KEY TAKEAWAYS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
As small consumer drones became widely available in the 2010s, military and technology experts began to envision their potential impact on conflict. A decade on, there are not yet any “starling swarms” of small, lightweight drones operating in the thousands in unison on the battlefield. But first-person view (FPV) drones have been used in surveillance deployments and manually piloted sorties — setting off a global paradigm shift in conventional warfare in the process.
Military leaders have discussed these changes in exceptional detail. However, this paradigm shift not only fundamentally alters battlefield strategy but also changes the political calculations that armed actors and political leaders use when considering whether and how to engage in peace processes — an issue that has been largely overlooked thus far.
For instance, the proliferation of FPV drones has contributed to a resurgence of physical entrenchment as a countermeasure. FPV drones provide unparalleled access to battlefield information at the tactical level, especially when combined with infrared and thermal vision systems. This allows rapid counter-offensives, like artillery strikes and explosive drone attacks, to be deployed in as little as 60 seconds. This has dramatically reduced the incentive for militaries to do offensive warfare, as it makes fighting for territory more deadly and costly. Simply put, defense is now the stronger form of war.
And as militaries wait for easily usable and widespread countermeasures to FPV drones, the best available option is currently physical entrenchment. The trench and other fortifications reduce the signature of soldiers on the battlefield, preventing them from being easily spotted and targeted by drones. But similarly to FPV drones, physical entrenchment’s central importance to military strategy has led to the renewed dominance of defensive warfare — and the political consequences that come with it.
Physical entrenchment often leads to a military stalemate in terms of territorial control. And because land is often at stake in potential peace processes — and sacrificing land is politically and militarily understood as a defeat — the stagnant nature of trench warfare compromises belligerents’ approach to negotiations.
Literally and figuratively, the entrenched positions of belligerents add to the difficulty of war and peace. Moving to a cease-fire from this position is difficult, as both sides may feel they do not have an advantageous military position — either because they have lost land and do not want to permanently risk losing it or because they have taken land and they fear the enemy has not been beaten enough to permanently accept land loss in a political settlement.
Literally and figuratively, the entrenched positions of belligerents add to the difficulty of war and peace.
In these scenarios, a brutal waiting game emerges on the battlefield. Instead of motivating actors to negotiate, the emerging stalemate drives them to search for new military options, reinforcing their desire to entrench and wait. Many military technologies — such as the tank and machine guns — emerged in this way, as the potential for new, innovative weapons offers a hope to change the battlefield reality. This affects belligerents’ political calculations, and a new arms races take shape.
Currently, the arms race of drone development can be understood as both a cause and a consequence of the political and military deadlock tied to land: Armed actors would rather develop new weapons systems than attempt political negotiation or continue fighting under the status quo.
Ukraine has been a major testing ground for how emerging technologies — especially FPV drones — impact peace. For both nations, the battlefield reality has been one of tremendous losses, death and destruction. The economies of both states have been ravaged by the war.
Yet, they still have not gone to the table. While there have been peace overtures in the conflict, Russia and Ukraine refuse to sacrifice war aims when signaling their openness to negotiations.
This is, in part, because they are physically and metaphorically entrenched: The front line does not move much on a day-to-day basis, even with risky offensive operations like the Kursk incursion, which use the advantage of surprise attacks in undefended areas to try break out of the defensive stalemate. As such, there is an incentive to wait for the battlefield dynamics to change rather than risk political rapprochement. There may be no conflict that better captures the shift to defensive warfare and the importance of the FPV drone in causing this change. Small drones are used daily by both armies across the front lines.
In Syria, there were similar shocks related to the use of new weapons such as FPV drones. After years of stalemate, both military and political, the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) utilized a new unit of small drones to conduct reconnaissance and take out the Syrian Army’s expensive military equipment ahead of their shocking capture of Aleppo and other major cities — a move that undermined one of the few advantages of Assad’s regime. This offensive attack came as a surprise to many and happened under unique political conditions that favored the rebel’s initial strike.
Taking back cities from the rebels would have come at a tremendous military cost to the Assad regime. The regime clearly could not bear this cost and his soldiers were unwilling to pay, especially in the context of weakened foreign allies. Providing more forces would require much greater commitment than in prior years, as the introduction of small-scale and FPV drones — and men who know how to use them — on the rebels’ side may have reproduced the battlefield dynamics of the stalemate we see in Ukraine: an entrenched stalemate, on top of existing political deadlock. Ukrainians have even been known to support the Syrian rebels, transferring lessons and expertise from the Russia-Ukraine war to a new regional battlefield.
In prior years, the United States and Russia only had to supply small numbers of troops to Syria to shore up the strength of their respective allies. Russia’s small deployments in Syria, generally not more than 5,000, would likely have not been large enough to make a meaningful impact this time around. Supporting Assad would have required a much larger commitment of men and resources, and the low capability of the Syrian army — along with Russia’s own capacity being tied up in Ukraine — was clearly enough to dissuade Russia from deploying more forces.
In Sudan’s civil war, both sides, whose armed forces are around or exceed 100,000 men, have deployed drones, which has widened the geography of the conflict. Both trenches and FPV drones have been used along the conflict’s sprawling frontlines. It is no coincidence that drone use has risen at the same time that peace talks have stalled: Innovation on the battlefield is seen as an alternative to negotiation during active conflict, as innovation promises to break the current military stalemate.
Furthermore, since the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have territorial ambitions — which has led to brutal ethnic cleansing — the ability to hold land is vital to both the RSF’s ambitions and the Sudan Armed Force’s defensive goals. Meanwhile, both Ukrainian and Russian forces have been active in the country, exporting drone practices from their own long, grinding battlefields in Ukraine.
In the face of political challenges arising from the new military-technology paradigm of small-drone warfare, peacebuilding will have to evolve as well. Below are some ways that policymakers and practitioners can incorporate new lessons into peace processes.
Ten years ago, regulations on FPV drones that prevent the export of both finished products and components to foreign countries would have slowed the proliferation of their use as weapons. But the genie is out of the bottle. While some have discussed the need to expand the Missile Technology Control Regime to regulate the use of drones, these discussions have mostly focused on the deployment of large drones such as the Predator.
A renewed focus on international arms control efforts, including convening relevant industry and technical experts, would be a helpful first step in creating an international legal regime that does not harm American business but prevents armed actors from acquiring FPV drones.
Meanwhile, drones themselves often come with serial numbers and other identifying information. This information will be necessary to include in disarmament and demobilization in the same ways as other arms. Even drones used by peacekeepers — such as drones used to monitor cease-fire violations with unprecedented precision — must be carefully accounted for and tracked, as they also run the risk of being weaponized or hacked.
Some peace agreements have already begun including digital technology clauses that seek to mitigate threats stemming from cyber operations, network control and social media. In contexts where emerging weapons such as FPV drones have seen widespread use, agreements that set strict conditions on the use of all drone platforms in a country — similar to FAA regulations — will be necessary to separate civilian and consumer use from military use. Mandating the installation of Aeroscope-like tracking systems on all drones in a given context could, for example, be used to ensure drones in a post-conflict context have a civilian protection component built-in.
There’s been a renewed surge of wars between actors competing for territory, as can be seen in Sudan and Ukraine. These differ significantly from the military operations of the past several decades, which focused mainly on fighting not-state terror groups.
Ending these wars will require direct and skilled negotiation with adversarial states — a skill the United States has not had to invest much in since the end of the Cold War in 1991. During the Global War on Terror, enemies were considered beyond diplomatic engagement and the dominant military doctrine favored offensive counterinsurgency operations. Yet as great power conflict and new technologies re-incentivize the acquisition of territory through armed means, direct and formal negotiations will have to return to the forefront of American diplomacy.
The first modern military sniper rifle, the L96A1, was not developed by a military-industrial manufacturer. It was made by three guys in a garage, who adapted a high-end Olympic shooting rifle for a military trial. Similarly, the FPV drone weapons being used right now on the battlefield were not developed in the laboratories of great powers, but rather by men on the front lines working with small, consumer technology products to push technologies to new limits.
During the stalemates that often develop during entrenched, defensive warfare, innovation is seen as an alternative to the conflict’s status quo or a peace negotiation. Therefore, the drive to innovate is incentivized in these moments as a way to gain the upper hand, politically and militarily.
In the face of these challenges, most important of all is to know that the threat is not emerging technologies, but emerged technologies and their political impact. Emerging weapons should be understood not in theory as advanced technical systems to be used in the future, but as actively deployed tools that reshape political processes now. Understanding the impact of technology on society and politics is vital to move toward effective means of constraining new weapons systems’ proliferation and potential for civilian harm.