-century-old rules of engagement. Military planners are steadfast that high-precision centralized strike capabilities are the best way to win. It certainly did not in Vietnam, though one can argue the NVA and VC never seriously won on the battlefield. The Tet Offensive was a American victory, but American forces were unable to eliminate NVA troops from city centers afterward. The French continued on the old premises of building ridiculous-looking blockhouses, littering the country with small forts resembling fictional Fort Zinderneuf. Both the French and U.S. were unable to counter a decentralized mode of combat that consisted of illiterates on bicycles wearing sandals made of discarded tires. China, despite its knowledge of drones, continues to build isolated island forts to stake a claim in the middle of the South China Sea. Naval battles, for example, would transpire 5,000 feet underwater in the Bering Sea in the mind of a paper-pusher analyzing defense policy. They never envisioned needing minesweepers or coastal patrol boats again. Approach and avoid repetition seems to be the name of the game. Neither the U.S. nor Israel can exert true force because there is no new playbook. Obviously the political backlash would be insurmountable, but they are taking notes from what is happening in Ukraine as that war rages on.
What is practiced abroad makes it way home. COVID was a great excuse to test out drones on non-combatants. A number of American police departments utilized drones as part of their efforts to stop the spread of COVID and in Spain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, drones were equipped with loudspeakers telling roaming citizens to go back to their homes. Sensors integrated into UAVs used to monitor respiratory rate, heartbeat, body temperature, and other abnormalities all sounds wonderful to those living in fear over something that isn’t alive and roughly 100 to 1,000 times smaller than the human cell. The Elizabeth, New Jersey Police Department said it’s using its drones to “save lives,” not to be “Big Brother.” More recently, Florida allocated about $557,000 for a pilot project in three school districts that will deploy “Campus Guardian Angel” drones. Schools increasingly resemble state penitentiaries; zone and code enforcement for cities and villages, coupled with personal tech devices asking for more and more personal information, are setting up a perfect dragnet for an all-pervasive surveillance state, all in the name of “crime prevention.” The general public is aware of it all, as the backlash against Flock and data centers shows, but one has to wonder why social media giants’ algorithms allowed these things to gain so much traction. Where is the outcry again red-light and stop-sign cameras? This past month, three Georgia police officers were arrested after using Flock cameras to stalk people they knew.
Some drones to keep an eye on and under development are the likes of the Radid-1, an Iranian jet-powered suicide drone capable of reaching a top speed of 316 MPH. The BAE Systems stratoflying PHASA-35, an ultra-lightweight, solar-electric High Altitude Pseudo Satellite, has the ability to exceed 66,000 feet and can operate over an area of interest for several months. Ukraine’s AQ-400, a one-way kamikaze drone, is equipped with AI-assisted autonomous guidance capabilities to counter GPS-denied environments. The fuselage is made from milled sheets of plywood from civilian furniture factories, which is a more scalable alternative. Turkey’s Anka III is a turbofan-powered drone that can fly up to 40,000 feet and reach a top speed of Mach 0.7 (489 mph) at 30,000 feet. It was seen over the summer with two jet-powered UAVs under its wings. A Ukrainian drone-intercepting loitering munition called Sting set the world record for drone-on-drone interception at 6,858 meters of altitude when it destroyed a Russian reconnaissance drone. Ukraine’s military is setting manufacturing standards for fiber-optic FPV kamikaze drones, which are now their go-to drone of choice. The countryside is now littered with what looks to many like a fishing line. China is currently working on a laser-charged drone that can stay in the air indefinitely. Then there is the inevitable swarm technology: drones working as a team, free of a human in the kill chain, making life-and-death decisions.
On the receiving end of a drone: a small, cold shadow forged by the neoliberal death machine of no honor, no homeland, no loyalty. A whiny plastic mechanical phantom of no substance. Just cheap and easy. You are an ant in panic, running from the focal point of the magnifier’s convex lens, and much like a child moving the glass, terrorizing the helpless ant. So, too, a man-child operating a console controller harasses, pestering, and taunts a beaten-down peasant sent to fight a shadow watching his every move. Sheer terror he must endure fighting a pathetic-looking object that is faster and more agile than him. He has no competitive position and is compromised at all times. It is best he takes his own life than to surrender it to an inanimate object.
No one can afford to stop. Even maintaining parity requires constant innovation. We have seen this time and time again, most notably when radar came into play. This is known as the Red Queen hypothesis: continuous disruption can only be met with a commitment to continuous innovation. The innovation in drone warfare is not about hardware; it is about autonomous, cognitive, or drone cognitive-software capability. At the end of the day, you need mass to take and to defend objectives, but on a battlefield littered with made-in-China toys designed to kill, the same mass gets you killed.
