NATO has missed the drone revolution

Hello,

In this video, I discuss the effects of drone technology on the conduct of warfare, based on an article by Ukraine's former commander-in-chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi. The consequences are so significant that it is relevant to talk about a paradigm shift, and unfortunately, most militaries in NATO are not prepared for it.

Watch the video on the website or read the transcript below.

Best,
Anders

Transcript:

Last week, Ukraine's former commander-in-chief, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, published an article where he talked about the effects of drone technology on the war in Ukraine and on warfare in general. It's not a particularly long article, but I think he has some really interesting points. So what I thought I'd do in this video is to go through Zaluzhny's article and then highlight some of his points and add my own comments. So let's talk about it.

Zaluzhnyi is an interesting person who often has very strong opinions and is very open about how he sees things. He has written some intriguing articles during the war that have caught a lot of attention. So for example, back in the end of 2023, he wrote a long article about why Ukraine's big offensive hadn't worked and what it would take to win the war. That article created quite a bit of controversy. Around the same time he ran into some disagreements with President Zelensky, partly because of that article and he was relieved of duty in the beginning of 2024. Now he is Ukraine's ambassador to the United Kingdom, and there is a lot of speculation that when there is a presidential election in Ukraine at some point, then Zaluzhnyi might run for president.

The article that he's written this time is in Defense One and I'll link the article in the video description so you can find it. But his basic argument is that drones have become such an important weapon on the battlefield that they constitute a technological revolution in the way that warfare is conducted. Today more than two-thirds of the casualties on the front line are inflicted by drones. This is a massive development. If we go back to the beginning of the full-scale invasion, then this was primarily an artillery war. But today the drone has replaced artillery as the most important type of weapon system.

What is a technological revolution in warfare? An obvious example of a technological revolution is the invention of gunpowder. There was one era before the invention of gunpowder, and then after gunpowder, it has totally changed how war is conducted and the effects that weapons could have. So there is an entirely different era after the invention of gunpowder.

The invention of the drone is perhaps not quite on the same scale as the invention of gunpowder, but Zaluzhnyi compares it to the invention of other technologies that have revolutionized warfare. It's things like the invention of the radio, computers or satellites and all these innovations that have enabled precision munitions and excellent situational awareness. This has also enabled concepts such as network-centric warfare and the air-land battles. These are concepts that are foundational to much Western military doctrine today.

The argument he makes is that the invention of drones has turned modern warfare on its head. Other types of development in recent decades have enabled rapid offensive maneuver warfare. This has made possible things like the fast invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan or similar scenarios. So we're coming from a period where technological inventions facilitated offensive maneuver. But the drone does the opposite. It enables defensive operations and it does this to an extent where it's almost impossible to do anything on the front line without being immediately observed and attacked by the enemy.

So just recently, we were talking about modern warfare as rapid maneuver warfare. But Zalushin's claim is that this has changed now because of the invention of the drone. We are back to a time when the phrase "modern warfare" means something that looks like World War I. It's this attritional, very static kind of warfare.

This is what he means by a technological revolution in warfare. And then he goes on to mention three main developments that are part of this technological revolution. The first one is the invention of small tactical drones that are used to target military forces. These are the attack drones. And he's not just referring to the flying drones, but also the maritime drones and the unmanned ground vehicles that are under development and will become a big part of the front line in the coming years. The second development is electronic warfare, which is an important part of countering the enemy's drone activities, but also of enabling your own. And the third development is the invention of different types of sensor platforms that monitor the battlefield and create this very good situational awareness and essentially creates a buffer zone between the two sides where it's almost impossible to enter without being immediately observed and targeted. These are the three elements. It's sensor platforms, it's effectors, and it's electronic warfare.

The reason these developments are changing warfare fundamentally is that it's very cheap to produce them. Today the price of an FPV drone is about 10% of what an artillery grenade costs. So you can get about 10 FPV drones for the price of one artillery grenade. That just goes to show how affordable this technology is. And what this does is that it makes attrition warfare effective and affordable at scale. Countries that didn't use to have the resources to fight a war of attrition now suddenly do because of this technology.

Then he goes on to talk about how all this is tied together in the Ukrainian battle management system, which is called Delta. It utilizes modern information technology to compile information from different sources and give the commander a very good overview of the battlefield. Delta is a very good system, no doubt about that. But I think Zaluzhnyi probably exaggerates the uniqueness of Delta a bit in the article. There are other systems out there that will do the same thing. For example, in NATO, there is a system called SitaWare, which more or less has the same functionality. But it's definitely true that having a good and fast battle management system that utilizes the capabilities that are afforded by modern information technology, is the other side of the coin that enables drones to have this big impact on the conduct of warfare.

Then Zaluzhny finishes his article with a big jab at the Western militaries, which are essentially Ukraine's partners in this war. He writes that because Western militaries have enjoyed decades of multi-domain dominance in the wars that they fought, they have basically slept through this revolution in warfare and they are way behind in noticing the consequences.

So if you take the NATO armies as they operate today and you place them on the front line in Ukraine, then they will be absolutely devastated because they're not up for the challenge. The NATO armies are operating in a paradigm that has been superseded by technological developments and if this continues, then they risk ending up like the French army did when they suddenly encountered the German Blitzkrieg during the Second World War. He argues that it's time for Western armies to wake up, to start adapting to this new type of warfare and to embrace the lessons that Ukraine has learned during the war.

So, it's a pretty tough message in Zaluzhnyi's article, but I think it's an important message and it's one that we need to take seriously. There are still way too many people in the West who believe that our militaries would do better on the front line than the Ukrainian military because we would do proper maneuver warfare.

That is a dangerous assumption and I agree with Zaluzhnyi's sentiment that if we took a brigade from a NATO country and we placed it on the front line today, then it would be absolutely horrible because the Western militaries are not prepared for the kind of drone warfare that they would be facing.

The sad thing about it is that it's not evident that all Western militaries have understood this. Quite frankly, it seems that many of them are still operating in a fantasy bubble where they operate under the assumption that the gold standard of modern warfare is the type of rapid maneuver warfare that now belongs to the previous paradigm.

I think it would come as a surprise to most Western militaries that I say this because I think everyone now believes that they've discovered the importance of drones and that they are taking this very seriously. Because they follow the war in Ukraine. They've seen the drone videos and they understand that it's important, that it's something they need to look into.

But where many Western militaries go wrong is that they don't understand the scale and the consequence of this development. They still assume that the paradigm they will be operating in is one of rapid maneuver warfare and they see drones as something that will be an enabler of that type of warfare. And therefore, they're not ready for the attritional type of warfare that they will actually be facing.

Unfortunately for the West, the Russians do understand this. I think in general, it would be fair to say that Ukraine is the world leader when it comes to drone warfare, but the Russians are not that far behind. They may be a couple of months behind in the development of technology and doctrine for drone warfare. But the Western militaries are years behind and that means that we are also way behind the Russians when it comes to this type of warfare.

I think there is a tendency among many people in the West to have a somewhat arrogant attitude toward the Russian army and to make fun of how the second greatest army in the world is not able to take small Ukrainian villages. You'll look at the pictures of individual infantrymen that are trying to make it across a field and you say, "Well, how can that army be so dangerous?" Because we have all this expensive high tech equipment and obviously we would be able to fight against something like that.

But that is exactly the kind of arrogance that the incumbent in a technological race will often display when they're faced with disruptive technology. We need to understand that even though the way the Russian army fights, it might look silly based on our standards of what maneuver warfare should look like. But if it actually comes to an encounter between them and us, then they would have the upper hand because they master this technology and they would be able to field thousands of skilled drone pilots against us.

So it's very important that we quickly start the training of a large number of drone pilots and electronic warfare specialists because that's what we need to have to have a chance against the Russian army. And I'm not talking about drone operators that are embedded in existing units. It's not like, "Well, here we have a unit and now they also get a drone and this guy guy over here, he also gets to be the drone pilot". What we need is dedicated drone units, drone battalions, drone brigades that we can deploy on the battlefield and that can deliver this capability at scale.

That is the first step, the training of drone pilots. It's important to understand that when we're talking about drone warfare, then it's the pilot that is the capability. The drone itself, that's just ammunition. It's cheap. The essential thing to count is how many experienced pilots you have that you can deploy on the battlefield.

This point is especially important for the European armies because in an age when the United States is withdrawing from European security, the European armies might sooner than we like have to face the Russian army. It's very important that we don't have this illusion that we will fight the Russian army with doctrine that was made for maneuver warfare because in reality, we will be facing a tough, attritional struggle that is driven by drone warfare.

So that's the first step. We need to realize that we are behind when it comes to drone warfare and that we need to catch up to where the Russians and the Ukrainians are today.

I want to finish off with a few reflections on what this means for the relationship between defensive operations and offensive operations. It's important that we quickly adapt to a mindset where we understand that right now, because of where the weapons technology is, the advantage lies with defensive operations. This means that if a war breaks out, then in the beginning there will be some movement because the front line is not clearly defined yet and the two sides are not ready. But pretty quickly, the fighting will stabilize along a front line that will tend to be very static.

This means that when territory is lost in the initial phases of the war, you cannot count on getting that territory back. This has significant consequences for how NATO needs to rethink the defense of the countries on the eastern flank, like in the Baltic States, for example. The current defense plans are based on the assumption that Russia might have an initial advantage in a war due to the proximity, but that Western forces would reinforce and potentially liberate the Baltic States after a period of troop buildup. But in an age where defensive operations are much stronger than offensive operations, then it's not realistic to make that assumption.

So NATO needs to understand that the territory that is lost is likely not going to be regained later. And therefore a Russian attack must be stopped right on the border and not be allowed to take most of the Baltic states before the front line is stabilized.

Then in the long run, we need to figure out how to conduct offensive operations in an age of drone warfare. This is going to be the challenge for the defense industry in the coming decades. But in the meantime, it's important that we acknowledge that this is the reality now and that we must adapt as quickly as possible. Because, well, otherwise we might end up like the French did when they faced the German Blitzkrieg.

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