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Editor’s Note
As tensions flare across the Persian Gulf, swarms of low-cost Iranian drones striking targets in Arab states have again spotlighted the growing role of unmanned warfare. Systems deployed by Iran – previously seen in the battlefields of Ukraine – are now shaping the tempo of conflict amid confrontation with the United States and Israel. Yet the question remains – are drones truly revolutionising war, or are they only one element in a larger airpower contest involving air superiority and electronic warfare? This article examines whether the current wave of drone strikes signals a genuine military revolution or an evolutionary shift in modern combat.
Introduction
Over the past two decades or so, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have progressively become a constant feature of modern conflicts (State vs State/State vs non-state). Some scholars believe that drone technology could unleash an “unmanned revolution in military affairs,” which would affect not only military doctrine, organisation, and force structure but also regional and international stability. In the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, drones were described as a “magic bullet” or a “tactical game changer.” Drones are considered ‘revolutionary’ because of their small size, their ability to avoid or limit detection by modern radars compared with traditional military aircraft, and their “technological unsophistication,” thereby strengthening the militarily weaker side. A lower financial cost associated with building and operating drones vis-à-vis a manned platform has been another reason drones have been touted as revolutionary.
Some even believe that UAVs, by making long-range precision strikes more accessible, will eliminate close combat from the battlefield, thereby relieving states of the need to deploy ground troops. Amy Zegart notes that they (drones) make it more politically feasible for states to “keep shooting forever.” Francis Fukuyama suggests that “the use of drones is going to change the nature of land power,” thus “undermin[ing] existing force structures.” In light of the extraordinary technological changes unfolding, these concerns, on the face of it, seem legitimate. ‘Why Drones Have Not Revolutionised War’ highlights P. W. Singer – drone revolution exponent- who has noted that ‘increasingly, unmanned systems are becoming a game changer’. James Rogers, another exponent, argues that ‘drones, like gunpowder, have been the most significant development in the history of weaponry’.
We need to remember that the bottom line of Air Warfare is ‘competition between air defence and air penetration’. In the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, it has been shown that drones are vulnerable to electronic warfare and air defence systems. So, the moot point is, can drones shift the offence-defence balance toward the offence? Further, it needs to be seen whether Drones can cancel military asymmetries, especially since they require support from expensive, complex military assets and highly trained personnel. We need to understand that drones are part of the ‘evolution of air warfare’, whose fundamental principle remains to avoid exposure to enemy fire. This article will try to find if drones by themselves have produced the ‘revolutionary effects’ that many have attributed to them.
Evidence So Far – The Perceived Crucial Effects
The so-called drone revolution narrative builds on some crucial effects that drones are supposed to wield. First, drones confer an offensive advantage because they are believed to be able to penetrate modern air defence systems. It is argued that traditional air defence systems struggle to detect drones due to their small size and low speed. Secondly, low cost and limited sophistication allow drones to lower entry barriers for modern military operations and, hence, serve as an equalising force between major and minor military actors. Next, drones may permit states to fight from standoff positions without deploying troops on the ground. It is claimed that, as a result, drones would make close combat obsolete and nullify the twentieth-century belief in boots on the ground.
Everybody who understands the employment of air power will agree that air warfare is primarily penetrating, attacking through the medium of air, and defending against the air intruder. In the case being discussed, the drones penetrate the air. Air defence for its functioning must detect, locate, identify, track, and, if needed, engage intruders, while avoiding being degraded by an enemy’s cyber and electronic countermeasures (e.g., hacking, jamming, or spoofing) and being targeted by an enemy’s suppression of enemy air defence assets.
Perceived Crucial Effects of Drones and their Theoretical Fallouts
If the crucial effects of drones vis-à-vis their penetrability against enemy air defence were correct, drones should experience little attrition when penetrating enemy air spaces; or drones should be able to carry out air-to-ground attacks over enemy territories protected by air defence systems; or drones should be able to destroy enemy air defences or all of the above systematically. In other words, the success or failure of drones in carrying out air-to-ground attacks will therefore depend on the dexterity, expertise, and training of the attacker(s) and the defender(s), respectively.
Proponents of the drone revolution theory suggest that drones bring about a ‘levelling effect’, i.e., weaker actors are more likely to rely on drones (in absolute or relative terms) when facing significantly stronger adversaries. However, it has been observed that using drones effectively requires additional resources to suppress enemy air defences, detect and acquire long-range targets, and transmit and receive real-time communications.
Finally, some drone revolution advocates believe that due to the above two crucial effects, drones can destroy, at will, any intended target, making ground combat unnecessary. One should question presumptions like this, where the ingenuity of land forces has been just rendered ineffective, making the factors that affect performance in land warfare less relevant. Another question that needs to be raised is whether drones can hold ground like land forces can?
Perceived Crucial Effects of Drones as seen in Conflicts
Second Libyan civil war (2019– 2020), the Syrian civil war (2011–2021), and the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh (2020) are three conflicts other than the Israel-Iran Twelve-Day War (13 – 24 June 2025), the Russo-Ukraine War and Operation Sindoor, where drones have been used extensively. Some have hailed the extensive use of drones as paragons of the revolutionary impact they have on the battlefield.
The following are the peculiarities vis-à-vis drone exploitation as seen in the Second Libyan civil war, the Syrian civil war (2011–2021), and the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. In the Libyan conflict, both sides were comparably weak actors. The external support received by both sides varied over time. In Syria, Russia and Iran supported the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, while the United States supported the Syrian opposition. In Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan possessed superior capabilities compared with Armenia; it benefited from Turkey’s ISR and electronic warfare assets.
In 2011, NATO military operation Odyssey Dawn/Unified Protector ended Muammar Qaddafi’s forty-two-year rule over Libya. A civil war soon ensued among multiple factions, tribes, mercenaries, and the Islamic State (ISIS). Two main actors emerged: the GNA, which was based in Tripoli with control of the state’s western coastal area, recognised by the United Nations and backed by Turkey; and the LNA, which was based in Tobruk, with control of the eastern coastal and continental area, and supported by Russia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Egypt.
Some drone revolution proponents have suggested that the use of drones in this conflict was a ” game changer,” which has implications for the “future of warfare.”” Russia provided Pantsir-S1 SAMs to the LNA, and Turkey deployed two HAWK II surface-to-air batteries and its KORAL advanced electronic warfare systems in support of the GNA. The air defence systems on both sides repeatedly shot down the other side’s drones. There was no all-out “levelling effect” seen during the conflict.
Both sides were supported by their benefactors with weapons that included drones. Therefore, there was no typical weaker side in the conflict. Close combat raged during the fight, with backers going so far as to provide mercenaries. In the battles for western coastal Libya, drone operations proved beneficial, but not conclusive.
Following the Arab Spring in 2011, unrest in Syria evolved into a civil war. Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah intervened in support of the Bashar al-Assad regime. In contrast, the United States, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, among others, supported different anti-government forces and, in the case of the United States and its allies, also fought against ISIS. Drones were used extensively in Syria, and the war in Syria was described as “the most drone-dense conflict to date leading to speculations about their revolutionary implications for modern warfare.
This conflict, like the Libyan war, saw regional and great powers such as Iran and Russia deploy their troops and traditional military assets to prop up the Syrian government. At the same time, the United States supported Syrian Kurds and other rebel forces to resist ISIS and the Syrian government. These foreign actors supplied and operated most of the drones that were used in the Syrian conflict. The conflict has produced between 100,000 and 500,000 fatalities. This death was not the product of drone strikes, but the result of frontal clashes, which, in other words, is close combat.
Nagorno-Karabakh, since the 1991–1994 war, has been under Armenian control. On September 27, 2020, Azerbaijan tried to reverse this situation with what became known as the “44-day war.” Azerbaijan’s extensive and successful reliance on drones led many analysts and scholars to claim that this military confrontation represented a turning point in warfare. In the early days of the conflict, Azeri drones suppressed Armenia’s mobile air defences. Armenia did not possess a layered integrated air defence system capable of addressing a multiplicity of threats at both short and long ranges, as well as low and high altitudes. Its personnel lacked the necessary skills, and Armenia’s surface-to-air missile batteries were mostly Soviet-era (1960s–1970s) platforms that were mostly obsolete. The deficiencies and vulnerabilities of Armenia’s air defence system, together with the infrastructural and operational support that Turkey provided Azerbaijan, explain why Azeri drones managed to penetrate and operate within Armenian airspace with relative impunity in the early phase of the conflict.
The situation changed later in the war, when Armenia fielded more advanced systems. As regards the in-play of the Levelling Effect, the militarily stronger Azerbaijan used the drones more than the weaker Armenia. Contrary to the expectations of the drone revolution thesis, the deployment of drones on the battlefield did not eliminate close combat, and it did not make traditional force employment elements obsolete. In fact, during the conflict, many casualties were still inflicted by armour, artillery and infantry.
Drones have not offered Ukrainians or Russians a decisive edge on the battlefield. Ukraine, supported by the US-led NATO, is by no means a weak player, and it pioneered the use of first-person view (FPV) racing drones in kamikaze attacks and began creating DIY, cheap kamikaze drones. Russia was a fast follower and employed FPV kamikaze drones. In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, both sides have used software-based battle networks, traditional communication channels, and commercial communication platforms. Both parties claim to be using artificial intelligence to improve the drone’s ability to hit its target.
It proves that Drones are not a ‘poor man’s air force’. They need a considerable amount of support elements. The biggest drawbacks of FPV drones are their small payload capacity and lack of automated fire-and-forget systems, which limit their destructive power. An artillery barrage far outstrips the firepower that many small drones can collectively deliver. Spoofing of drones by either side exemplifies drone vulnerabilities to electronic warfare, reliance on contested networks, and limited effective mass in contested environments. Further, advances in Integrated Air Defence Systems (IADS), anti-drone weapons, and adversary interferences negate the offensive potential and survivability of next-generation drones.
Need for Air Superiority
Achieving and sustaining Air Superiority requires the sustained ability to strike within contested, highly defended enemy areas. The conduct of the drone war in Ukraine to date has been a lesson in the importance of air superiority and the failure of the Russian Air Force to establish air superiority. Gen Deptula opines that without air superiority, this attrition-based conflict will be won by the side with the most warfighting personnel and materiel.
Israel’s Operation Rising Lion is another conflict touted for the use of small drones. Just after midnight on June 13, 2025, an Israeli operation codenamed Rising Lion unfolded in two distinct but mutually reinforcing acts. First came swarms of small explosive drones that Israeli commandos had reportedly pre-positioned inside Iran months earlier, striking air-defence radars and communications nodes. Following this blinding act, over 200 Israeli fighter aircraft—carrying standoff munitions—conducted precision strikes against more than 100 nuclear and military targets across Iran, including senior military leaders. The result was operational dislocation.
The Air Superiority thus achieved by Israel led to the decisive U.S.-led military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities carried out on June 21-22, 2025, codenamed Operation Midnight Hammer. The operation involved B-2 stealth bombers, Tomahawk missiles, and the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). This crippling conflict termination aerial bombardment against Iranian nuclear facilities did not involve the use of drones.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) established clear air superiority over large parts of Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, coercing Islamabad into requesting a ceasefire by 10 May 2025. It was quoted in media on the topic extensively. Centre d’Historie et de Prospective Militaires (CHPM), in media reports on Operation Sindoor, highlights that the Indian Air Force, after significantly degrading Pakistan’s air defence system, followed up with spectacular strikes against Pakistan’s principal air force bases. Thus, by achieving clear air superiority, India coerced Islamabad into requesting a ceasefire.
Are Drones Evolving or Revolutionising
As aerial warfare evolves, drones are carving out their niche. The big question is whether drones, on their own, can be the deciding factor in conflict termination, or whether they will serve as a complementary force. While tactical innovation abounds and drones offer some new capabilities, their impact falls short of the truly disruptive change that constitutes a so-called revolution in military affairs. One of the most notable differences between Ukraine and past wars is the extensive use of drones or uncrewed systems by both parties, earning this conflict the moniker of the “first full-scale drone war.”
In the Ukraine War, both sides have learned from each other, adopting tactics and technologies that have proven successful and developing countermeasures to improve defences. This pattern has continued as the war has dragged on. It is clear that till now, drones alone have not determined who has prevailed in this conflict, but they have certainly played a prominent role in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The prevalence of drones in Operation Rising Lion and Operation Sindoor demonstrates that they represent incremental improvements over existing technologies. The drones perform the same roles and missions as traditional weapons systems, but remove the human from the platform. The drones are not superweapons but remain quite vulnerable to electronic warfare (EW) and air defences, while typical defensive measures such as dispersion and concealment continue to dilute drones’ lethality. Thus, according to the sceptics, drones are not fundamentally shifting the character of war.
Drones enhance artillery firepower by making it more accurate, but, as noted analyst Michael Kofman has observed, by themselves, drones are not a “substitute for mass.” Because small drones can only carry meagre payloads, even large drone swarms cannot rival the potency of artillery salvos. Similarly, small drones cannot match the volume of fire that bombers could deliver if either side had air superiority. Over time, as drones become more autonomous and more closely integrated with other weapons, they may fundamentally reshape military doctrine and organisations, and truly revolutionise warfare. But thus far, drone warfare has been an evolution, not a revolution.
Conclusion
The India-Pakistan air conflict during Operation Sindoor and the long ongoing conflict in Ukraine have reinforced the crucial role of air power and air superiority in modern warfare. Air superiority allows freedom of manoeuvre in all domains and coordinated attacks. It also provides logistical support for ground and naval forces. The ability to deny the enemy airspace remains a key factor in winning battles. Air Superiority, while essential for decisive victory, may not be possible between peer adversaries. The conflict in Ukraine demonstrated that a lack of air dominance may lead to limited or slow success.
In his iconic speech ‘A Fear for the Future’, former British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin warned, ‘The Bomber will always get through’ – highlighting the offensive potential of airpower and the prominence of air superiority in warfare. The drone, with its limitations, will not always get through.
In the effort to sell the narrative, the importance of proficient personnel, as well as electronic warfare and air defence systems, is often neglected in debates and discussions surrounding drones. Drones alone will not determine who prevails in this conflict, but they will certainly play a prominent role on future battlefields. Drones have transformed the battlefield in Ukraine, but in an evolutionary rather than revolutionary fashion. While tactical innovation abounds and drones offer some new capabilities, this falls short of the truly disruptive change that constitutes a revolution. Drones are no way the ‘Proverbial Silver Bullet’.
Drones are going to continue to grow due to their much lower cost compared to conventional air power and their use across so many verticals. The question to ponder is, will it replace aeroplanes? Not right now. There is a need for “co-existence” between manned and unmanned aerial platforms, for example, the “loyal wingman” or Combat air teaming. One thing is for sure: this will complicate air defence tremendously.
AVM Prashant Mohan
Air Vice Marshal Prashant Mohan, a fighter pilot superannuated from IAF on 31 Mar 25. A Qualified Flying Instructor commanded a frontline fighter squadron and two front line fighter bases. The Air Officer was India’s Defence and Air Attaché to UK from May 19 to Oct 22.
