The Age of Drone Warfare
Warfare inevitably destroys human life. Human life is the fuel war runs on and the medium through which it is carried out. For all of history, humans have organized to destroy one another in this brutal contest. From clubs and spears to cannons and rifles, war has been an omnipresent fixture of human history. However, recent developments have seen a shift in how conflict is carried out - namely, the introduction and development of drone technology.
Early Drones
In the digital age of 21st-century technology, new and innovative weaponry has been introduced to unimaginable horrors on the battlefield. The most impactful of these innovations is drones. Originally, drones were multimillion-dollar, unmanned airborne vehicles used for intelligence gathering and reconnaissance purposes. Quickly however, the realization dawned on many that these drones could be used to strike targets with advanced weaponry without risking the life of a pilot or a relatively expensive military aircraft.
In ancient mythology, gods often used their omnipotent nature to smite their enemies from the heavens, erasing them in seconds before they even had a notion of their own peril. What was once mythology has become a reality with drones. They can surveil targets silently at a high altitude, watching them live their final moments before accurately delivering a payload through a window-sized target. With drones, humans now play God.
The most famous of these drones is the MQ-1 Predator. This was used heavily in US military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. The total number of casualties this weapon platform has caused is unknown to the general public, but it is likely in the tens of thousands after twenty years of continued strikes. The modern MQ-9 Reaper is an updated and more advanced iteration of the Predator. The MQ-9 has made headlines recently: last year, while doing surveillance in the Black Sea, a Russian fighter used flares to damage a Reaper. In another incident last month in the Red Sea, Houthi air defense systems shot one down, and days later, another had a fortunately anticlimactic friendly fire incident with a German frigate.
Despite such widely known incidents, many nations have developed similar multimillion-dollar drones, such as Russia, China, Turkey, Australia, Pakistan, India, and Iran. Nations that do not develop their own generally purchase them from allies if possible. Drones have become essential to modern-day combat, offering live-time reconnaissance feedback and precise and low-risk strike capacity.
Drones in Ukraine
In the Russo-Ukrainian War, however, a new form of drone warfare has emerged. Commercial drones used for racing and videography have been altered into some of the most innovative weaponry imaginable. Small drones worth at most a few thousand dollars can now correct artillery fire in real-time, greatly augmenting the accuracy of the most deadly weapon on the battlefield. Other much cheaper drones available on Amazon can be fitted with RPG warheads or explosives and crash directly into and destroy or immobilize multi-million dollar enemy vehicles and equipment. These drones have also been used to crash into enemy trenches or infantry. They can turn on a dime and can not be outrun. Soldiers in Ukraine call these kamikaze drones, also known as FPV drones, because the pilot generally wears a VR headset while piloting them kilometers away. These kamikaze drones are essentially extremely accurate guided bombs. They can also be fitted to drop grenades from above, turning these drones into cheap and accessible makeshift bombers.
Ukrainians began using these at the start of the war as an innovative solution to being outmatched by superior Russian numbers; however, both sides eventually adopted them, and their use has become widespread. Both militaries have units specifically designated to operate these commercial drones. There have been video games made specifically for the purpose of training these drone pilots to effectively operate these weapons. In both Russia and Ukraine, soldiers coming for recruitment drives visit the school gymnasiums, and children line up to play these realistic simulators. It has been reported by observers that these children have a surprising aptitude for piloting drones, likely because they are more integrated into the digital age than most adult conscripts.
How Drones Fit Into Modern Warfare
Modern war has been largely unchanged since the blitzkrieg was introduced in World War II. Air superiority and artillery devastate the defenders, motorized infantry and armor speed into the area of the objective, and then infantry takes action at close range and holds the position. One major change comes, however, in defensive technology. Cheap shoulder-launched weapons can now lock onto and destroy both motorized vehicles and aircraft. This has not made the use of expensive military hardware like tanks and helicopters obsolete, but it has forced them into a role of less direct support on infantry. They avoid areas with an unknown enemy presence so as to prevent wasting them, forcing the infantry to dig and fight in trenches.
This new distance between armor and infantry leaves lots of unknowns between the front lines. Since aircraft are less likely to be used for artillery spotting, this role has been filled by drones and very effectively. 80% of casualties in Ukraine are caused by artillery, much of which is directed by drones. That casualty rate is more than in both World Wars. Drones offer a cheap and variable solution to air superiority as they can immobilize or destroy everything from infantry to parked aircraft. They also offer live-time intel on enemy positions and movement.
The usage of drones expands beyond the war in Ukraine; they are a part of modern war. In the ongoing war in Gaza, the IDF is using these drones to fly into buildings to both get the layout and detect enemy combatants. Rebel forces in Myanmar and the Sudanese military both have adopted and used the same tactics seen in Ukraine. Many militaries, including the US and China, are developing numerous drone and anti-drone programs. Some of these include kamikaze swarms and tanks with built-in drones used to scout ahead and anti-drone systems built in.
The Impact of Drones
Soldiers often have no clue which side a drone is on if they see or hear one. Its presence alone causes fear and discord amongst infantry units, and for good reason. Not only do they improve artillery accuracy or nullify much of the invulnerability of armored vehicles, but they also threaten infantry in a way unimaginable even in sci-fi. If impacted by an FPV, a person is eviscerated or mutilated beyond recognition in an instant without any warning but a momentary high-pitched whine. Drone pilots are trained to target high-density sections of trenches or moving vehicles with infantry riding on top. The innovation of combat commercial drones has brought about an axis of suffering and horror to warfare which only two years ago was unimaginable.
One element that is particularly disturbing is that since these drones all have cameras, operations are recorded and oftentimes posted on the internet. GoPro footage has existed since the mid-2010s in places like Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, but this is different. First-person footage of FPVs shows every moment up to the moment of impact on a target human or otherwise. Similarly, there is footage of drones doing recon on a target while another strikes the target, so the impact and its aftermath are visible. So, too, is there footage of drone-dropped grenades and artillery impacts. This footage is colloquially known as ‘war porn’ defined as a form of “media depicting the most provocative and extreme depictions of violence, gore, and brutality wrought by combat 'viewed voyeuristically or for emotional gratification”. The use of commercial drones in combat has ushered in a dark and disturbing aspect of modern warfare, changing it forever.
Works Cited
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