Unmanned Attrition and A New High-Low Mix
Drones come in all shapes and sizes, but the larger American and Israeli type systems that dominated the skies may soon face significant challenges from the proliferation of air defense.
In 1973, an Israeli-built drone made history. It had a two-way data link, a camera onboard, and could share the video with military commanders tasked with finding targets to strike with air or ground launched munitions. The Tadiran Mastiff and its aeronautical cousin, the IAI Scout, came of age during Israel’s 1982 war in Lebanon. The United States followed in these early footsteps, first purchasing Israeli drones to support the Marine Corps during the Reagan era, and then purchasing and arming the MQ-1 and MQ-9, the two drones that dominated the skies during the global war on terror.
The success of the United States with its drones during the 9/11 wars—and the Israeli military before that—spawned the development of drone specific tactics and led to the development of a new generation of drone operators and manufacturers eager to export systems around the world. Drones come in all shapes and sizes, but the larger American and Israeli type systems that dominated the skies may soon face significant challenges from the proliferation of air defense.
The legacy and new operators now both share the challenge that the permissive air environment they thrive in is the exception, not the rule for combat. In the future, to operate these drones in defended air environments will require considerable intelligence support to circumvent ground-based challenges.
The legacy and new operators now both share the challenge that the permissive air environment they thrive in is the exception, not the rule for combat.
The trends suggest that the threat environment for this class of systems is increasing, creating the same types of planning dilemmas that war planners and aircraft designers faced in the late 1960s. This suggests that the roles for these drones may become more niche, newer designs more exquisite, and that the US Air Force may have to consider building a “high-low” mix of platforms for future conflicts due to exponentially increasing cost per unit.
The make-up of this new high-low mix of aircraft remains poorly defined. The cost of a fully armed and very capable Turkish-made drone, the TB-2, is reportedly around $5 million. The cost of a more capable, but comparatively similar US system is significantly more. Neither the TB-2, nor the US made MQ-1 are truly attritable. Put simply, despite having a relatively low price point, the threat of air defenses prompts countries that fly these types of drones to alter the ways in which they are used to avoid air defense.
There are three recent examples that illustrate the challenges this class of drone now faces: Ukraine, Iraq, and Yemen. The Ukrainian military operates the TB-2, a Turkish origin drone, but it has been neutralized by Russian air defenses. The Russian military has highly capable air defenses, which underscores the vulnerability of these systems to a highly capable military. The more revelatory trends are visible in Iraq and Yemen. In both these cases, lesser capable militaries and militias have demonstrated the capability to shoot down drones, which suggests that even lesser capable adversaries have adequate capabilities to track and shoot down larger drones.
In Iraq, a Turkish drone was recently shot down near the city of Kirkuk by a newly procured Russian air defense system. In Yemen, the Houthis have shot down at least ten MQ-9 drones since the start Operation Prosperity Guardian in December 2023. These two case studies have notable differences that are worth explaining. The Turkish military and intelligence services regularly fly over Kurdish controlled Iraq, which suggests that the shoot-down over Kirkuk was about Ankara flying too far south. This indicates that the freedom of flight over the Turkish-Iraqi border is more a reflection of a lack of air defenses, rather than the specific capabilities of the drones being flown. In Yemen, the use of American drones is similar to that of the Israeli case in 1982, where the Pioneer was used to assist the Air Force with the destruction of air defenses. The MQ-9 drones appear to be hunting for targets for the US Navy, albeit with increasing rates of attrition from a militia-type actor that inherited an antiquated air defense.
The growing vulnerability of these systems does not mean that drones are obsolete.
The growing vulnerability of these systems does not mean that drones are obsolete. They are certain to play a large role in every future conflict—and the current crop of lower cost systems are extremely valuable for intelligence and strike in permissive areas. However, the vulnerability of these systems to air defenses have prompted discussions about how current generations of unmanned systems may fare in combat. There are two major drone-centric ideas for how to utilize these systems in contested environments moving forward. The first is to drive down the cost of drone production, thereby making them attritable, and using mass to rapidly replace systems lost in combat.
The idea is that a lost drone is more financially and strategically advantageous than the cost of intercept, which would also make the defender more susceptible to aerial attack from other air or ground platforms. This approach to the future of drone warfare builds upon a long-accepted truism: The cost of defense exceeds the cost of offense. Therefore, it makes financial and strategic sense to invest more in offensive systems, so that an adversary is forced to invest more in defensive systems.
The other approach is to make drones stealthier, so that they can evade ground-based air defenses and survive in a modern combat environment. The tradeoff is that these systems will be more expensive and fielded in smaller numbers, but they can overcome defenses, be used for offensive missions, and still be survivable. The cost of production, therefore, is less than the anticipated effect these platforms could have during a conflict.
This debate is reminiscent of the conversations about the future of air power following US losses to ground-based air defense during the Vietnam War and the following Israeli rates of aircraft attrition during the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria. These debates spilled over into discussions about how to purchase and design aircraft. The United States, ultimately, sought to create a “high-low” mix of aircraft. At the time the F-16 represented the low and plentiful platform, and the F-15 represented the higher-end platform. These two aircraft have since been augmented with the F-22 and the F-35: two stealthy platforms conceived and designed to evade radar detection for air-to-air and air-to-ground missions and originally conceived as the future high-low mix of US and allied air power.
The debate about the aircraft design is broadly similar to those now taking place about the future of drones.
The debate about the aircraft design is broadly similar to those now taking place about the future of drones. If the idea is to develop mass, a cheaper, less capable drone makes sense. However, as the requirements for these drones to sense targets, or to assist with manned operations, increase, so too will the expected cost of each copy of the unmanned system. This is the story of the F-16’s evolution, which was initially conceived as a “simple” platform, but has since evolved into a do-it-all fighter.
The other option, of course, is to outfit the drone with extremely capable sensors, increasing the production price of the aircraft, and then making it low-observable to evade air defenses. This process could doom the drone to a small production run, which increases the cost per copy and increases maintenance costs. This is the story of the F-22’s manufacture.
These multiple factors suggest that the drones that dominated airspace during the Global War on Terror, and which are now being built and exported by a new crop of suppliers, face an uncertain future in modern conflict. These drones have a viable export market, especially for countries keen to acquire precision strike capabilities to combat non-state actors, or to fight against opponents with limited air defense.
The counterinsurgent or counterterrorism mission, while still important, is no longer how the United States is planning for future conflict.
The counterinsurgent or counterterrorism mission, while still important, is no longer how the United States is planning for future conflict. In a future conflict against a capable opponent, the rates of attrition are certain to be high. This is magnified by even the small-scale conflict in Yemen, where the Houthis (an inferior adversary) now have the tools to inflict higher rates of attrition against larger, non-stealthy drones.
These factors suggest that aircrafts purposely built for higher-end conflict will need to be more survivable, almost assuredly raising the cost of production and creating many of the same dilemmas for war planners that arose with the proliferation of surface-to-air missiles in the late 1960s.
The solution may be as straightforward as investing in lower cost, but capable unmanned aircraft, and using mass as the main means of overcoming the air defense challenge. This would require a new conception of the high-low mix of unmanned aircraft.
There are many potential options for this new concept, ranging from investing in highly capable stealthy drones for interdiction-type strikes to large numbers of cheaper systems designed only to extend sensor reach. It would also be useful to consider segmenting airspace, with investments made in different systems for different operators, each flying at different altitudes. This would allow for investments in systems for ground forces to operate independently of air operations center—a high-low mix for typical fighter and bomber altitudes—and systems designed to fly higher to replicate or augment systems in space.
The United States is investing in many of these capabilities, but the same basic issues present in air warfare since the development of the surface-to-air missiles are certain to shape how the future unmanned force is built and used in future combat.
Aaron Stein is the President of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.