James Kingston
Political power arises from the barrel of a gun. Such, at any rate, is Mao Zedong’s most famous dictum. Accomplished poet, keen historian, and a master strategist, he was in this instance only half-right — for political power arises not only from the barrel of the gun, but from the capacity to make that gun, and to motivate those who would hold it. As a Marxist, he would have appreciated an additional observation: a gun is not only a gun. It is also a tool, a lens through which to observe the economy, society, and political implications of a moment in history. For those who care to look, today’s weapons are pointing to the future.
On the killing fields of Ukraine, an estimated 70% of casualties are now caused by drones. Tactics, techniques, and equipment are evolving at breakneck speed. At high and low altitude, cameras mounted on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) provide constant surveillance, channelling data to human operators and to other drones. In battle, and in the slow attritional grind of the stable front lines, UAVs are used to hunt and bomb the enemy — pursuing individual soldiers and recording footage of their final moments. Close-range combat is disappearing, and artillery is on the way out, too.
Laden with explosives, kamikaze drones are increasingly used in place of long-distance barrages. Drones, meanwhile, are begetting drones; “mothership” UAVs can now be used to launch drone “swarms”. Jet-powered drones have been developed to bomb cities and airbases at long range. Used at sea, drones have devastated the ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet; used on land, fighting drones have attacked villages, and act in logistical complement to ground forces. In this highly digital war, the majority of combat is carried out neither through the lens of a gunsight, nor the point of a bayonet, but instead via the videogame-like visual streams of a drone operator’s first-person-view goggles
The greatest innovation of the Russo-Ukrainian war may yet be a battlefield devoid of warriors. Drone power has transformed army tactics, hampering troop concentrations and creating largely stable front lines. Yet drones and drone operators are also vulnerable. UAVs are susceptible to jamming and the vagaries of changing weather; close to the front, their pilots are open to attack. Faced with this reality, militaries are now investing in autonomous weapons — drones able to select, pursue, and attack targets independent of human control.
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