Drones Are The Predominant Weapon On The Future Battlefield

 A Ukrainian soldier launches a drone during battles in Bakhmut. (Reuters)
A Ukrainian soldier launches a drone during battles in Bakhmut. (Reuters)
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Drones Are The Predominant Weapon On The Future Battlefield

 A Ukrainian soldier launches a drone during battles in Bakhmut. (Reuters)
A Ukrainian soldier launches a drone during battles in Bakhmut. (Reuters)

Over the years, major wars have been characterized by the introduction of new doctrines, new tactics, and new technology. In 1453, the walls of Constantinople were breached by a gigantic cannon used by Sultan Mehmed II. Napoleon brought innovative new infantry tactics. In World War I, mustard gas and machine guns changed the battlefield. In World War II, it was aircraft carriers, blitzkrieg tactics and nuclear weapons.
Today, it is the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), commonly known as the drone. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Gaza, drones have become an essential tool of modern warfare and whether used for surveillance, reconnaissance or attack, the skies over Kiev, Gaza, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Taiwan Straits are filled with these small, deadly sentinels.
Drones are the dream of every combatant, whether major armies or non-state actors, and three attributes stand out. First, they are cheap... and plentiful. A small observation drone can be purchased from Amazon for less than $100 and delivered overnight. While it might not kill tanks, it can provide real-time video of the enemy trench line across the field, a rooftop sniper position, or an ambush site around the corner.
More advanced drones can fly higher, farther and stay in the air longer, and this is the bane of the support troops. While wars are fought on the front line with infantry, tanks and aircraft, wars cannot be won without keeping those front lines fed, fueled, and resupplied. It requires massive supply chains of ammunition dumps, fuel depots, repair facilities along with fleets of trucks and thousands of support troops to replenish the millions of tons needed daily to keep a small army fighting.
Most of that supply chain is well away from the front lines and before the proliferation of drones, it could only be observed intermittently and without sufficient accuracy for an enemy to target with artillery or missiles. Now, the entire area of operations is a battlefield and there is nowhere to hide. Drones can patrol above roads, reconnoiter locations with likely logistics stockpiles and zoom over to an infrared heat signal at night to discover a hidden artillery unit or a moving tank column. The power of drones to see throughout the depths of the combat zone, effectively creating a transparent battlefield, is unprecedented.
Drones can not only see targets throughout the combat zone, but they can also attack those targets. In military parlance, the goal is to establish a “sensor-to-shooter link” that can find a target in time and accurately and destroy the target precisely. Drones can solve the “sensor” part of the equation by providing real-time and GPS-accurate information. But until recently, even if the drone sensor is timely and accurate, the tools to attack that target have been relatively blunt. Conventional artillery and rockets are notoriously imprecise and often require hundreds of rounds to destroy a target. As but one example, in Ukraine over 65,000 rounds are fired each day, double the number of shells the US can produce per month.
Drones help solve the “shooter” problem as well. With the advent of laser designated and GPS guided precision weapons, an individual or aircraft with the proper equipment can guide a round onto a target with sufficient accuracy as to achieve a one-round kill. Yet individuals and aircraft are limited by flight conditions, aircraft availability, ground conditions, limited field of view and a host of other challenges that impair the ability to see or engage a target. Drones are not only far better at seeing targets but can also engage a target in several ways. They can provide a video downlink with precise targeting data, provide laser designation to guide a precision round onto a target, carry and fire missiles in its own payload or perform as a “suicide drone” to attack a target directly.
To many, drones are changing the nature of war and will be the predominant weapon on the future battlefield. In an extreme, theorists picture a battlefield filled with technology but devoid of humans. Self-driving tanks will be guided by operators far from the battlefield, drones and autonomous aircraft will be guided by artificial intelligence and ChatGPT and victory will be defined by who has any machines left over at the end of the battle.
That may be one day, but it is not today. Nor will it be soon. For now, drones are seen as invulnerable and revolutionary, but as is so often, radical new technology is quickly overtaken by a better technology which either leaps ahead or neutralizes that new technology. In the case of current drone technology, armies have been exploiting its advantage, but counter drone technology is racing to take away those advantages. Drones are not invulnerable – they can be shot down, they need to be guided, they need data links to pass information to operators and they need clear pictures of the target. Those elements can be interrupted or negated, particularly the critical radio links which can be jammed, spoofed, or blocked.
Despite their vulnerabilities, drones are having a significant impact on every battlefield, whether the high-intensity war in Ukraine, the attacks on international shipping off the coast of Yemen or counterterrorism operations worldwide. Drones have proven to be versatile, inexpensive, and extraordinarily effective, particularly deep targets such as command posts and artillery positions, and high-value targets such as terrorists. Inevitably, counter drone tactics and technology will somewhat reduce their overall effectiveness, but even if their capabilities are diminished, drones will retain an important and permanent role on the modern battlefield.



What to Know About the Flash Floods in Texas That Killed over 100 People

 Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
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What to Know About the Flash Floods in Texas That Killed over 100 People

 Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)

Flash floods in Texas killed at least 100 people over the Fourth of July holiday weekend and left others still missing, including girls attending a summer camp. The devastation along the Guadalupe River, outside of San Antonio, has drawn a massive search effort as officials face questions over their preparedness and the speed of their initial actions.

Here's what to know about the deadly flooding, the colossal weather system that drove it in and around Kerr County, Texas, and ongoing efforts to identify victims.

Massive rain hit at just the wrong time, in a flood-prone place

The floods grew to their worst at the midpoint of a long holiday weekend when many people were asleep.

The Texas Hill Country in the central part of the state is naturally prone to flash flooding due to the dry dirt-packed areas where the soil lets rain skid along the surface of the landscape instead of soaking it up. Friday's flash floods started with a particularly bad storm that dropped most of its 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain in the dark early morning hours.

After a flood watch notice midday Thursday, the National Weather Service office issued an urgent warning around 4 a.m. that raised the potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life. By at least 5:20 a.m., some in the Kerrville City area say water levels were getting alarmingly high. The massive rain flowing down hills sent rushing water into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in just 45 minutes.

Death toll is expected to rise and the number of missing is uncertain

In Kerr County, home to youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 75 people, including 27 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said Monday morning. Fatalities in nearby counties brought the total number of deaths to 94 as of Monday afternoon.

Ten girls and a counselor were still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river.

For past campers, the tragedy turned happy memories into grief.

Beyond the Camp Mystic campers unaccounted for, the number of missing from other nearby campgrounds and across the region had not been released.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday had said that there were 41 people confirmed to be unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.

Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said during a Monday news conference he couldn't give an estimate of the number of people still missing, only saying “it is a lot.”

Officials face scrutiny over flash flood warnings

Survivors have described the floods as a “pitch black wall of death” and said they received no emergency warnings.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, who lives along the Guadalupe River, said Saturday that “nobody saw this coming.” Officials have referred to it as a “100-year-flood,” meaning that the water levels were highly unlikely based on the historical record.

And records behind those statistics don’t always account for human-caused climate change. Though it’s hard to connect specific storms to a warming planet so soon after they occur, meteorologists say that a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture and allow severe storms to dump even more rain.

Additionally, officials have come under scrutiny about why residents and youth summer camps along the river were not alerted sooner than 4 a.m. or told to evacuate.

Rice said Monday that he did not immediately know if there had been any communication between law enforcement and the summer camps between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Friday. But Rice said various factors, including spotty cell service in some of the more isolated areas of Kerr County and cell towers that might have gone out of service during the weather, could have hindered communication.

Rice said officials want to finish the search and rescue and then review possible issues with cell towers, radios and emergency alerts.

Officials noted that the public can grow weary from too many flooding alerts or forecasts that turn out to be minor.

Kerr county officials said they had presented a proposal for a more robust flood warning system, similar to a tornado warning system, but that members of the public reeled at the cost.

Monumental clearing and rebuilding effort

The flash floods have erased campgrounds and torn homes from their foundations.

"It’s going to be a long time before we’re ever able to clean it up, much less rebuild it," Kelly said Saturday after surveying the destruction from a helicopter.

Other massive flooding events have driven residents and business owners to give up, including in areas struck last year by Hurricane Helene.

President Donald Trump said he would likely visit the flood zone on Friday.

AP photographers have captured the scale of the destruction, and one of Texas' largest rescue and recovery efforts.