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.



Israel’s Cutoff of Supplies to Gaza Sends Prices Soaring as Aid Stockpiles Dwindle

Members of Abed family, warm up by a fire at a tent camp for displaced Palestinians at the Muwasi, Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Members of Abed family, warm up by a fire at a tent camp for displaced Palestinians at the Muwasi, Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
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Israel’s Cutoff of Supplies to Gaza Sends Prices Soaring as Aid Stockpiles Dwindle

Members of Abed family, warm up by a fire at a tent camp for displaced Palestinians at the Muwasi, Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Members of Abed family, warm up by a fire at a tent camp for displaced Palestinians at the Muwasi, Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Israel’s cutoff of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies to Gaza’s 2 million people has sent prices soaring and humanitarian groups into overdrive trying to distribute dwindling stocks to the most vulnerable.

The aid freeze has imperiled the progress aid workers say they have made to stave off famine over the past six weeks during Phase 1 of the ceasefire deal Israel and Hamas agreed to in January.

After more than 16 months of war, Gaza’s population is entirely dependent on trucked-in food and other aid. Most are displaced from their homes, and many need shelter. Fuel is needed to keep hospitals, water pumps, bakeries and telecommunications — as well as trucks delivering the aid — operating.

Israel says the siege aims at pressuring Hamas to accept its ceasefire proposal. Israel has delayed moving to the second phase of the deal it reached with Hamas, during which the flow of aid was supposed to continue. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that he is prepared to increase the pressure and would not rule out cutting off all electricity to Gaza if Hamas doesn’t budge.

Rights groups have called the cutoff a “starvation policy.”

Four days in, how is the cutoff affecting Gaza?

Food, fuel and shelter supplies are threatened The World Food Program, the UN's main food agency, says it has no major stockpile of food in Gaza because it focused on distributing all incoming food to hungry people during Phase 1 of the deal. In a statement to AP, it said existing stocks are enough to keep bakeries and kitchens running for under two weeks.

WFP said it may be forced to reduce ration sizes to serve as many people as possible. It said its fuel reserves, necessary to run bakeries and transport food, will last for a few weeks if not replenished soon.

There’s also no major stockpile of tents in Gaza, said Shaina Low, communications adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council. The shelter materials that came in during the ceasefire’s first phase were “nowhere near enough to address all of the needs,” she said.

“If it was enough, we wouldn’t have had infants dying from exposure because of lack of shelter materials and warm clothes and proper medical equipment to treat them,” she said.

At least seven infants in Gaza died from hypothermia during Phase 1.

Urgently checking reserves “We’re trying to figure out, what do we have? What would be the best use of our supply?" said Jonathan Crickx, chief of communication for UNICEF. "We never sat on supplies, so it’s not like there’s a huge amount left to distribute.”

He predicted a “catastrophic result” if the aid freeze continues.

During the ceasefire's first phase, humanitarian agencies rushed in supplies, with about 600 trucks entering per day on average. Aid workers set up more food kitchens, health centers and water distribution points. With more fuel coming in, they could double the amount of water drawn from wells, according to the UN humanitarian agency.

Around 100,000 tents also arrived as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians tried to return to their homes, only to find them destroyed or too damaged to live in.

But the progress relied on the flow of aid continuing.

Oxfam has 26 trucks with thousands of food packages and hygiene kits and 12 trucks of water tanks waiting outside Gaza, said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s policy lead in the West Bank.

“This is not just about hundreds of trucks of food, it’s about the total collapse of systems that sustain life,” she said.

The International Organization for Migration has 22,500 tents in its warehouses in Jordan after trucks brought back their undelivered cargo once entry was barred, said Karl Baker, the agency's regional crisis coordinator.

The International Rescue Committee has 6.7 tons of medicines and medical supplies waiting to enter Gaza and its delivery is “highly uncertain,” said Bob Kitchen, vice president of its emergencies and humanitarian action department.

Medical Aid for Palestinians said it has trucks stuck at Gaza's border carrying medicine, mattresses and assistive devices for people with disabilities. The organization has some medicine and materials in reserve, said spokesperson Tess Pope, but "we don’t have stock that we can use during a long closure of Gaza.”

Prices up sharply Prices of vegetables and flour are now climbing in Gaza after easing during the ceasefire.

Sayed Mohamed al-Dairi walked through a bustling market in Gaza City just after the aid cutoff was announced. Already, sellers were increasing the prices of dwindling wares.

“The traders are massacring us, the traders are not merciful to us,” he said. “In the morning, the price of sugar was 5 shekels. Ask him now, the price has become 10 shekels.”

In the central Gaza city of Deir Al-Balah, one cigarette priced at 5 shekels ($1.37) before the cutoff now stands at 20 shekels ($5.49). One kilo of chicken (2.2 pounds) that was 21 shekels ($5.76) is now 50 shekels ($13.72). Cooking gas has soared from 90 shekels ($24.70) for 12 kilos (26.4 pounds) to 1,480 shekels ($406.24).

Following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Israel cut off all aid to Gaza for two weeks — a measure central to South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice. That took place as Israel launched the most intense phase of its aerial bombardment of Gaza, one of the most aggressive campaigns in modern history.

Palestinians fear a repeat of that period.

“We are afraid that Netanyahu or Trump will launch a war more severe than the previous war,” said Abeer Obeid, a Palestinian woman from northern Gaza. "For the extension of the truce, they must find any other solution.”