Survival Skills: Why the Army Needs to Relearn Passive Defense

Modern War Institute  |  James L. Andreasen

The United States Army must rapidly integrate passive defense measures like netting, concealment, and deception to survive drone-saturated battlefields where persistent detection and cheap precision strikes make exposed units highly vulnerable. While active counter-unmanned aircraft systems remain critical, they cannot carry the entire survivability burden across all echelons.

This operational shift is highlighted by Ukraine's deployment of 822 kilometers of antidrone protection along frontline roads in 2026 to counter persistent first-person-view aerial threats. Vulnerable nodes like forward arming and refueling points must transition away from static layouts by adopting overhead concealment, decoy signatures, and rapid displacement drills. To support this, the military must overcome cultural and budgetary hurdles within the program objective memorandum cycle, which traditionally favors complex, high-tech programs over low-tech survivability kits. Ultimately, combining active and passive defenses will allow forces to endure, regenerate, and maintain maneuver capability under constant enemy observation.

Comment

The Indian Army must integrate low-cost physical countermeasures into its defensive infrastructure along the Line of Actual Control. Relying solely on expensive air-defence acquisitions like the Project Kusha system creates an unsustainable cost-imbalance against cheap commercial quadcopters. Implementing overhead mesh screens and thermal masking at forward ammunition depots in Ladakh is a prerequisite for sustaining high-altitude operations. These basic survivability measures will preserve critical combat power before active interception systems are even triggered.

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