Ukraine’s Drone Revolution: And What America Should Learn From It

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russia/ukraines-drone-revolution

Posted by ForeignAffairsMag

2 comments

  1. [SS from essay by Jon Finer, Principal Deputy National Security Adviser from 2021 to 2025; and David Shimer, served on the National Security Council from 2021 to 2025, including as Director for Eastern Europe and Ukraine and Director for Russian Affairs, and is an Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.]

    The war between Russia and Ukraine began with an unprovoked combined air and ground assault, then settled into a mid-twentieth-century-style artillery standoff, and has now evolved into the world’s first conflict waged largely by drones.

    Last year, [Ukraine](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/ukraine) launched a series of successful long-range drone strikes against ammunition depots hundreds of miles inside Russian territory. Such strikes have been ongoing ever since. Every day, the Ukrainian military deploys thousands of shorter-range drones to defend against Russian ground assaults, largely replacing the Howitzer shells that were previously the lifeblood of the conflict. Kyiv is locked in a technological and production arms race to ensure that its drones are both sophisticated enough and plentiful enough to overcome Russian jamming and other countermeasures. Ukraine’s innovators are still reaching new heights: in June, Ukrainian drones caused billions of dollars in damage to advanced military aircraft in remote parts of Russia.

  2. The truth about drone warfare is somewhere in the middle between the two extreme approaches.
    They absolutely are a game-changer and every country that isn’t Ukraine or Russia is woefully behind in learning how to use them, but on the other hand there are specific reasons why they got so ubiquitous and essential in that conflict and why going all-in on drones shouldn’t be the go-to strategy.
    You don’t want to be fighting the kind of war that either Ukraine or Russia is fighting, if that’s your plan to secure your place in the world, it’s a terrible plan and a better plan will most likely involve more than just drones.

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