Drone Wars
In the annals of warfare, at times new inventions completely revolutionize how wars are fought. The full list of these is long, so here are just a few prominent historical examples: gunpowder, the rifle cartridge (as opposed to musket balls), the machine gun, airplanes, and tanks. War-changing inventions don't always have to be offensive weapons -- radar would certainly qualify. In each case, however, the introduction of something new onto the battlefield has completely changed how wars are fought. Battleships had to give way to aircraft carriers. Before that, cavalry gave way to tanks. So it goes.
We seem to be at such an inflection point now, which is not exactly an original observation, but it was brought into stark relief by the Ukrainian attack on Russian airfields this weekend. Because the war in Ukraine (as well as a few other conflicts around the world) has shown the evolution of warfare that is happening right now. Call it the dawn of the era of robot wars. Or, if you're not as big a fan of old-fashioned nomenclature as I am, perhaps calling it the era of drone wars would be more accurate.
Revolutionary changes in the way wars are fought sometimes come from big countries with very strong militaries and extensive military development programs. The atomic bomb is perhaps the best example of this in modern times. But sometimes radical changes come from the necessity smaller countries face in fighting asymmetrical warfare. Having an overwhelming advantage in soldiers or weaponry doesn't always lead to victory -- sometimes the underdogs win. Or they at least fight the big opponent to a draw: a long drawn-out war of attrition that becomes untenable for the large country to keep up indefinitely. There are plenty of examples of this in modern times as well. Vietnam and Afghanistan (against both the Soviet Union and the American coalition) both immediately spring to mind. Sometimes a smaller country can quickly develop innovative battlefield tactics or new weaponry that essentially negates the advantage the larger country has. And Ukraine is continually showing the world how effective this can be by their use of drone technology.
The most asymmetric thing about the new ways drones are confounding larger armies is one that perhaps doesn't get the most attention, but it seems to be where the asymmetry becomes the key to success: the price differential. The new drones are cheap. The things they attack are outrageously expensive. So a smaller country can inflict devastating damage for pennies on the dollar (and even that is a vast understatement -- it can in fact be tiny fractions of pennies on the dollar). And this is still true even if it takes swarms of drones to achieve the objective.
Ukraine claims that its "Operation Spider's Web" launched 117 small drones against Russian airfields thousands of miles away from the actual battlefield, and that they destroyed 41 Russian planes -- long-range bombers and the Russian equivalent of AWACS command-and-control platforms. They claim to have reduced Russia's strategic bomber force by one-third (34 percent) as a result, and destroyed over $2 billion worth of aircraft. These claims are unverified, I should mention (Russia claims only a handful of planes were damaged). But we all saw those videos of burning bombers on the tarmac, destroyed by incredibly small drones.
Let's start by taking Ukraine's claims at face value. They did not publicly state how much their drones cost to make, but the country has made astonishing gains in drone production since the war began. Last year they built 2.2 million drones. This year they are planning on building 4.5 million drones. Each drone used this weekend may have cost in the range of $500 to $1,000 to produce (this is a conservative estimate, they may actually cost far less). Then there is the cost of arming them with explosives and transporting them to their launch sites (which was a stunning victory of infiltration into enemy territory, in this case). So an extremely conservative estimate of the cost of building, arming, and deploying these drones might be $2,000 per drone (again, it could be far less).
Multiplying it out, that means Ukraine spent $234,000 to successfully destroy planes worth "over $2 billion." That is a return-on-investment of (roughly, rounding the figures) a whopping 10,000-to-1. Every dollar that Ukraine spent wiped out $10,000 in Russian warplanes. That is economically asymmetric warfare, folks.
Of course, those figures could be off. Ukraine might easily have inflated the number of planes destroyed. But those drones could have been a lot cheaper to build, too. Whether the true ratio was 10,000-to-1 or some other figure, the resulting damage inflicted was clearly many orders of magnitude more than the cost.
This is how wars will be fought in the near future. It is how wars are already being fought (to some extent or another) right now. Ukraine has also achieved a monumental victory over Russia with drones in another medium, as well. Their use of cheap seagoing drones has essentially negated the Russian navy in the Black Sea. This has involved Ukraine using sophisticated missiles (to sink the flagship of Russia's fleet), but it has mostly been effected by motorboat-sized drones which drive right up next to a much-larger warship and blow up. Think of them as outsized torpedoes. Because there are no humans aboard and because they are so small, they are almost impossible for a large warship to defend against. Which has caused the Russian navy to all but abandon the ports Russia controls on the Black Sea, negating their overwhelming naval advantage. Once again, the little motorboat drones cost far, far less than the larger warships that have been attacked.
The asymmetrical nature of this new style of warfare is dramatic, and has been playing out in various ways even without the spectacular successes that Ukraine has been managing. Sometimes even in apparent defeat smaller countries are capable of striking a real blow to larger militaries, when you consider the cost/benefit ratio. When a country like Iran launches an air attack on Israel, few of their missiles or drones get through, because of Israel's extensive Iron Dome protective anti-missile shield. But Iran can build lots and lots of drones very cheaply while Israel has to fire missiles at them which can cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars each (some of the missiles cost over a million dollars each, even).
Here's an example a little closer to home which clearly shows how the cost/benefit ratio can be crippling to a larger military. The United States unleashed a bombing campaign on Yemen -- one of the poorest countries in the world -- that lasted roughly a month. America claimed it was a rousing success. But was the deal reached at the end of the campaign worth the price? Here are some numbers to consider:
Ultimately, Washington's campaign proved unsuccessful, with several reports confirming that the US failed to achieve air superiority over Ansar Allah [the Houthi rebel force]. But it is perhaps the hefty financial cost in exchange for very little gain that the US will rue the most. In closed-door briefings given to Congress in early April, Pentagon officials reportedly confirmed they had used up $200 million of munitions in just the first three weeks. Adding in the costs for personnel and naval-ship deployments, the campaign had cost US taxpayers "more than $1 billion in the first month", congressional officials confirmed, as reported by the New York Times.
A report from NBC News, moreover, detailed the US' bill for bombing Yemen since mid-March, which included "hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs; which can cost $85,000 apiece; at least 75 Tomahawks, which run about $1.9 million apiece; at least 20 AGM 158 air-launched cruise missiles at about $1.5 million per missile; and many other munitions," the US news outlet confirmed on May 9. "After this article was initially published, a Defense Department official told NBC News that these munitions cost figures are inaccurate and overstated, saying they're closer to $400 million. But other defense officials disputed that."
"Despite the US burning through finite munitions supplies at a cost of $1 billion to bomb at least 800 sites since March 15, the Houthis are undeterred, and the volume of Red Sea shipping remains as depressed as ever. Houthi attacks on US ships and Israel continue. A Houthi missile narrowly missed Israel's Ben-Gurion airport on May 4," Charles William Walldorf, a professor of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University and a senior fellow at think-tank Defense Priorities, wrote in a May 5 article for The Conversation. "In fact, the direct attacks on the Houthis and the rapidly growing casualty count among Yemeni civilians from the Trump administration's bombing campaign appear to be strengthening the Houthis' political position in Yemen."
Ansar Allah also inflicted considerable financial damage on sophisticated American military equipment, including the downing of seven MQ-9 drones, each with a price tag of some $30 million, on top of the estimated 15 MQ-9 drones taken out in the earlier conflict [when Joe Biden was in charge]. The US also lost two F-18 fighter jets, each worth $67 million, when they reportedly fell off a US aircraft carrier, the most recent loss being reported on May 6.
The Houthis achieved all of this by using much cheaper surface-to-air missiles to shoot down those multimillion-dollar drones, and equally-cheap Iranian drones to attack shipping. And by the end of the short campaign, America found itself in danger of depleting its stocks of all those sophisticated weapons. So we spent a billion dollars and used up a goodly chunk of our stores of missiles and bombs, all to achieve a rather limited victory over one of the poorest countries on Earth. Those are the costs of the new asymmetric warfare writ large. And while Donald Trump was content to declare victory and pull out, what did America really achieve by this staggering outlay of money? The article continues:
It was at that point that, according to the New York Times, "Mr. Trump had had enough", and as such, the White House issued an order to United States Central Command on May 5 to "pause" offensive operations. An Omani-brokered ceasefire ultimately proved crucial in bringing about an end to the hostilities, with the US agreeing to halt its airstrikes in exchange for Ansar Allah's stopping its attacks on American ships in the Red Sea. "We hit them very hard, and they had a great ability to withstand punishment," Mr. Trump said. "You could say there was a lot of bravery there... they gave us their word that they wouldn't be shooting at ships anymore, and we honor that."
Crucially, however, no deal was agreed for the Yemeni side to stop targeting shipping that it regarded as being helpful to Israel. "The Houthis will stop shooting at US ships for some period of time. But they will not stop firing missiles at Israel, commercial shipping will not return, and nothing will change in the Yemen civil war," Dana Stroul, research director at the pro-Israel American think tank Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told NBC News.
That's not exactly an unconditional surrender, you will note.
Warfare is changing. Future wars will be fought with methods unrecognizable to soldiers of past wars. Naval battles might not be won or lost by how many aircraft carrier groups a country can deploy, but instead by swarms of thousands upon thousands of cheap seagoing drones. If only a handful of them succeed, weapons that cost a pittance could sink ships worth billions of dollars each. The overwhelming firepower and military advantages of the past will be all but meaningless in such warfare, it is easy to see. Already, in the Ukraine conflict, cheap little flying drones have all but put an end to the way military experts expected land wars to be fought -- with each side deploying waves of tanks. If those very expensive tanks can be blown up by a drone that a single soldier can launch and direct, then it not only negates the advantage of an army having hundreds of tanks but it also destroys all the money and time and infrastructure it took to build and deploy those tanks.
Russia has been adjusting their weapons as a result. China is already the world leader in building cheap drones. Will the United States be ready for the drone wars of the future, or will we continue throwing million-dollar weapons into battle only to see them beaten by thousand-dollar drones? That is the real question America should be facing right now. Because what Ukraine just did in Russia signifies the warfare of the future has arrived -- and it looks a lot different than the way wars have been fought up to this point.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Excellent report on an important but under-reported topic.
And yes - the final question was the one I was asking myself throughout the reading: How will the U.S. Defense establishment react to this ongoing military revolution?
We have the strongest, greatest, most overwhelming, best-trained, smartest, etc. etc. military in the world - all agree. This kind of statement predominates in any discussion of global military power. And that makes us the heavyweight vs. the lightweights in the 'assymmetrical' struggles between the hegemonic world powers and those tiny, poor, underfunded, militarily weak, states or organizations that dare to challenge the hegemons' power to rule world affairs.
Clearly, the heavyweights believe their weights are heavy. What is the incentive to rethink, perhaps to the very core, their force structure, their world strategy, their armaments purchases and deployments, their personnels' training and worldview? Are all those aircraft carriers, all those tanks and APCs, all those fighter jets and bombers, all those satellites and bases and huge logistics trains, less effective than they are supposed to be, in the face of the Houthis, the Contras, the North Koreans, the Ukrainians (or their counterparts elsewhere)?
What should the Defense Department be doing at this point? Changing its complete strategic outlook and force structure to favor inexpensive drone and cyber warfare and guerilla strike teams? Or figuring out new defenses for the carriers, tanks, and planes against those drones and cyber attacks and guerilla units on the other side?
I have a very hard time imagining the Pentagon downsizing to favor these inexpensive but exponentially lethal new weapons systems at the expense of downsizing or retiring its entire current establishment.
Thanks for this essay.
@cw,
as a history guy I'm surprised you left out perhaps the most influential military invention ever on human history. much like a drone, it was very small and cheap to produce, but results were so devastating, it brought the biggest change in the way war was fought between the spear and gunpowder.
JL ,
D---
I thought this video of troops walking through fiber optic cables was an interesting side effect of this kind of warfare.
I do wonder when we get the first high profile assassination via drone or drone swarm...
nyp on [2]
Are you referring to the bow-and-arrow, that allowed a common archer to take out a mounted knight at a distance - no hand-to-hand martial prowess required, just a good eye and shooting skill?
However many bombers that Ukraine neutralized these models were last produced in the 1990s. So Russia can’t replace these components of their nuclear triad.
Oh and one of the big reasons we should support Ukraine is the in the field experience and knowledge on offer in Ukraine could be invaluable.
@John M
nope
nypoet22 [2] -
well, dunno if this is what you're going for, but I did consider adding into that list "stirrups".
maybe you were thinking of the longbow? I dunno... crossbows?
-CW
BashiBazouk [4] -
I just read an article about how the Russians had a new edge because they were launching so many fiber-optic drones... no RF traffic, thus can't be jammed... I will check out that video, I assume it is on the same subject. I can look up the article I read if you're interested...
-CW
MtnCaddy [6] -
Yeah, dunno if this is right or not, but I think those are the "Bear" bombers... you can tell they're old, they are prop-driven, not jet.
-CW
MtnCaddy [7] -
One thing I didn't mention here... if things stabilize in Ukraine, they may become the world's top seller of cheap drones. They've battle-tested the tech, they have the production facilities, they could make a bunch of money off of that base...
-CW
"between the spear and gunpowder"...
hmmm... lemme think...
I assume all the brilliant Roman tactics from back then wouldn't count (things like "the tortoise formation" and whatnot). It'd have to be, like, post-Roman era, right?
-CW
ok going to try to answer older comments, for as long as I have patience... haven't done so since getting so disgusted that I... well, you know...
-CW
catapults were pretty revolutionary, back in the day... so were siege towers and battering rams...
hmmm...
-CW
5/27 column (the one with the ban announcement)
---------------
goode trickle [19] -
OK, he's gone now. Has that changed your mind any? I am truly interested to know.
-CW
MyVoice [30] -
I am writing this not knowing what has happened since, but... to your point...
his entire history on this site is on the line. If I delete his account, all his previous posts (and that's a WHOLE LOT of them) disappear. So it's really his choice, in the end. But then, like I said, I am writing this not knowing what has happened since...
-CW
LizM [39] -
Can't you find older versions on YT before all the Autotune shit? That would be a valuable service... to present pre-AT music at its best, right?
I had no idea anyone was doing that 440Hz AT shit at all before I read your comment threads... you have opened my eyes...
-CW
ok, I actually got through that without once being repulsed or disgusted or offended. what a welcome change!
I apologize for not noticing the "I got DOGE'd" from goode trickle... my thoughts go out to both you and LizM... but maybe stick around here for a while... things could be improving rather quickly (and permanently)!
:-)
-CW
ok, moving along to the TACO article... 5/28...
John M from Ct. [3] -
That is an excellent point. It kinda just occurred to me as I was finishing the article, to tell you the truth.
I've been thinking more about it, since I wrote that (without seeing your comment). Dems goad T into being all "tough guy" with the incessant TACO gibe... things get worse much faster...
could be a strategy, actually. I may write about this soon. He really does seem to hate it, doesn't he?
but like I said, excellent point.
-CW
John From Censornati [7] -
see, I try to keep to my duty of "I watch so you don't have to" but hey, man, there are limits. I couldn't watch the Pirro thing... glad you did, but I just couldn't...
:-)
-CW
nypoet22 [12] -
The Cold War term "useful idiot" springs to mind!
:-)
-CW
John M crom Ct. [19] -
Interesting. I could see that ("Trump simply not talking about tariffs any more and pretending the entire thing never happened") happen by the end of the year. Easily, in fact. Just never really considered it before... good comment... just had to say that!
-CW
BashiBazouk [21] -
OK, like much of what South Park does, it's offensive as hell, but still... this is what's been running through my mind...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQKDlNTEl6w
TACO, TACO...
:-D
-CW
onward... tariffs in the courts... 5/29...
John M from Ct. [3] -
You are right. There will be a "crossing the Rubicon" moment. But we haven't gotten there yet.
Could be any day, though...
-CW
The full list of these is long, so here are just a few prominent historical examples: gunpowder, the rifle cartridge (as opposed to musket balls), the machine gun, airplanes, and tanks.
What... no love for the atomic bomb!? ;)
China is already the world leader in building cheap drones.
China is the world leader in building cheap everything.
Drones take off from a truck to attack the Belaya airfield in the Irkutsk Oblast
Kick [6] -
So there might actually be a "Liberation Day" in there somewhere when all the illegally accumulated tariffs are set free from the bonds of the wannabe king and returned to their rightful owners.
I really really wanted to write this article with either the title or the first line of it which included the phrase:
"Liberation From 'Liberation Day' Day"
but alas, the appeals court ruled too fast... I mean, sheesh, they coulda waited like one day, right?
:-)
-CW
ok!
I did everything up to Friday and (glory be!) there aren't 150+ comments on it (most of them not worth wading through).
So I gotta ask everyone... how are things going?
this new paradigm working for everyone?
share your thoughts, please... been a pretty pleasant week, from what I can see so far...
will try to get to the Friday comments later tonight or tomorrow, and like, this time I mean it ok!
:-)
-CW
oh forgot a few from today...
John M from Ct. [1] -
there are Silicon Valley and other tech firms (defense tech firms, to be clear) who are desperately trying to talk the Pentagon into allowing them to ramp up production of cheap drones. So far the "but weapons systems cost billions and take years and years and years to develop" mindset seems to be winning, but you never know... maybe some sane minds will prevail... kinda a longshot, but there are indeed some tech companies trying to sell a paradigm shift to the Pentagon right now...
-CW
The most disappointing thing about Elon Musk was that he and Trump talked a good game, but they never really even touched the Pentagon procurement process. Now there's a government system that really needs some shakeup and ridding of "waste, fraud, and abuse"... but it never actually materialized, and it doesn't look like it ever will...
Maybe Eisenhower was right... (sigh)
-CW
BashiBazouk [4] -
What made me wonder was: that Qatari plane is just sitting out in the open in a Texas airfield... what would happen if Putin commandeered some captured Ukrainian drones and attacked the plane, then pointed the finger of blame at Ukraine? It's certainly within his wheelhouse.
-CW
nypoet22 [2] -
All I could think of was my Jeopardy! trivia answer: Paul Shaffer (Dave Letterman's bandleader) co-wrote "It's Rainin' Men"
:-)
-CW
John From Censornati [3] -
He walked into a door.
Heh.
-CW
oh, forgot to say... doing Friday now...
italyrusty [4] -
Good question. I had put a lot of hope in Fetterman, on that level, but he's kind of gone off the rails. Where are the Dems who can show genuine outrage?
-CW
nypoet22 [14] -
OK, now THAT was funny!
:-)
-CW
Done! Wow! A whole week!
Haven't accomplished that in a long while...
Dunno about you but I am liking the big change.
-CW
BashiBazouk
4
I do wonder when we get the first high profile assassination via drone or drone swarm...
Depending (of course) on your definition of high profile target:
Anwar al-Awlaki, September 30, 2011
Qasem Soleimani, January 3, 2020
Chris on [29]
You wrote:
"So I gotta ask everyone... how are things going?
This new paradigm working for everyone?
Share your thoughts, please... been a pretty pleasant week, from what I can see so far..."
EXTREMELY PLEASANT, SUCKER. WE LOVE IT AND HATE ANY IDEA OF GOING BACK TO LOUD AND OBNOXIOUS AND ENDLESS THREADS THAT BASICALLY SAY NOTHING EXCEPT TO EXPRESS VIOLENT AND HATEFUL EMOTIONS IN ANNOYING ALL-CAPS FORMAT!!!
@cw,
you were right the first time, the stirrup. some historians may overstate its social impact relative to other factors, but there are so many major developments that couldn't possibly have happened without it.
JL
[17] Chris
goode trickle [19] - OK, he's gone now. Has that changed your mind any?
I hope it does, but it did change mine. I just donated to your website upgrade.
I believe that the Dems are perfectly capable of coming up with something as good as TACO. He wouldn't care as much. Fat Donny is angry and humiliated by TACO precisely because it was a "grass roots" thing (haha) from Wall ST.
I'm not going to get too worked up about altered vocals on YouTube.
The Annoying Song
Big improvement down here in Weigantia — day versus night. Give it a month for the rest of the toxicity to dissipate and prepare for new Weigantians.
Oh yeah, ‘bout fucking time.
Remember that, as long as they're not doing surveillance on your backyard hot tub orgy, Rant Paul is cool with drone strikes.
If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and $50 in cash, I don't care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him.
On the other hand, he thinks that drones should not be used in normal crime situations. Like billion dollar crypto scams?
I have to admit that I'm very surprised that MAGA hasn't hit Mexico with a drone strike yet. Those tariffs must have really stopped the fentanyl shipments across the border.
A humble vote to leave the clown in Gitmo until he rots with no opportunity for redemption. Why allow him to poison this fine site ever again? And it warms my heart to find CW engaging with the commentary just like the olden days.
i don't think it's cause for celebration that someone had to be expelled. it was the right decision, just like giving a student an F who has duly earned it. but a good teacher wants all the students to succeed, and laments the cases where it isn't possible, for whatever reason.
John M from Ct.|John From Censornati
40|42
EXTREMELY PLEASANT, SUCKER. WE LOVE IT AND HATE ANY IDEA OF GOING BACK TO LOUD AND OBNOXIOUS AND ENDLESS THREADS THAT BASICALLY SAY NOTHING EXCEPT TO EXPRESS VIOLENT AND HATEFUL EMOTIONS IN ANNOYING ALL-CAPS FORMAT!!!
What is this unbolded BS, John!? Heh. Just kidding.
I hope it does, but it did change mine. I just donated to your website upgrade.
Great idea, John.
I agree with John and John. :)
When it's been raining and gloomy for a week and the sun finally comes out, people don't exactly celebrate but they do feel happier and they usually say so. I'll call it a celebration when the Munchins break into Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead.
Today, parasitic illegal immigrant Elon Musk said I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.
Haha. He can't stand it anymore. What could he possibly do to ease his pain?
drugs. lots and lots of drugs.
. . . or drone strikes.
John From Censornati
44
I'm not going to get too worked up about altered vocals on YouTube.
This might be "blasphemy," but everyone should try at least a few of the 8D tunes. Must definitely use headphones for the full effect:
Imagine Dragons - Believer (8D AUDIO)
The Annoying Song
Is that supposed to annoy me? Sounds like Alvin (not to be confused with Simon or Theodore). I like it. :)