The Drone Swarm is Coming, and NATO Air Defenses Are Too Expensive to Cope
Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:
The Drone Swarm is Coming, and NATO Air Defenses Are Too Expensive to Cope
NATO is unprepared to deal with attacks by cheap, mass-produced drones and urgently needs layered, affordable air defense systems to counter the threat, taking a cue from the experience gained by Ukrainian forces over the past four years.
Experts at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) recently held a debate on the lessons armed forces should take from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, highlighting that low-cost drones are reshaping how wars are fought.
CEPA describes itself as a nonpartisan, public policy institution, headquartered in Washington, DC.
The takeaway from Iran's tactics is that adversaries are likely to combine precision weapons with cheap, mass-produced drones to overwhelm air defense systems so that the precision weapons can get through. Managing this threat means developing low-cost defensive weapons, produced and used at scale, to complement the interceptor missiles costing millions that are built to target aircraft and ballistic missiles.
"The question is no longer how just to defeat a threat. The question is how to do so to sustainable cost and scale," said Gordon "Skip" Davis, former deputy assistant secretary general for NATO and previously director of operations for US European Command.
He noted a decisive shift in the character of war: Iran has shown that relatively unsophisticated weapons like the Shahed-type drones, which cost $20,000 each, can impose real operational stress on even the most advanced forces such as the US and its regional allies.
Ukraine is ahead of NATO in one critical area - the ability to produce and deploy low-cost systems at scale. It is manufacturing tens of thousands of interceptor drones annually, and delivering them to frontline units at rates exceeding 1,500 per day.
Instead of relying solely on expensive interceptors, Ukraine has built a layered system in which cheap one-way interceptor drones - costing as little as $2,000 - now account for the majority of drone takedowns across the country. This is typified by the small Bullet model produced by defense firm General Cherry (General Chereshnya), which can reach speeds of up to 310 km per hour (192 mph), engage targets at a distance of up to 20 km (12 miles), and operate at altitudes of up to 6 km (about 4 miles).
Davis said NATO should take several lessons from this - integrated air and missile defenses must be layered and cost-effective, not reliant purely on high-end interceptors. It must field attritable and autonomous systems en masse, not in niche roles, and this means having the industrial capacity to produce them and "magazine depth" - meaning having stockpiles available.
"The overarching conclusion, in my view, is that NATO must move from a model built around technological superiority to one built around integrated systems, scalable production and rapid adaptation," he stated.
Jason Israel, senior fellow for Defense Technology Initiative at CEPA, said software and interoperability were another vital piece of the puzzle. By this he means the various drones operated will need to integrate with command-and-control (C2) systems to coordinate operations.
"That drone that you're using, or the unmanned system that you're using, what software is behind it? Does the software allow it to be interoperable with headquarters?" he asked.
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