Editor’s Note
In Part I of the article, the author traced certain aspects of unmanned systems coming into play in the battlespace. In this concluding part, the author dwells on their utilisation in operations. He also says that while non-state actors have used drones, the countermeasures are primarily pursued by States. However, that is a cycle often experienced, with non-state actors utilising technology developments by states and societies to target the same state and its populace.
Drones in Warfare Not, Drone Wars
The long Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, especially the reasonably intense “Second” War of September-November 2020, saw the Azeris use drones (mainly Turkish and Israeli) in warfare with much imagination and effectiveness. Yet, analyses done a few months later pointed to limitations in using them not necessarily because of capability issues of drones themselves but in evolving tactics of their usage and the hasty countermeasures evolved by the Armenians (who also used Russian-supplied drones).
In an insightful analysis published in the well-regarded and very serious Military Strategy Magazine, Winter 2022, the author, Eado Hecht, observes that “it is obvious that without the drones, the Azeris would not have achieved the success they did. However, it is just as clear that the drones did not win the war by themselves and did not make the ground battle easy.” It is recounted here to sound a caution as a result of even increased drone operations in the Russo-Ukraine conflict that one should not make the mistake of using terms like drone wars. The term has been used in journals like Foreign Affairs but may be no more logical than submarine wars, radar wars, satellite wars or fifth-generation aircraft wars. (See Eric Schmidt, Foreign Affairs, 22 Jan 2024).
Drones in all dimensions of warfare will play key roles in years ahead. However, instead of drone wars, perhaps drone warfare or even more appropriately, “drones in warfare”, provides the framework for continued thinking of warfare as a multi-dimensional activity in which several instruments of warfare (mainly things) have to be wedded to people and ideas and the best sense of jointness. Within this framework, drones may be one of the measures where an infusion of technology is dynamically seen, but so is the tactical and operational imagination (or its relative absence), even more so the key to a degree of battlefield dominance.
Which leads to a closing set of thoughts that would be explored further in subsequent articles:
- First, if drones are evolving measures, at least, equal if not greater thought needs to be put into creating countermeasures. At one level, sets of countermeasures would also be “things” but would need to be wedded to people and ideas to counter drones.
- Second, this too is a field where smaller players from industry, who are developing their own R&D, leveraging imaginative minds, and robustly taking risks, could be at the cutting edge just like it would be for a family of drones.
- Third, there may be continued gaps between measures and the development of countermeasures. For instance, anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons were developed decades after the Sputnik moment. Further, the number of states that have the ability to develop countermeasures may be fewer than those that can build or buy measures. Another analogy: rifle bullets are still one of the bigger killers in battle for almost two centuries. Yet, bullet-proof jackets (BPJ) took decades to develop in ways that do give a degree of protection to a soldier.
- This brings us to the fourth thought. Measures like drones across a set of performance capabilities are likely to be available to non-state actors and could be procured from the open market, developed in their own informal facilities and of course significantly from states that may support them.
- However, the fifth point – and a corollary – is that countermeasures have largely been a realm where states, as opposed to non-state actors, are primary movers. The Houthis, for instance, seem to have access to sophisticated drones and even anti-ship missiles; but they do not seem to have anti-missile defences or drone countermeasures. Likewise, few terrorists regularly wear BPJs, even when they and their regular state-adversaries may carry assault weapons of similar lethality.
- Sixth, countermeasures also offer no steady panacea. Some platforms and ordnance would always get through; some wont’ due to countermeasures and so they become necessary because states usually have more that needs defending and protecting and do not always have surprise on their side.
- Seventh, it’s possible for a state (India, for instance) to be more imaginative and technically agile to produce countermeasures that are capable of threats that drones can create and have the spectrum to be proactively ready for effectiveness against adversarial drones not yet on the anvil.
- Eighth, nations would need to have high capacities for drone development as well as countermeasures creation. Both are not the same, but have commonality in industrial, technological and human creativity.
India as a Drone-acharya and Counter Drone-acharya!
Measures and Countermeasures thus offer India the opportunity to be more robust, more secure and more self-reliant and also a bigger international provider as a force for good.
Rear Admiral Sudarshan Shrikhande, IN, Retd
