The Decade Of The Drone

When it comes to warfare the 2020s are definitely the decade of the drone. The war in Ukraine is rapidly developing and refining drone warfare.

What I notice is that drones, at least small drones, are shifting the balance of warfare back to where the defense, rather than the offense, has the advantage.

In early days the offense, mobile warriors along with horses and chariots, had the advantage once it got momentum going. But when castles and fortifications were built it shifted the advantage to the defensive, usually requiring a significant numerical advantage for an offensive force to overcome a defensive position.

Medieval castles were difficult to attack. The defenders had the advantage and offensive operations against them were usually unsuccessful, succeeding usually only with a greatly superior force. The defense, on the whole, had the advantage for a very long time.

The invention of gunpowder turned warfare around, giving the advantage back to the offensive. Castles could be bombarded by cannon from a safe distance. The advantage was not entirely with the offensive. Fortifications were still the rule and it was difficult to haul cannon around and set them up. The defensive fortification had the advantage of having their cannon already set up.

Another invention shifted the balance even more toward the offense side. Motorized transport, including aircraft and ships made it much easier to move offensive weapons and forces around. A force on the defensive also gained from motorized transport but overall it gave the advantage to the side with the offensive momentum.

This presumes that the battlefield is an open space and maneuvering is not hindered. When the battle space is limited, or the terrain is rugged, it favors the defensive. The Western Front of the First World War was a battlefield of limited scope that revolved around defensive trench warfare. The Eastern Front of the war, in stark contrast, was on a wide open battlefield and there was little trench warfare.

Another example of how important the terrain and the scope of the battlefield is in whether the offensive or the defensive will be favored is the North African Campaign of the Second World War. The combat in the wide open spaces of north Africa was as different as night and day in comparison to when the battlefront moved to the Italian Peninsula. In the former the open spaces favored the momentum of the offensive, in the latter the confined space and rugged terrain favored the defensive.

Wars on a global scale, the Napoleonic and World Wars, are possible only when the offense has the advantage. Wars tend to be limited in scale when the defense has the advantage. 

No weapon or development is purely offensive or defensive. Nuclear missiles are certainly offensive weapons but if the other side also has the missiles they discourage an attack against it, because it would prompt a retaliation, and thus act as defensive weapons also. Even so the side that managed the first strike would gain the advantage, making nuclear missiles more offensive weapons overall.

The latest development is drones. At first glance drones appear to be offensive weapons. For larger drones, on the scale of aircraft, this is certainly true. But smaller drones, often launched from the battlefield, are much more numerous. Small drones are inexpensive and easy to use, and are changing the balance of warfare toward favoring the defensive.

Small drones favor the defensive in that their most effective use is against offensive weapons, particularly tanks. In the Ukraine war drones have proven to be the nemesis of tanks, whether firing a projectile or crashing into the target. Another target that is very vulnerable to small drones is aircraft, not so much in the air but when parked on the ground. 

Small drones today, inexpensive and easy to use, are thus comparable to fighter planes or destroyers at sea. A destroyer is the naval equivalent of a fighter plane. It is not a capital ship, like aircraft carriers or formerly battleships. It's task is patrolling or protecting the capital ships against aircraft and submarines while they concentrate on their mission. The drones become defensive weapons in that their primary mission is to liquidate offensive weapons. This is tipping the balance of warfare back to favoring the defensive.

Just look at the Ukraine war thus far. The battlefield is wide open and flat so it should definitely favor the offensive, as it did in the Second World War. Yet both sides have done much better on the defensive than on the offensive. Russia struggled to gain ground when it was mostly on the offensive, and now Ukraine is struggling to regain the ground that Russia did gain. This is a war where the defensive has reigned supreme and the primary difference, in contrast to other recent wars, is the drone.