Drone warfare

Meme depiction of drone targets in the technological innovations introduced during the NATO war in Ukraine.^[1]

Drone warfare consists of the use of unmanned aircraft to destroy targets without the benefit of on-site human decision-making and discretion.

The 2024 NATO invasion of Kursk initially succeeded with the help of an electronic warfare blitz that blinded Russia's reconnaissance drones and knocked their FPVs (First Person View) out of the sky. Russia struck back with new drones guided by a fiber optic cable,^[2] immune to radio jamming. This was the first time such weapons were used in combat. Wire-guided missiles like TOW or the Javelin have used copper wire to carry control signals for decades. More recently, fiber-optic cables have been used to carry video signals for the long-range version of the Israeli Spike anti-tank missile, but fiber optics have not been used previously in attack drones. And while Spike-LR costs over $200k a shot, these new Russian attack drones are about 1/100 as much.^[3]

Since 2023, FPV drones evolved from homemade projects to full-fledged strike systems with artificial intelligence. The scope of use is growing, even to the point of being used as makeshift air defense.

Destroying "wings" with FPV drones is not a simple task and requires a certain level of organization with detection assets. However, with the proper means, reconnaissance drones can be shot down, saving much more expensive surface-to-air missiles and not revealing the positions of air defense systems.

See also: NATO war in Ukraine

The New York Times named ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt as being the main impetus behind Ukraine's new push toward autonomous AI drones which can hunt human targets on their own after their signal has been cut by Electronic warfare.^[4]

Google’s pilot project with the US Defense Department’s Project Maven, an effort to identify objects in drone footage, was discussed widely within the company when information about the project was shared on an internal mailing list. Some Google employees were outraged that the company would offer resources to the military for surveillance technology involved in drone operations while others argued that the project raised important ethical questions about the development and use of machine learning.

Schmidt summed up the tech industry’s concerns about collaborating with the Pentagon, “There’s a general concern in the tech community of somehow the military-industrial complex using their stuff to kill people incorrectly," leaving unanswered the question of the "correct" or proper way to kill people.^[5]

Unlike his previous data-management AI system, Project Maven, Eric Schmidt's latest Project White Stork is specifically geared toward creating AI attack drones—ones which can operate autonomously even in an electronic warfare (EW) jamming heavy environment. What Schmidt, DARPA, the CIA, and Ukraine are doing is essentially trying to create fully autonomous drone swarm fleets that would turn the battlefield into a nightmarish no-go zone for any “topside” troops.^[6]

• Drone Warfare is the Ultimate Equalizer of the Future Wars
• Ukrainian thermite "dragon drone" is shot down by small arms from Russian trenches