In Ukraine, the world’s first drone war

Because of their low cost, speed and precision, drones largely have supplanted traditional weaponry — including antitank missiles, mortars, tanks, and even artillery and aircraft — in the Ukraine war, write Eric Schmidt and Greg Grant in Foreign Affairs. 

(Schmidt is CEO of Relativity Space, a rocket company, and former CEO of Google. He’s currently an investor in companies supplying drones to Ukraine. Grant is an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He was a special assistant to Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work and a speech writer for secretaries of defense Gates, Panetta and Hagel.)

“First-person-view” drones (their pilots see what the drone sees) are small, cheap, maneuverable quadcopters (with four rotors) that transmit real-time footage to their operators and detonate kamikaze-style on their targets.

A unit’s power and resilience now are dictated by its number of skilled drone operators and its ability to deploy drones at scale, Schmidt and Grant say.

“This represents a profound shift in warfare, largely instigated by Ukraine to compensate for its shortfalls in conventional weapons and manpower,” they say.

Russia was slower to field drones in large numbers but has dramatically increased its production of first-person-view drones and is matching Ukraine’s “extraordinary” rate of technological adaptation, according to Schmidt and Grant.

Because Russia and Ukraine are constantly improving on hardware, software and tactics, the war changes at a “breathtaking rate,” they say.

For example, the saturation of drone surveillance has made nearly all troop movements visible and therefore vulnerable, creating a transparent battlefield. Anything that moves near the front line is struck within minutes. 

With many traditional weapons rendered obsolete, drones increasingly are fighting other drones. 

“Amid this cycle of innovation, the two sides are inching toward a new frontier: entirely automated warfare,” Schmidt and Grant say.

Meanwhile, Taiwan, preparing for threats from mainland China, is developing a naval drone capability that’s inspired by Ukraine’s success against the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, Naval News reports.