Above and beyond

Low-cost drones are reshaping how wars are fought, exposing vulnerabilities in even the most advanced militaries

- BY SANJIB KR BARUAH

Suddenly out of the skies, they descend in swarms. Silently, they keep watch and gather intelligence, or swoop down with a screeching whine for a final, explosive strike. Drones, or UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), are defining modern warfare, posing a challenge that most militaries are still struggling to counter.

With the realisation that cheap drones can overcome military asymmetry and economic limitations, they have quickly become the central tool of war, particularly where adversaries differ in capabilities. If the use of gunpowder rendered fortifications redundant, and the advent of battle tanks made cavalry obsolete, today it is the ubiquitous, inexpensive drone that is beginning to supplant fighter aircraft and costly cruise missiles.

"We are at an inflection point in warfare that is as disruptive as the tank replacing the horse, with the major difference being that this time round the cost matrix has drastically reversed," said Sai Pattabiram, managing director of Zuppa Geo Navigation Technologies. "Defence equipment once considered gold standard has rapidly turned into liabilities capable of bleeding a nation financially." He said this was rapidly dominated by constant innovation at the electronic layer, with automation and AI emerging as key growth areas.

Drones are now everywhere. Their omnipresence, silent surveillance and lethality create a pervasive fear and sustained psychological pressure—amplified by the uncertainty of when, where and how they will strike—while imposing a heavy economic burden on adversaries and stretching air defence systems thin. If military discourse once centred on fighters, submarines and missiles, it is now increasingly about drones or UAVs. After all, a small one-way ‘suicide’ drone or loitering munition functions much like a micro cruise missile.