For years, US drones like the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper dominated our vision of unmanned warfare. But that view of drone warfare—remote controlled from across the globe, exquisite, expensive—now looks out of date. It is not systems like the Predator or the Reaper that dominate the battlefields in Ukraine, Israel, or Iran, but instead cheap quadcopters, mines, and missiles.
The “unmanned war” playing out in those battlegrounds at this moment is a story of intense and rapid experimentation and innovation. How are these wars changing our understanding of drones and warfare, and will they force the United States to re-evaluate its beliefs about unmanned technology and the future of the American way of war? Ukraine is perhaps the battlefield where contemporary drones have been most prolific.
Both Ukraine and an invading Russia have experimented extensively with drones, missiles, mines, and even unmanned naval and surface vehicles.The drones that dominate that battlefield are not the expensive systems used by the United States during the war on terror, but instead are primarily short-range, commercial unmanned aerial systems. These small quadcopters employ first-person view, using thermal or electro-optic cameras to give a controller on the ground a bird’s-eye view of the battlefield through a helmet or a digital display.
These systems are useful for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR)—spotting enemy targets, cueing artillery or air support, and providing commanders with an understanding of the battlefield. But they are more than eyes in the sky. Many are armed with small anti-tank or anti-personnel munitions capable of attacking targets up to nine miles away; others carry remote mines that both Ukraine and Russia have used to slow down ground troops trying to take territory.
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