Drones emerge as the new weapon of war

Apart from the irreparable destructive aspect, the Russia-Ukraine war seems to have changed the nature of war in terms of weapons. It involves the use of drones. And this was noted by none other than Taiwan’s defence experts, and plans are now afoot to arm Taiwan with squadrons of drones.

The Taiwanese had noticed that Ukraine had managed to turn the tables against Russia, which is a bigger opponent, through the use of drones. Ukraine could not match Russia’s larger air force, nor could it match the pile of missiles that Russia possessed. This is seen as an asymmetrical balance between Ukraine and Russia, and it is now inferred that drones have helped Ukraine to counter this unequal position.

Taiwan believes that following the Ukrainian example, it would be able to counter the security threat posed by China, and the Taiwan-China balance is similar to that of Ukraine-Russia. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen was presented a 77-page report in 2022 September, according to a Reuters news agency report, which said, “Since the war began, Ukraine, which was previously considered as lacking air supremacy, cleverly used drones to create its own partial air supremacy.”

But the Taiwanese report was aware of the fact that unlike Russia, which did not seem to be armed with drones and it became evident that Russia had used drones imported from Iran, China was equipped with a large force of drones, especially military drones, which had capabilities of short range and long range. And the Chinese had also developed drone strategies like ‘drone swarms”, which envisages using a large number of drones in targeting enemy sites.  Taiwan has realised that it is lagging behind in drone technology and the deployment of drones for military defence. Taiwanese aerospace entrepreneur Max Lo states the case: “We need to quickly catch up, with thousands of drones. We are trying our best to develop drones with commercial specifications for military use. We hope to quickly build up our capacity based on our existing technology so that we can be like Ukraine.”

It is reckoned that the United States has the largest drone force with 11,000 of them spread across the army, air and naval forces, and with a range spanning from a hand-held two-kilogramme one to a long-range 14,500-kilogramme one. According to a defence research firm, Teal Group, in its 2022/23 report, “The US military currently has the world’s largest and most sophisticated drone fleet, with the rest of the world only beginning to catch up.”

The drones had humble beginnings as a device to get aerial photographic shots of crowds, and it has been dramatically upgraded as a weapon of war, and a comparatively economic one. It seems that it destroys targets like ammunition depots, tanks with greater effect than any missile would do. It should not come as a surprise if drones become the weapons of destruction replacing missiles and air force bombers. And with the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the drones fitted with AI systems can become deadly weapons of war. And it also points to the trend of miniaturisation of weapons. Compared to the big Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) of the last century, drones are the miniature versions, but equipped with greater accuracy and greater destructive power.

Unlike the missiles and the bombers, drones are the perfect dual-technology devices. They can be used to great positive effect in agriculture, in delivering food and other goods at the doorstep and they can also offer the model for a smaller transport module in crowded cities. It would be naïve to expect that drones would not be used for military purposes. But the fact that drones have an immense value in the civilian sector gives rise to the hope that it will be used more for the good than for evil.