Here's Why NATO Needs Better Drone Defenses

Recent incursions by Russian drones into NATO airspace had caused alarm across Europe, and triggered a military response from Poland. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has promised a 'drone wall' along its eastern border - but what would it take to build more effective defenses? Our Global Defense Editor Gerry Doyle joins host Stephen Carroll to discuss.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. I'm Stephen Carol and
this is Here's Why, where we take one news story
and explain it in just a few minutes with our
experts here at Bloomberg.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Russian drones violated Polish airspace and of course NATO's airspace.
Every one of us on the Eastern Flank are facing
certain risks every single night.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
It could well have been a deliberate action by the
Russians and the Beller Russians to see how good Polish
counter drone reaction was.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Footing's message is clear and our response must be clear too.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
This new technology of the mass use of drones is
a threat to all of the EU and nature, and
we need to face it together. It was a move
that sent a larm bells ringing around Europe. A volley
of Russian attack drones breached Polish territory, the most serious
incursion into a NATO member state since the War in
Ukraine began in twenty twenty two. Drone warfare has been

(01:08):
a central part of that conflict, and it's highlighted the
importance of having sufficient defenses against these unmanned aircraft, but
keeping up with the fast evolving technology is challenging and expensive.
Here's why NATO needs better drone defenses. Our Global Defense
outitor Jerry Doyle joins me. Now for more. Jerry, First

(01:30):
of all, how big is the potential threat from Russian drones?

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, much depends on what type of drones that they're
sending out. These one way attack drones, the heavier ones that'shahead,
those can do serious damage. They had the explosive potential
of a one hundred and fifty five millimeters our toury
show perhaps more. Other drones are used for surveillance and
reconnaissance spotting for our toury, and sometimes they just are

(01:55):
phone around to cause confusion and harassment. So much depends
on what type of drones are being used. The ones
that actually pull across the border did not seem to
pose too much of a military threat, but certainly they
could cause confusion and alarm on the ground. Certainly they
could gather information about the disposition and placement of European

(02:16):
military forces. And certainly they do show Russia something about
the preparedness and the defenses that Europe has on the
ground to deal with this type of threat.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
So what sort of defenses do NATO countries along that
eastern border actually have against drones at the moment.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, they have the same sort of defenses that they
do against other sort of aerial threats, missiles and radars
and in some cases consider just designed to shoot down
aircraft that are designed to shoot down cruise missiles, sort
of higher end threats that demand sort of a higher
end type response. The problem that they run into is
that it's not that these defenses can't handle drones. It's

(02:56):
that the cost of a drone is much lower than
the cost of missile or an aircraft sent up to
intercept them.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
So what would a drone wall that Oursila Vanderline has
talked about actually involve.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Nobody knows yet. The EU doesn't know yet, NATO doesn't
know yet. The architecture for that kind of a system
doesn't exist. I think theoretically what they would be looking
at would be less of a wall and more of
a intensely integrated detection network, so that any drones that
came over the border, there wouldn't be any lag time

(03:31):
in terms of protecting them. When they came over, there
wouldn't be any confusion about where they were headed and
the appropriate response would be easier to dial up. Now,
there are other sorts of aspect to this, where you
could interpret a drone wall it literally mean a collection
of drone interceptors sort of small drones to shoot down

(03:52):
other drones that could be deployed from the border to
do that sort of thing. But nobody has that yet. Again,
the architecture for it doesn't exist, and it's unclear whether
that's the direction they're going to ultimately go.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
So what, broadly speaking are the challenges in building up
defenses to this type of drone technology, which is changing
so quickly.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
The biggest challenge is expense, Right, the technology for radars
is there, The technology for infrared sensors and optical sensors
are all there, and indeed, as we see from other
defensive platforms that are used to shoot down crews, missiles
and aircraft, the missiles are there too. The trick is
going to be to scale these things down and work

(04:35):
them out in such a way where the cost of
shooting down a drone is not so wildly over the
cost of the drone itself, which again is why people
are looking at using small drones to intercept drone. They're
looking at systems that you sort of radar directed guns instead,
so that you're shooting down drones with the bullet, which
is obviously much less expensive than a missile. Are you

(04:57):
using electronic warfare systems which would basically radio frequency jammers
that can confuse or disable drones as they fly nearby.
And then lasers which are again big costly to develop,
but the individual cost per shot of a laser is
quite low.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
How long would it take to build up defenses like.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
This in a small area, Not necessarily very long. But
I think the challenge here on top of cost is
the scale of Europe's border with Russia or with the
areas where Russia might do these sort of drone incursions.
It's a vast geographical area, and so building up a
metaphorical wall of drone detection, you know, it could take years. Again,

(05:40):
not because the technology isn't there, but because building out
enough systems and deploying them and the manufacturing required would
would take some time.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Do we have good examples of areas where NATO has
been able to have that sort of cooperation at cross borders, because,
of course we're talking about a lot of different countries
along this border as well, each with their own national
military and defenses.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
I think they're quite good cooperation already in this sort
of larger air defense sphere where NTO aircraft for years
have been sent up to intercept Russian crude aircraft that
have flown into or nearby European airspace. And so that cooperation,
that handing off of information between countries and deciding whose
jets are going to go up and do the interception

(06:24):
that's already happening. So that sort of muscle memory is there,
it just has to be employed in a different realm.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Okay, Jerry Doyler, Global Defense Editor, Thank you very much.
For more explanations like this from our team of three
thousand journalists and analysts around the world, go to Bloomberg
dot com slash explainers. I'm Stephen Carroll. This is here's why.
I'll be back next week with more. Thanks for listening.