Drone warfare is not a future scenario, it is a reality. Major nations increasingly have unmanned systems (with powers like China having a unmanned ship capable of carrying drones and the United States with the RQ-170 Sentinel) and these last few months have been protagonists in conflicts like those in Ukraine or Gaza. Faced with this situation, defense departments are updating their roadmap to adapt to threats.

And the Pentagon has shared its new anti-drone strategy in which we can see the five keys to protect against unmanned systems.

Worry. Although military drones have been with us for decades, it has been the war in Ukraine that has shown that they are the weapons of the moment and, since they are not conventional, the defensive systems have not been up to the task. So much Ukraine and Russia have kamikaze dronesbut we have also seen drones that hibernate for weeks before attacking and even the US CSIC has declared that Drones are the future of your aerial arsenal.

Given this new role of drones, the need to defend ourselves arises. We have seen plans to integrate laser turrets on vehiclesas well as machine guns loaded with artificial intelligence with a specific task: hunt down enemy drones. And, as we read in The War Zonethe Pentagon already has its strategy against these vehicles ready.

Roadmap. The United States Department of Defense declassified a document that, basically, is the “strategy to counter unmanned systems.” This is something that comes from a long time ago, but it is now that the government body has published a summary of classified information in which they state that “these threats are changing the way wars are fought.”

Initiatives. The program mixes both short and long-term strategies and consists of the following points:

• Deepen understanding and knowledge of unmanned systems trends and threats. This includes improving the ability of operational forces to detect, track and characterize these threats.
• Degrade threat networks of unmanned systems. Conduct deliberate campaigns to counter networks that drive the development and proliferation of unmanned systems, in collaboration with other government agencies.
• Defend against unmanned systems threats to United States interests. Active and passive defenses will be adapted, authorities will be clarified and delegated as necessary, and approaches will be institutionalized through doctrine, organization, training, materials, leadership, personnel, facilities, and policies.
• Deliver solutions with greater speed, adaptability and scale. This includes rapid acquisition approaches, integrated and modular solutions, experimentation and joint development with close allies.
• Design and develop the future joint force for modes of warfare powered by unmanned systems. This includes changes in force structure and the adoption of new technologies that counter the adversary’s advantages.

Resilience. From the DoD they confess that “addressing these threats will not be easy, but the United States military is unrivaled in terms of its ability to adapt to new challenges and the Department is making the vision of this strategy a reality. The character of “War is changing, and we will change with it.” The immediate focus is to improve defenses to achieve a resilient system against these threats.

The idea is to combine detection technologies such as active and passive radars, as well as kinetic (missiles, for example) and non-kinetic (electronic weapons) neutralization systems. However, they also recognize that they will have to figure out how to adapt to legal restrictions that, for example, prevent the use of kinetic and directed energy weapons at bases in the national territory.

twitching. In the document, Lloyd J. Austin III, Secretary of Defense, commented that “in recent years, unmanned adversary systems have evolved rapidly. These inexpensive systems are increasingly changing the battlefield, threatening US facilities and injuring or killing our troops.” This has generated a climate of tension in which even commercial brands such as DJI have been included in the list of Chinese military companies.

And it is no wonder, since, as if it were a spy movie, a few months ago the Pentagon reported on a series of unmanned aerial systems near Plant 42. What is special about this enclave on North American soil? What includes top secret defense projects for companies such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman (in addition to being a flight test center for NASA). And yes, in those projects there is the B-21 Raider bomber.

Image | Khamenei.ir

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