16 July 2021, NIICE Commentary 7088
Dr. Devika Sharma
The recent drone attacks at the Indian Air Force base station at Jammu in the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has brought to the fore this emerging ‘avatar’ of robotic warfare on the geopolitical scene. Two low intensity bombs were dropped via Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) at this important security establishment of India. Thereafter, drones were spotted at other military installations in the area. Such UAVs have the capacity to carry heavy payloads across several kilometers. Drone attacks signal the generation next battle cry for the world, while India finds itself as the latest target of this ‘war-by- remote’.
The significance of drones lies in the fact that they do away with the threat to a pilot’s life in war zones and being unmanned, the necessity of rest which is required as a result of fatigue is out of question. Thus, they can fly until their fuel remains, or until a technical snag presents itself. It was the US military that used drones for military purposes in a major way during the Gulf war of 1991. Apart from the USA and Israel, the use of drones for armed warfare has been explored by Turkey in Syria and Libya, and by Azerbaijan against Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2020. Russia has also been deploying such UAVs against Ukraine since 2014 onwards. These developments indicate a paradigm-shift in war technology, where smaller countries have demonstrated much expertise in the adoption of aerial warfare and have challenged the hegemony of the West in the proliferation of advanced drone warfare tactics.
The unfolding of this hi-tech form of warfare is seen to reach the next level with what is known as ‘drone swarming.’ Drone swarming can be understood as a mass drone attack wherein UAVs in a cluster, working in tandem, can pose severe security threats. It is not just powerful states like USA, Russia, China but also less powerful states, as well as non-state actors and terror groups which are harnessing the tremendous potential of ‘drone swarms’. The large-scale drone attack on the Russian military in Syria is a prominent example of the destructive capability of the coordinated deployment of drones. ‘Drone swarms’ have also been witnessed in Ukraine, Libya and Nagorno- Karabakh. Their popularity as the next generation form of warfare is evident from the fact that they are relatively low cost military tools which can work in a networked manner to attack the target effectively. Drone swarming is achieved through the synchronization of a number of physical robots who are controlled by little human intervention. These demonstrate collective self-organizing behaviour by building tandem and integration between robots as well as mutual exchanges between the robots and the environment. The advantage of a drone swarm can also be perceived in the light of the fact that even if a few drones crash, the cluster can reconfigure itself to carry the mission forward till the last UAV remains.
Drone swarms bring with themselves the benefits of decentralized attack as well as maneuverability and mobility. Drones facilitate armed penetration into well guarded war zones and have a wide scope of operation than manned machinery. The artificial intelligence which powers drone technology enables destructive missions. The capability to launch numerous small unmanned air vehicles acting in tandem and cohesion with one another could guarantee armed forces with improved weaponry at a significantly lower cost. An armed, completely autonomous drone swarm backed with artificial intelligence will succeed in finding and attacking targets in the absence of human intervention.
While swarming technology may not have been developed entirely, proliferation of this evolving technology is bound to happen in the coming days all over the world. The use of drones in warfare is not something unexpected, nor new, it is an expression of asymmetric and economical battle tools. The causes which make this latest evolution of robotic warfare, the preferred mode of battle in the future are threefold: they eliminate risk of life to soldiers, they are more infallible as compared to other weapon systems since they make lesser errors, the technology powering UAVs will become better with time thus, making drone attacks even more precise and efficient and making human agents of warfare outdated.
As far as surveillance is concerned, drones can sneak into international borders quite easily without putting the human factor at risk. Their potential to hover over targets enables them to make important observations and to make available surveillance data round-the-clock, locate potential targets and ascertain the best time to attack to avoid civilian casualties. This makes drones equipped to conform to the tenets of war.
In terms of their destructive potential, drones facilitate pinpointed, precise, covert use of force; their accuracy as far as their target is concerned is unmatched. They therefore, can prevent a full blown war as they have the capacity to attack a limited area as per requirement, minimizing collateral damage or preventing it altogether. This allows for taking the pilots out of the war zones and equips them to make better targeting decisions from an installation physically distant from the combat area without fearing for their own safety. This results in an added advantage of reducing the number of civilian deaths.
Given the low cost of drones and the covert nature of their use, besides their hi-tech features, has ensured their transformation into ‘tools of terror.’ The Islamic State made the first successful use of drones for unleashing terror by loading a small drone with explosives and making it target a military establishment. Since 2016, the Islamic State has deployed these UAVs to carry out their operations in Iraq and Syria. Apart from that, the Hezbollah operating in Palestine and Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, the Taliban and terror organizations in Pakistan use drones to launch attacks.
In view of the threat posed by terrorists’ use of drones, the need to devise a counter strategy is imperative. However, in many cases, the drone countering potential of countries is still evolving or is in its infancy, thereby, making it difficult to prevent or avert a drone strike. Majority of the drones employed for terror operations are relatively smaller than aircrafts. Their flight at low altitudes and their comparatively tiny radars make it tough to track them electronically; moreover, armies depend on visually keeping track of such aerial vehicles and also rely on audio signals. Thus, it is a challenge to locate small drones and those employing them. What is needed is drone detection technology and associated counter strategies to deal with this threat. Once tracked, a kinetic energy weapon can be launched against the drone or it can be jammed. A careful and timely response to such asymmetric warfare is the need of the hour. Technology should be our guide while accepting the threat and tackling it. Alarm bells have been ringing for some time; they should now be taken seriously in the wake of the dire threat posed by this latest evolution of robotic warfare.
