December 06, 2023
How an Army of Drones Changed the Battlefield in Ukraine
Ukraine’s top military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, recently wrote in the Economist that the war against Russia had entered a stalemate in which neither side currently seems capable of a strategic breakthrough. His comments came after five months of heavy fighting, during which the much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive failed to achieve significant territorial gains. Reasons for the lack of progress include the Russians’ formidable system of layered defenses, willingness to take high losses in lives and materiel, and fierce local counterattacks. Ukraine’s initially uncoordinated and poorly executed attacks, as well as some delays in the delivery of Western weapons and limits to the amounts and types of arms given to Ukraine, surely played a role as well.
The new conventional wisdom that ever-present swarms of drones have made it almost impossible to attack and achieve success therefore needs to be qualified.
Some analysts, however, argue that the Ukrainian advance has been stopped by something much more fundamental than minefields and trenches: the changing character of warfare itself.
The advent of pervasive surveillance, these observers argue, has created a newly transparent battlefield. Ubiquitous drones and other technologies make it possible to track, in real time, any troop movements by either side, making it all but impossible to hide massing forces and concentrations of armored vehicles from the enemy. That same surveillance then makes sure that forces, once detected, are immediately hit by barrages of artillery rounds, missiles, and suicide drones. Sustaining any attempt at a breakthrough has become a most difficult proposition.
Read the full article from Foreign Policy.
More from CNAS
-
Swarms over the Strait
Executive Summary Drones have transformed battlefields in Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Ukraine, but in a companion report, Evolution Not Revolution: Drone Warfare in Russia’s ...
By Stacie Pettyjohn, Hannah Dennis & Molly Campbell
-
Space to Grow
Executive Summary In the more than 50 years since the first satellite launch, space has become irrevocably intertwined with the American way of life and the American way of wa...
By Hannah Dennis
-
Stacie Pettyjohn on drones in Ukraine
The Merge podcast hosts Dr. Stacie Pettyjohn to discuss her new report: Evolution Not Revolution, Drone Warfare in Russia’s 2022 Invasion of Ukraine Stacie is a Senior Fel...
By Stacie Pettyjohn
-
Deterring the Powerful Enemy
It is a privilege to testify here on matters that are important to the vital national security interests of the United States, as well as those of our other allies and partner...
By Tom Shugart