Precision guided weapons first appeared in their modern form on the battlefields of Vietnam just over 50 years ago. As the military has strived for greater precision and destructive capability, the cost of such weapons has multiplied. US GPS-guided artillery shells cost $100,000 each. Since smart weapons are expensive, they are also in short supply. For this reason, European countries ran out of them in Libya in 2011. Israel, more eager to preserve its arsenals than to avoid collateral damage, has rained free-fall bombs on Gaza. Now, what would happen if it were possible to combine precision and abundance?
For the first time in the history of war that question is answered in Ukraine. First-person view (PPV) drones are proliferating along the front lines. They are small, cheap devices loaded with explosives that, adapted from consumer models, are making the lives of soldiers even more dangerous. They sneak into tank turrets or trenches; They prowl and chase their prey before going in for the kill; They wreak havoc on infantry and armor.
Furthermore, warfare is making those VPP drones and their maritime cousins ??ubiquitous. In January, 3,000 attacks were verified with them. Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky created the Unmanned Systems Force, dedicated to drone warfare. Ukraine is on track to build between 1 and 2 million drones by 2024. Surprisingly, that number will coincide with the reduction in its consumption of projectiles (which has decreased because Republicans in the US Congress shamefully deny it the supplies it needs).
The drone is not a miracle weapon, such a thing does not exist. It is important because it materializes major trends in war: the shift toward small, cheap, and disposable weapons; the increasing use of consumer technology; and the drift towards autonomy in battle. Because of those trends, drone technology will spread rapidly from militaries to militias, terrorists, and criminals. And it will not improve at the pace of the budget cycles of the military-industrial complex, but rather at the disruptive urgency of consumer electronics.
Basic VPP drones are revolutionary simple. Descended from racing quadcopters and built from off-the-shelf components, they can cost as little as several hundred dollars. They tend to have short range, carry small payloads, and struggle in adverse weather conditions. Because of this, they will not replace artillery (yet). Although, even then, they can do a lot of damage. In one week last fall, Ukrainian drones helped destroy 75 Russian tanks and 101 large guns, among many other things. Russia has its own VPP drones, although they tend to target trenches and soldiers. Drones help explain why both sides find it so difficult to launch offensives.
The exponential growth in the number of Russian and Ukrainian drones points to a second trend. These vehicles start from widely available consumer technology and adapt it. Not only in Ukraine, but also in Myanmar (where rebels have recently won a major victory over government forces), volunteers can use 3D printers to manufacture key components and assemble the parts in small workshops. And unfortunately, criminal groups and terrorists are unlikely to lag far behind militias.
All of this reflects a broad democratization of precision weapons. In Yemen, the Houthi rebel group has used cheap Iranian guidance kits to build anti-ship missiles that are posing a lethal threat to merchant ships in the Red Sea. Iran itself has demonstrated how a combination of long-range attack drones and ballistic missiles can have a geopolitical effect that far exceeds its cost. Even though, as some predict, the kit needed to circumvent anti-drone jamming will greatly increase the cost of the weapons, they will continue to be transformatively cheap.
The reason lies in consumer electronics, which drives innovation at a dizzying pace as capabilities multiply in each product cycle. That raises issues of both ethics and obsolescence. There will not always be time to subject new weapons to the tests that Western countries aspire to in peacetime and that are required by the Geneva Conventions.
Innovation also leads to the latest trend, autonomy. Today, the use of VPP drones is limited by the availability of qualified pilots and by the effects of interference, which can disrupt the connection between a drone and its operator. To overcome such problems, Russia and Ukraine are experimenting with autonomous navigation and target recognition. Artificial intelligence has been available in consumer drones for years and is improving rapidly.
A certain degree of autonomy has existed in high-end munitions for years and in cruise missiles for decades. The novelty is that cheap microchips and software will allow intelligence to be incorporated into the millions of low-end munitions that are saturating the battlefield. The side that first masters autonomy at scale in Ukraine will enjoy a temporary but decisive advantage in firepower, a necessary condition for any breakthrough.
Western countries have been slow to assimilate those lessons. Simple and cheap weapons will not replace large high-end platforms, but rather complement them. The Pentagon has belatedly embarked on Replicator, an initiative to build thousands of low-cost drones and munitions capable of taking on China’s massive forces. Europe is even further behind. Their ministers and generals increasingly believe they could face another major European war by the end of the decade. If so, investment in low-end drones must increase urgently. Furthermore, ubiquitous drones will require ubiquitous defenses, not only on battlefields but also in peaceful cities.
Intelligent drones will also raise questions about how armies wage war and whether humans can control the battlefield. As drones multiply, the formation of self-coordinated swarms will be possible. Humans will have difficulty monitoring and understanding their confrontations, let alone authorizing them.
The United States and its allies must prepare for a world in which rapid improvement in military capabilities spreads with increasing speed and breadth. As they fill the skies over Ukraine, disposable weapons that combine precision and firepower serve as a warning. Mass-produced hunter and lethal aircraft are already reshaping the balance between humans and technology in warfare.
© 2024 The Economist Newspaper Limited.
All rights reserved Translation: Juan Gabriel López Guix
