Drone attacks are the new front in war. NATO is trying to catch up.
Recent drone attacks in Ukraine and Russia have exposed Western nations' vulnerability to this new form of warfare. Ukraine's successful drone strikes on Russian air bases highlight NATO's need to assess its own defenses. Both countries are investing heavily in drone technology, revealing a shift in military strategy and preparedness for future conflicts.
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The drones attacks that have filled the skies over Ukraine and Russia the past few weeks have not only cemented a new era of warfare, they have also shown Western countries how ill-prepared they are for it.On Sunday, Ukraine launched more than 100 drones it had smuggled into Russia to strike air bases there, damaging or destroying as many as 20 strategic aircraft thousands of miles apart. That sent defense officials in some NATO nations rushing to assess whether they, too, could be vulnerable, if an adversary using drones could severely hobble a big military power -- be it Russia, China or even the United States."This is more than an isolated incident -- it's a glimpse into the character of future conflict, where war won't be confined to neatly drawn front lines," said James Patton Rogers, a drone warfare expert at Cornell University. He said the urgent question for NATO, after "an impressive attack by Ukraine," is to determine the vulnerabilities of its own air bases, bombers and critical infrastructure.Before the Ukrainian barrage, Russia had intensified a near-daily deluge of long-range drones to attack military and civilian targets across Ukraine, demonstrating an ability to launch thousands of uncrewed aircraft as quickly as they are built, experts said. By comparison, defense manufacturers in the United States and Europe have struggled for more than three years to ramp up weapons production.NATO knows it has much to learn.This year, NATO opened a joint training center with Ukrainian forces in Poland to share lessons from Russia's invasion. Ukraine's military is the largest (aside from Russia's) and most battled-tested in Europe, even if it is struggling to maintain territory in its border region.At the same time, much of the military alliance is still focused on warfare of the past, and unable to keep up with an unending stream of cyberattacks and other hybrid activity that threatens energy infrastructure, financial institutions and government databases lying far beyond traditional front lines.China protects its aircraft with more than 3,000 hardened shelters, while the United States has exposed tarmacs "and assumptions," Simone Ledeen, a top Pentagon policy official during President Donald Trump's first term, wrote on social media after Ukraine's broad drone attack."A well-timed swarm could blind us before we're airborne," Ledeen wrote.The U.S. military reported 350 drone sightings across about 100 military installations last year, Gen. Gregory Guillot, the head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, told lawmakers in February.A new government review of Britain's defense capabilities, released this week, made clear that other alliance members are also aware of their vulnerabilities.If forced to fight in the next few years, the review said, Britain and its allies could find themselves battling adversaries with newer weapons and technology. It called for heavy investment in air and land drones, including stockpiling one-way attack drones -- those that kill by smashing into their targets and exploding."Whoever gets new technology into the hands of their armed forces the quickest will win," the review noted.Both Russia and Ukraine have spent billions of dollars to build their respective drone fleets since the war began.Two years ago, Ukraine produced about 800,000 drones; this year it is projected to churn out more than 5 million, said Kateryna Bondar, a former adviser to Ukraine's government who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies research group in Washington. Among them are weapons known as " missile drones " because they can purportedly fly as far as 1,800 miles.Just last weekend, before the surprise attack on Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine told allies he hoped to scale up his military's drone program with additional financial backing. "Our operations show the impact that investment can have, especially in drones," he said.Britain agreed, pledging Wednesday to help Ukraine procure 100,000 drones this year -- 10 times more than initially planned.Russia, which is projected to spend more than 7% of its gross domestic product on defense this year, has saturated Ukraine's skies and overwhelmed its air defenses with more than 1,000 drones each week since March, experts say. Most of them are Geran-series drones -- Russia's homegrown version of the Iranian-designed long-range Shahed attack aircraft -- some of which cost as little as $20,000 to build.While far cheaper than, for example, a $1 million long-range Storm Shadow missile, the Geran drones are still likely costing Russia several millions of dollars each day."If they can launch hundreds of these a day, that means they have to manufacture hundreds of these a day as well," said Samuel Bendett, an expert on Russian drones and other weapons at the Center for Naval Analysis.The uptick has coincided with ceasefire talks Trump is pushing as Russia seeks to seize more territory in Ukraine before any settlement is reached.It also aims to remind the world of Russia's enduring might -- even if it still suffers setbacks like Ukraine's weekend strikes."No one, really, in Europe is prepared to adequately handle this type of threat," Bendett said.
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