The Future of Warfare

Another View 

There has been a lot of talk about drones - in particular the idea of small cheap drones, and about sophisticated air defenses. And the talk is that we are headed for a world where thousands of cheap drones will massively change warfare in the near future.

But I want to offer an alternate view - just something to get folks thinking… But, before we discuss drones, a few words about air defenses.

The first few times aircraft flew in World War I they did so with impunity. But, fairly quickly both sides learned not only that they could be brought down, but began to train how to bring them down. Weapons improved, and more wars followed wars, until, just 50 years later, flying over or near Hanoi became quite a risky proposition. Air defenses continued to improve and by the time of Desert Storm, the “Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses” became the opening move in any war. Air defenses continued to improve and by the time, just a few short months ago, that the Israeli Air Force and then the USAF and USN were flying over Iran, the suppression of air defenses had become a very complex mix of a wide range of capabilities applied in a Swiss watch level of complexity (and beautifully done, I might add).

But the underlying story is that surface to air missile systems have become Very capable. Patriots and USN Standard Missiles (SM-3s and SM-6s) have engaged a wide range of missiles (an SM-3 shot down a satellite in orbit 152 miles up, February 2008) to include some hypersonic “aero-ballistic” missiles and clearly the technology to address hypersonic missiles is advancing at a rapid pace. Other systems - S-300, S-400, Aster missile family, etc., have similar capabilities.

As for the drones, while drones have been in for decades, it was over the Balkans in the 90s where the drone “revolution” “took off.” Then came Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) followed quickly by Iraqi Freedom, and then operations in Africa and Syria, and suddenly drones of all sizes were everywhere. The wars in Syria and the Caucuses (Armenia - Azerbaijan War of 2020) continued to expand the scope of their use and all the elements of drone warfare and drone use in support of ground forces that we have seen in Ukraine were hinted at in the Armenia - Azerbaijan war. And, of course, we now have the Russia Ukraine war.

But a few thoughts need to be added in here, some details folks may be missing. In fact, I think these developments hint at a more radical change in the near future.

In air defense, the problem of costs remains. And while the key consideration is not the cost of the missile, but of the thing that the surface to air missile (SAM) is defending, still there is a significant issue is the SAM is not only expensive, but production is limited (as is the case with virtually all SAMs) and use rates are substantially higher than production rates.

Compensation has come in the form of passive defenses (netting and cages, etc.) and electronic warfare (EW). EW has become particularly effective in Ukraine, with both sides demonstrating substantial success rates. Daily Ukrainian Air Force reports note that a fair percent, sometimes as high as 25%, of incoming Russian drones are defeated by EW - the jammers cause the drone to “lose it’s way” and crash. Russian tactical development has responded by producing autonomous strike drones that navigate by imagery, and shorter range tactical drones that are controlled by fiber optic tethers that have now reached 60KM (36 miles) in length. Anecdotal reports suggest some strikes have been made 20 miles behind lines and strikes more than a dozen miles behind the front lines have been confirmed.

Russian EW is, reportedly, better than the Ukrainian EW and has been successful not only in defeating large numbers of drones, but also in reducing the accuracy of a wide range of US and NATO weapons, to include HIMARS battlefield rockets and Excalibur artillery shells, a “smart” 155MM artillery round that uses inertial navigation and GPS to achieve an accuracy of less than 10 feet. However, after Russian EW jammers were deployed against the Excalibur, accuracy (per Ukrainian artillery men) dropped to less than that of an unguided round and they were removed from the battlefield.

Russian forces have already deployed a large number of back-pack sized jammers that attempt to jam drone command links, thereby protecting small troop elements (squads of infantry) from attack by small drones, and larger units are receiving larger, more powerful jammers. Meanwhile, the US Army has already begun the purchase of similar systems and the “Leonidas” microwave jammer is under development to provide comprehensive defenses against drone swarms through destructive jamming (frying the brains) of small drones. In one test Leonidas brought down a swarm of 49 (of 49) drones. 

And, the US Army, Navy, and Air Force, as well as our allies, as well as China and Russia, are all working on tactical lasers to engage and destroy missiles and drones. Since 2014 the US Navy has had several different lasers installed on various ships as part of the development of laser weapons for point defense, with the most current system providing an estimated 60KW beam; Israel’s recently deployed Iron Beam has reportedly boosted power to the 100KW range. It may take a few more years but once lasers get into the 150-200KW range, use of lasers as truly effective point defense systems will - the engineers say - become a reality. 

So, what might we draw from all this?

First, I submit that the one thing these recent wars teach - in Ukraine in particular - is that wars are won on the ground, and that they are won by soldiers with the will to fight. Robots and drones and amazing weapons change some of the ways wars are fought. But, in the end it will be the “Grunt” who decides.

Second, few things are ever completely replaced; but they do drop in importance. Tanks have had much less impact on the war as a result of drones and smart weapons, such as Javelin, But tanks are still being used to move soldiers around, and to provide some degree of mobile firepower. Helicopters were more widely used in the first year of the war, but now are rarely seen in videos from the front, or mentioned in any dispatch. Simply put, the battlefield, and the air immediately above the battlefield in Ukraine, is too lethal for regular helicopter operations. Aircraft will launch stand-off weapons. But most will not fly over any battlefield if there is any level of surface to air threat. This will have significant impact both on how troops are inserted, and in evacuation of wounded.

Third, drones are already changing. Getting reliable numbers is difficult, but the small, tactical drones - the “First Person Video” (FPV) drones, the kind used to attack small units or vehicles, have changed the battlefield, but the battlefield is already going through significant adjustments and anecdotal reporting suggest that the percentage that are successful on any given day has dropped and continues to drop. What began several years ago as a “hit” for every 5 or 6 drones quickly dropped to 1 in 10 and some commentary suggests 1 in 20. Further, the use of “cages” around vehicles, and netting around positions means it takes several hits to clear a “path” to the actual target. 1 in 20 effectively becomes 1 in 40 or 1 in 60. This can be solved by making the drones more lethal - bigger warheads - and more resistant to jammers, but this substantially increases the complexity and hence cost, and reduces the production rates.

The development of microwave frequency destructive jammers and point defense lasers will further complicate the drone warfare slice of combat.

Add to this the increased lethality of the full spectrum of air defense systems and an argument can be made that we may well be approaching a point in the not too distant future where nothing - not drones, not helicopters, not fixed wing aircraft, will fly over or even near the edge of the battlefield until everything has been not simply suppressed, but eliminated, to include low earth orbit systems.

And we should expect the same technological efforts to impact cell phone usage and communications technology, perhaps forcing front line units back onto ground lines that cannot be jammed or easily intercepted.

Such a development would mean essentially no UAV based reconnaissance, no air assault, no MEDEVAC / CASEVAC, no long range spotting of artillery, and far less hand-held, mobile communications, and a serious change in command and control. Early in this war I referred to the situation in Ukraine as “World War I with cellphones and drones.” But with the advent of ever more capable jammers and ever more capable point defense systems, the advantage is moving towards defense over offense and the next war may simply look like, well, World War I.