Maximilian K. Bremer and Kelly A. Grieco
Adversaries are leveraging drones to challenge national airspace and disrupt civilian and military air operations without triggering full-scale conflict, the authors of this op-ed argue. Here, a Polish soldier tests a drone software and simulator during Iron Defender 25 on Sept. 18 in Poland.
This week, Denmark imposed a nationwide ban on all civilian drone flights as European leaders gather in Copenhagen for the European Union Summit. The move follows repeated drone incursions in recent weeks, which Danish authorities have labeled “hybrid attacks,” after sightings of unidentified drones forced airport closures and threatened military sites.
Denmark is far from alone. In recent weeks, NATO fighters scrambled over Poland to intercept 19 Russian drones while another Russian drone loitered in Romanian airspace for nearly an hour. Debris washed ashore in Bulgaria and Latvia, and unidentified drones have also been reported over Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein region, Norway’s main airport, and near a Swedish naval base.
Far from isolated incidents, these incursions reveal a coordinated pattern in a new type of gray zone warfare — what we term “hybrid air denial” — that blurs the lines between peace and war. In this approach, adversaries use low-cost drones to access and deny commercial activity in the air littoral, producing outsized effects on security, the economy and public confidence.
Air denial has long been a wartime strategy, relying on fighter patrols, surface-to-air missiles or no-fly zones to contest control of the skies and prevent adversary air forces from operating freely over the battlefield. Recent conflicts, from Ukraine to Armenia-Azerbaijan and Gaza, show that drones, including low-cost systems operating in the air littoral, can extend this strategy to lower altitudes. Now, this approach is increasingly moving into the gray zone, with adversaries leveraging drones to challenge national airspace, test sovereignty and disrupt both civilian and military air operations without triggering full-scale conflict.
What makes drones especially effective for hybrid air denial is their combination of easy access, low cost and minimal perceived risk.
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