Europe Isn’t Ready for A.I. Drones.
Ukraine’s campaign against supply lines through the so-called land bridge to Crimea are making Russia suffer. They’re also a warning to an under-prepared Europe.
This story was commissioned by Europe’s Edge. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.
In a potentially decisive campaign that began this spring, Ukraine’s enormous and growing drone force pivoted to medium-range strikes targeting what is arguably Russia’s biggest weak spot: its supply lines connecting Russia proper to the forward bases of its field armies, a few tens of kilometers behind the gray zone threading north to south along the breadth of eastern Ukraine.
Prior to this spring, the Ukrainians operated a mix of very-short-range first-person-view (FPV) drones and very-long-range one-way attack drones. The FPVs hunted Russian infantry in the gray zone. The one-way attack drones plucked at refineries, factories, and air bases inside Russia itself.
But that neglected a critical middle ground. A logistical zone stretching around 200 km (about 125 miles) behind the gray zone. It’s here that the Russian military’s vast logistical system lies exposed.
A coordinated campaign of drone strikes targeting Russian air defenses that began last summer has left vast swathes of Russian-occupied Ukraine all but undefended from aerial attack. The current counter-logistics campaign is the obvious corollary to that targeting air defenses, but there’s just one problem for Ukrainian planners.
Yes, Russia’s kinetic air defenses (radar- and infrared-cued mobile and static missile launchers) are depleted. But electronic warfare defenses are largely intact. Radio jammers have turned the electromagnetic spectrum over occupied Ukraine into hostile territory for remote-controlled drones.
Anticipating this problem, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (the world’s first independent drone branch) inducted an array of new A.I.-assisted drones that can spot and home in on specific targets even when they lose radio connections to their faraway minders.
Read the rest at Europe’s Edge.
Isn't this why NATO opened a drone warfare center in Estonia last year? It works with Ukraine to develop drone techniques that are both offensive and defensive. Whether anyone in NATO is listening is a different matter. Estonia is, clearly. It seems Germany is too. The UK? France? It may be too early for new doctrine to emerge, but it would be embarrassing as hell if they weren't. Never under-estimate the conservative nature of militaries around the world. Right now, and highly ironically, most are at the same stage cavalry generals were in 1917 when the tank first emerged as a decisive weapon. The've got their lovely toys and don't want to believe they are now obsolete.