February 24, 2025 • 49 mins
Text the ATB Team! We'd love to hear from you!
Drones are reshaping the battlefield in the Russia-Ukraine war, revolutionizing surveillance, combat tactics, and logistics. In this episode of "At the Boundary," guest Sam Bendett from the Center for Naval Analyses to explore how unmanned systems—from FPV and kamikaze drones to USVs—are increasing battlefield transparency and forcing rapid tactical evolution.
As drones become integral to modern warfare, their adaptability is outpacing traditional military acquisition cycles. How are nations countering these threats, and what does this mean for the future of conflict? This discussion dives into the technological race shaping the next era of warfare.
Links from the episode:
• GNSI Tampa Summit 5: “The Russia-Ukraine War: Lessons for Future Conflicts” Registration Link
• “Keeping Allies in the Fight: Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq” Decision Brief
• “Should Congress Designate Mexican Cartels as Terrorists?” Decision Brief
• “Critical Resources for National Security” Decision Brief
At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.
A "boundary" is a place, either literal or figurative, where two forces exist in close proximity to each other. Sometimes that boundary is in a state of harmony. More often than not, that boundary has a bit of chaos baked in. The Global and National Security Institute will live on the boundary of security policy and technology and that's where this podcast will focus.
The mission of GNSI is to provide actionable solutions to 21st-century security challenges for decision-makers at the local, state, national and global levels. We hope you enjoy At the Boundary.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tad Schnaufer (00:00):
Pat.
(00:12):
Hello everyone, and welcome toanother episode of at the
boundary, the podcast from theglobal and national security
Institute at the University ofSouth Florida. I'm tat
schnaufer, your host for at theboundary today, filling in for
the usual host, Jim Cardoso,we have an excellent discussion
lined up for the podcast today.
(00:32):
Sam bendit, a researcher andadvisor at the Center for naval
analysis, who specializes inRussia, will be our special
guest, having spent a lot oftime in the region, especially
Ukraine, I really look forwardto our discussion with him
today. A couple notes before webring Sam into the studio, we've
published three new decisionbriefs recently. They're all
quick reads, diving into somevery important topics that are
(00:54):
dominating the headlines. Thefirst brief is focused on
critical natural resources. Astensions and competition
escalate around the globe. Willthe United States and its allies
have access to those criticalresources? And if not, how can
we ensure access to them? Thisbrief explores it all. We also
examine the importance of alliesand partnerships around the
world. Many experts concludethat the asymmetric advantage of
(01:17):
the United States long held overits adversaries as its global
network of allies andpartnerships. Is that still true
today? The brief discusses this,and finally, we tackle the
controversial issues surroundingthe branding of Mexican cartels
as terrorist organizations bythe United States Congress. It
may seem like an open and shutquestion, but is it really our
(01:37):
brief will fill you in all ofthese decision briefs are
available now on our website,where I'll drop the link down in
our show notes. We're just acouple of weeks away from the
Tampa summit number five. We'dlove to have you join us for the
conference, which is titled TheRussia, Ukraine war lessons for
future conflicts. It's scheduledfor March 4 and fifth at the
Marshall Student Center here atthe Tampa campus of USF. It's
(02:01):
free to attend, but registrationis required. We'll drop the link
for register in the show notes.
Speaking of the Russia Ukrainewar, it's our time to welcome
our special guest, Sam bended.
He'll also be appearing at theTampa summit number five,
speaking at a round tablediscussion focused on technology
and conflict on day one. Sam isa researcher and advisor at the
(02:21):
Center for naval analysis, withhis work focused on Russian
defense and technologydevelopments, while also
studying the country's uncrewedrobotic and autonomous military
systems. He's an adjunct seniorfellow for the center of New
American Security previously, hewas part of the National Defense
University. Additionally, he'san honorary mad scientist. With
the mad scientist initiative ofthe US Army Training and Doctor
(02:44):
of command, we're always excitedto have mad scientists on the
podcast. Welcome to the podcast,Sam. Thank you very much. Glad
to be here absolutely so youknow, we're going to talk about
drones today and how it'saffected the battlefield in
Ukraine. What's it mean forfuture conflicts, and just
looking at the production sideof things. Just last October,
President Zelensky was hadannounced that Ukraine was
(03:05):
capable of manufacturing up to 4million drones annually, just a
massive production increase overthe course of this war. And
likely Russia is producingdrones at, you know, nearly the
same pace. What does this? Whatdoes this look like? How drones
changed the battlescape? Sam,well, I think the simplest
explanation the one that'sthat's been
Sam Bendett (03:25):
in discussions over the past three years, is the
increasing transparency of thebattle space in general, with so
many UAVs in the air lookingdown, trying to monitor every
square kilometer of this Combat,most of the battlefield, in
fact, can be observed. And whathas happened since the start of
the war is that it has becomeincreasingly difficult, and in
(03:47):
many ways nearly impossible, tomass your forces in any large
number, because any vehicle, anyany personnel, any soldier that
is observed on the battlefieldor moves on the battlefield will
be tracked and ultimately willbe attacked by a UAV, most
likely an FPV drone. So massingyour forces in large formations
(04:08):
is cost prohibitive and almostalways results in losses. And
Russia launched several minorassaults recently, even this
week with several tanks orseveral armored personnel
carriers, and that smallgrouping of forces was observed
by Ukrainians, attacked andessentially dismantled. So it is
(04:29):
difficult to conduct these typeof operations, and of course, it
prompted an emergence of tacticsand concepts to deal with the
ubiquity of intelligence,surveillance and reconnaissance
drones overhead and tacticalattack drones that can
essentially strike within thedepth of the entire battlefield,
Tad Schnaufer (04:52):
right? So it sounds like this is even
changing, you know, becausethere's a big question, are
drones a revolution in warfare?
Are they more just an evolutionof warfare?
War, but if you're talking aboutlimiting the ability to mass
forces, you're really getting atdiminishing one of the key
principles of warfare, which ismass being able to conduct a
large scale attack. So is it? Isthis
(05:13):
proliferation of drones? Is thisbecoming more beyond the
tactical implications? Is itmore strategic implications? Or
is this really just on thebattlefield?
Sam Bendett (05:22):
Well, I think the impact of drones is
evolutionary, simply becausewhile it makes it very dangerous
for infantry and ground forcesand mechanized infantry to
operate, it doesn't cancel themout. They're still needed to
capture and hold the territory.
So drones can do a lot of damageagainst the adversary, but it
still takes ground forces to goin and actually hold it. So in
(05:44):
many ways, the warfare inUkraine remained the same as it
was before, and in many ways itnow resembles World War Two, or
even World War One warfare, withRussia launching mass scale
infantry attacks against theUkrainian forces. But we also
have to consider to what extentthe war in Ukraine is a unique
(06:06):
conflict versus a conflict thatis going to impact many, many
other conflicts. And so we areseeing, for example, drones
proliferate to other parts ofthe world, to other combat
zones. So from Syria to Israel,Hezbollah Gaza to Myanmar to
Sudan to Iran to Mexican cartelsand possibly other actors, we
(06:31):
see adaptation of some of theprinciples of drone warfare,
adaptation of technologies,concepts and tactics in some
form or another. But again,ultimately, warfare is about
holding the territory right. Andso UAE is robotic systems, no
matter how advanced they can, infact, do a lot of damage. They
(06:55):
cannot hold territory, and thatrequires infantry, ground
forces, regular soldiers, to goin and do what they've done for
centuries before. Sure,
Tad Schnaufer (07:06):
sure. So the fundamentals are still there,
but the tactics seem to bechanging as you have to deal
with these overhead threats fromdrones. What has that looked
like? You know, speaking ofmassing, how have tax over the
past couple of years been ableto manifest themselves without
being seen by drones. I'mthinking of the Ukrainian
incursion into Kursk province.
How were they able to massforces without being seen in
(07:27):
advance?
Sam Bendett (07:31):
So this required a lot of preparation on the part
of the Ukrainians to go afterRussian ISR assets, to go after
Russian intelligence,surveillance and reconnaissance
assets. This was accomplished bylaunching UAVs that intercepted
and took down a lot of Russianobservation drones. This was
also accomplished in no smallpart, by electronic warfare,
(07:52):
jamming of drone operatingfrequencies as well as
communication frequencies bysoldiers and units on the
ground. On the Russian side,Ukrainians conducted a lot of
intelligence, and haveidentified a specific section of
the front, or rather the borderin the Kursk region, where
Russian soldiers were not aswell prepared and not as well
(08:13):
equipped as soldiers at othersection of the border, and
certainly not as well equippedas The soldiers fighting
Ukrainians in eastern part ofthe country, so they were able
to kind of bring it all togetherright to go after ISR assets to
conduct electronic warfare,jamming and degrade Russian
(08:35):
communications, as well as takeadvantage of the fact that a lot
of soldiers on the Russian sideactually lacked combat
experience, and so Ukrainegathered experienced forces, and
once it conducted those tactics,it was able to create a gap, and
it poured into that gap, intothe Russian territory,
Tad Schnaufer (08:53):
right? So it sounds like surprise and speed
are still one of the keyelements to get around. You
know, the use of drones,particularly that is our
capability. That's correct, yes.
What are some of the other useswe're seeing? Let's stick on
aerial drones for the moment.
What are some other uses ofaerial drones have we seen
adapted since the war began? Soobviously you have surveillance,
(09:14):
you have being able to observeenemy movements and enemy
positions. But what else havethese drones been able to allow
the Russians and the Ukrainiansto do, and how has that changed
since the war started?
Sam Bendett (09:25):
Given a wide variety of UAVs operating fixed
wing, short and long rangedrones, fixed wing, Kamikaze,
one way attack drones,quadcopter logistics, supply and
combat UAVs, multi rotor, heavydrones that can also conduct
military missions and othermissions. And other missions
we're seeing uh, UAVs, uh,essentially perform signal
(09:47):
repeater roles where they canextend the operating signal by
care and communicationsequipment on board, so that FPV
drones and short range dronescan operate farther. And this
can be accomplished by uh.
Drones operating on their own assignal repeaters, or, for
example, heavier drones carryingshort range drones with them as
an aircraft carrier, releasingthem and then acting as a signal
(10:09):
repeater. We've seen UAVs,especially quadcopters and heavy
multi rotors, act as mining,where they can drop mines on
roads and locations in advanceof the adversarial forces, or
where adversarial forces areconcentrated, we've seen drones
actually perform logistics andsupply roles, probably with
(10:30):
increasing capacity as resupplyby any type of vehicle is
increasingly dangerous for bothsides. They're now resorting to
heavy or mid range quadcoptersand multi rotors actually
delivering ammunition, food,water and medicine.
Tad Schnaufer (10:50):
Well, I mean, that's a pretty extensive use of
drones. I mean, do we see dronesin the air, or even a land and
sea? Are they? We know you'dmentioned that the infantry, you
obviously have to hold ground,but are drones able to replace
soldiers and maybe other jobsduring the course of the war. So
whether we're talking aboutlogistics or surveillance,
Sam Bendett (11:08):
well, obviously, years ago, if you needed to
conduct surveillance, you wouldsend a foot soldier, or you
would try to send a lighthelicopter or light aircraft. To
do that, United States and justa handful of other countries had
more advanced capabilities wherethey could send an expensive
drone to conduct thosereconnaissance missions, but
(11:29):
those were expensive UAVs, andthe missions were limited to
just very high priority targets.
Now with the ubiquity ofcommercial type quadcopters,
which are either purchased fromChina or assembled from mostly
Chinese components, althoughboth sides are now manufacturing
these quadcopters with theincreasing share of domestic
(11:51):
components. Now you can justlaunch a light quadcopter right
that can go just several milesout, surveil the territory and
deliver information real time.
That has really had a massiveimpact, where you could be very
precise with your artillerystrikes, motor strike, motor
strikes, tank strikes and othertype of attacks by surveilling
(12:15):
and identifying the target inreal time while your forces are
actually held back, while yoursoldiers are held back. So this
is has had a very significantimpact on how forces are
operating and how they'restructuring their tactics,
Tad Schnaufer (12:31):
sure, but in the end, you still have, as they
say, a human in the loop, right?
So you're still having humans,you know, drive some of these
drones, and you still need themto be somewhere, whether they're
in a bunker or something likethat, to patrol them. So it's
not necessarily affecting, Iguess, the overall manpower
issues that the either sidemight be facing. That's
Sam Bendett (12:51):
correct. In fact, most of the drones that you see
operating, most of the videosfrom UAVs that you now see on
social media, on Twitter andtelegram and other platforms,
they actually come from not justa single individual, but from a
groups, from a group ofindividuals. So for an FPV drone
to conduct a strike, you need anFPV pilot. You also need an
(13:11):
overhead ISR drone to surveilthe territory and lead that FPV
to target and provide additionalinformation back to the drone
unit, and of course, FPV pilotis just going to be busy
piloting the drone. So you needa commander. You need someone
who can actually take theinformation from a
(13:32):
reconnaissance quadcopter andactually combine that with the
data that is seen and receivedby an FPV operator. And then
also, occasionally, you need anadditional individual who would
be a munitions expert, someonewho would be able to attach
munitions or even conduct repairfor either an FPV drone or a
(13:52):
quadcopter. You also sometimesneed a driver to take the drone
crew in and out of combat. Sowe're talking anywhere between
two to five people permission.
So this is still very muchmanpower intensive operation,
but that is what can assure theprecision, because you have
multiple eyes in the air,literally with an FPD pilot
(14:14):
flying to target, with areconnaissance drone overhead
providing Overwatch, and otherpeople actually trying to
combine all that information fora precise strike. Could you
Tad Schnaufer (14:26):
explain a little bit more detail what FPV is for
the our audience?
Sam Bendett (14:30):
So three years into the war, FPV has become the
weapon of choice. FPV drone is afirst person view. It's a racing
drone. It's a commercial dronewhich was built for racing in a
commercial setting, and it wasvery quickly adapted to carry
munitions, such as an RPGwarhead, for example, an
(14:50):
explosive directly at Target. Sowhat it basically does is that
it turns a pilot into a flyingbullet. Yeah. Or a flying
explosive so FPV drones arehighly maneuverable. You can
strike a very precise locationon the target. You can go up,
you can go left, right, you cancircle, you can come back for
(15:13):
another run. So it makes it avery versatile tactical weapon
in the in the beginning of theconflict, FPV drones at a short
range, probably no more thanthree to five kilometers. There
are now models on both sideswhich fly farther and with a
signal repeater, those dronescan potentially strike 1015,
kilometers behind the line ofcontact. So an FPV drone is
(15:36):
mostly assembled from commercialcomponents, and both sides are
still assembling these in largequantities from components they
can get from China. Soessentially, the bulk of the
millions of UAVs flying on bothsides are sourced from China,
and are still sourced fromChina. And in the sense that it
(15:58):
is cheap to acquire thesecomponents in very large
quantities, and that's exactlywhat Russians and Ukrainians are
doing. And I said earlier,they're claiming to increase the
substitution of these componentswith the domestic parts, and
that's happening slowly butsurely still. However, the
reliance on these importedcomponents is relatively high,
(16:19):
which is why, again, both sidescan claim to field such enormous
numbers of UAVs a year well.
Tad Schnaufer (16:28):
And with that in mind, you know, talking about
again, the beginning of the warin February 22 until now, how
has drone types, you know, losttheir usefulness or
effectiveness? As this kind oftechnology cycle goes a new
drone comes into play, you know,whether we're talking about
kamikaze drones and then airdefenses are, you know,
technology advances enough to,you know, make them, in a sense,
obsolete, and then you have anew set of drones that come in
(16:48):
later. Can you go throughbriefly, kind of what that cycle
looks like in, in this case,
Sam Bendett (16:53):
well, it's a proverbial sword versus shield
fight. As soon as the swordbecomes more advanced and
sharper, the shield becomes morepowerful, and in turn, the sword
becomes and the shield and so onand so forth. So the rapid
development and fielding ofdifferent types of UAVs in the
war also led to the rapiddevelopment of countermeasures,
(17:16):
and these are electronic warfarecountermeasures, jamming of
drone operating frequencies andcommand and control signals. As
that happened, drones startedoperating at different
frequencies, and as soon as thathappened, electronic warfare
systems had to be adjusted andbuilt for those type of
frequencies. So now you haveelectronic warfare systems that
(17:37):
can operate on multiplefrequency bands to go after a
variety of operating frequenciesfor UAVs, you now have frequency
analyzers as well as dronedetectors. Some of these
technologies are moresophisticated. Frequency
analyzer can actually analyzethe frequency band of a drone
(17:58):
overhead so you can determineexactly what it is and whether
it's friendly or not, and thedrone, a detector, will simply
tell you that there's a drone inyour immediate vicinity, so that
you can take appropriatemeasures. A lot of these
technologies are alsocommercial, or have commercial
origins, and have flooded thecombat and so now both sides are
(18:21):
manufacturing these type ofdetectors and jammers in very
large quantities. And this workessentially gave birth to a
tactical ew complex, tacticalelectronic warfare complex
called trench electronicwarfare, which is the which is
the term that's used a lot thesedays. There's been a push
towards physical protection ofweapons systems, locations
(18:46):
soldiers, trenches and dugoutswith nets and other mechanisms.
And again, these evolve as thethreat evolves as well. There's
been a push for the kineticdestruction of UAVs, if nothing
else works, and that's why youhave soldiers on both sides
training to shoot down thesetactical drones with shotguns
(19:08):
and rifles, pump action riflesand and and other types of
systems. These, of course, aretactical short range drones.
We're not even talking aboutlong range UAVs, the ones that
are used by both sides. Butagain, at the tactical level,
there's been a lot ofdevelopments leading to how to
(19:31):
take down these drones and thenhow to operate. So there's lots
of instructions which are publicand are released on a regular
basis by both sides of whatsoldiers should and should not
be doing if they are in atrench, if they are in a dugout,
how they should be moving onfoot, how they should be moving
in a vehicle, what to do if youcited a drone, how to hide, how
(19:52):
to run, how to take it down. Sothis type of evolution is
probably daily, and you. Dronetechnology can can become
obsolete and stale within acouple of months, so you have to
iterate very, very quickly, andthat's why both sides are racing
against each other and probablyone of the largest technology
(20:15):
races in war, probably since theend of the Cold War. And this
involves not just the militaryinstitutions or military
companies and defense industrialenterprises, but it also
involves a massive share of ofthe civilian society as well,
(20:36):
with lots of volunteers andtechnical startups which rose to
prominence over the past threeyears, and number and in the
many hundreds now on both sides,which manufacture and assemble
UAVs, kind of UAV systems, andanything else that's needed for
the front
Tad Schnaufer (20:55):
right? Because we've seen an explosion of use
of just basic civilian dronesyou can buy off the shelf that
have been modified for the war,whether if it includes an extra
camera or the ability, asmentioned, the drop of mine, or
a grenade on a tank, orsomething like that. So we're
seeing these civilian quadcopters that, you know, you
might have at home also beingused, you know, modified,
obviously, for the war,
Sam Bendett (21:17):
right? And so this started on both sides, with
volunteers bringing to thesoldiers the types of supplies
that the soldiers lack. And sowhen we talk about drones,
obviously the number one gapidentified at the tactical
level, once the war becamestationary and attritional was
the lack of that tactical UAV,something that can be easily
(21:41):
operated, uh, easily used,easily lost and quickly
replaced, uh, up to a range of,let's say, five to 10
kilometers. This is why, in 2022we've seen an explosion of in
the use rather of Chinese madeDGI Mavic series, right? And
these are civilian quad coptersbuilt for civilian applications.
(22:03):
They're easy to learn, they'reeasy to maintain, they're just
easy to fly right out of thebox. And so that's why, in 2022
commercial quadcopters basicallygave other weapons the precision
they lacked in this war. Andthen DGI Mavic series quad
copters still remain the weaponof choice for both sides, and
(22:26):
even as Russia and Ukraine areclaiming that they're now
manufacturing domestic quadcopters that can substitute a
DJI Mavic that's still probablya long shot, considering how
ubiquitous, cheap and easy DJImavics really are. And then
moving into 2023 and 24 we seethe rise of FPV drones, one way,
(22:47):
kamikaze drones, which weremanufactured in increasing
quantities, from 1000s a monthto 10s of 1000s, to now hundreds
of 1000s per month. And withthat, we saw the rise of other
similar type of drones, forexample, fixed wing aircraft
type kamikaze UAVs, which alsofly short distances between five
(23:08):
to 20 kilometers. And a lot ofthese were assembled by
commercial enterprises, bystartups, even by individuals,
literally in their garage or intheir kitchen or on their
balcony. The problem, of course,with that is that you don't have
a standard. You have a differentquality of assembly, different
(23:30):
quality of manufacturing. And alot of soldiers and operators
complain that a lot of theseUAVs actually didn't work as
intended when they weredelivered to the front. So this
prompted both militaries andboth governments to institute
checks and balances andorganizations that would be able
to facilitate the quality check,the quality control and official
(23:55):
testing and evaluation of thesetechnologies. And so Ukraine has
a brave one platform, which hasbeen very efficient and very
effective in giving theopportunity for lots and lots of
Ukrainian private sectordevelopers to showcase their
technology for Ukrainianmilitary and for the Ukrainian
(24:15):
military to test that technologyand either accept it for mass
scale application or rejectedfor further improvements. Russia
was behind that curve, but italso established these type of
accelerators and platforms wherethese type of commercial techs
could be used alongside with andoverlap with military grade
technologies.
Tad Schnaufer (24:37):
And with that in mind, with with the drones
continuing to expand. As yousaid, over the period of the
war, have we seen, you know,quote, unquote, drones swarms
attacking targets, whetherthey're civilian based quad
copters or these more fixed wingcrafts. Are we seeing these
large number drone attacks, oris it's primarily just the more
observation and smaller scaledrone usage?
Sam Bendett (25:00):
We're starting to see more and more groups used by
especially by Ukrainians andRussians. Can play this
complaint as far back as 2023that Ukrainians were flying
their UAVs in groups with aheavy drone accompanied by
smaller drones made by anoverhead ISR drone. So anywhere
between five, six to 10 or evenmore of those UAVs, but those
(25:22):
are all human piloted. Those areall Remote Piloted. So you don't
actually have an intelligentswarm that we have been
theorizing for years at thispoint, and even since the
beginning of the war, there werehints that the growing number of
UAVs will ultimately beassembled into swarms. It's not
as technologically feasible, andis not as easy as originally
(25:45):
intended. And so humans are verymuch in the loop. And so for
every grouping of UAVs which areoperating, you have at least
several operators andaccompanying personnel making
sure that this grouping can fly.
Ultimately, of course, with theadvance of commercial
technologies and militarytechnologies used in the war,
both sides are starting to claimthat in the near future, they
(26:06):
can actually field a swarm rightover you at ease, that would be
able to operate more or lessindependently, and have the
human on the loop, not firmly inThe Loop. But again, that's
technologically difficult in ain the Ukrainian battle space
that steaming with so manycountermeasures, right? But
last, I believe, last December,November, Ukraine claimed that a
(26:30):
2025, would be the year of anactual emergence of a swar,
right? And so we will see howfar Ukraine will go. And of
course, Russians are copyingUkrainian tactics. Sometimes
they're trying to get ahead ofthe Ukrainian tactics, but they
will do so as well. I shouldhave mentioned earlier, when we
were talking about the types ofUAVs used the new type that made
(26:51):
its appearance, of course, bythe Russians as the first movers
in the space was the fiber opticcontrolled UAV, and that's a new
development where all thecommand and control and video is
essentially delivered by a fiberoptic cable that unspools behind
the drone as it flies, and sothat negates electronic warfare
(27:12):
jamming countermeasures, andprompts both sides, which are
now fielding these drones tocome up with new ways to defend
themselves against a drone thatcannot be jammed. And so
Russians started using thesefiber optic UAVs against the
Ukrainians in Kursk Region.
They're they're using more andmore of these UAVs. Now,
(27:35):
Ukrainians are alsomanufacturing a large number of
these fiber optic drones andextending the range of those
UAVs, where you go from a fiberoptic spool of five to 10
kilometers at the beginning, nowup to 40
Tad Schnaufer (27:48):
kilometers.
That's a lot of coil there.
That's a lot of coil, and
Sam Bendett (27:53):
there's a lot of coil on the on the battlefield.
Now, there's videos emergingfrom the Russians, which
basically show a field, andit's, it's almost like, it's
almost like it's covered inspider webs, which is, and these
are fiber optic coils going backand forth. So that creates its
own set of challenges for thedefenders and the attackers.
(28:13):
Well, it's fascinating
Tad Schnaufer (28:15):
to see how that technology evolves, and you
would think that it wouldcontinually go remote, but it's
interesting to see wiresconnected back to the drones.
You think it kind of go theother way with way, where they
become more autonomous, butbecause of the jamming
capabilities, they're having togo straight back to landlines.
Well,
Sam Bendett (28:31):
there's still a lot of development on autonomous
UAVs. There's limited autonomyin play with a target lock and
target recognition for a drone,where operator identifies the
target, and then the drone lockson that target and flies there
without communicating with theoperator, and is therefore also
impervious to electronic warfareat that section of its flight.
(28:51):
There's still a lot ofdevelopment in that direction,
but as true autonomy was lackingand swarms were probably far
away, both sides switch to morepractical applications of UAVs,
and that's why we have a fiberoptic drone, which could also be
assembled relatively cheaply andalso with components that could
(29:13):
be sourced from China. A Ithink, a 10 kilometer fiber
optic spool that you can buy inAliexpress costs about $130
okay, so once again, you canaugment your existing FPV drone
or quadcopter to become a fiberoptic UAV relatively quickly and
relatively cheaply.
Tad Schnaufer (29:33):
And with that in mind and looking we've been
speaking a lot about the aerialversions of drones, but just to
take a quick turn to going backto land and then sea drones as
well, which have played a largepart in the conflict, maybe not
as large as the aerial drones,but certainly have played a
role. So if we're looking at theBlack Sea and what the
Ukrainians have been able to dowith their drones at sea, what
(29:55):
are the big implications you seethere?
Sam Bendett (29:58):
Well, Ukrainians were definitely. First movers,
and had the enormous advantagein launching their land surface
vessels against the RussianBlack Sea Fleet. This was a
tactic that the Russians simplywere not ready for, were not
prepared for, and took a longtime to adjust to. In the
meantime, Ukraine launchedseveral generations of usvs
against, excuse me, again, builtwith commercial components, with
(30:22):
Starlink communication system asthe focal point of those usvs,
to maintain communication overhundreds of kilometers. And
those were coming out usvs,which would essentially explode
at Target. And we've seen andwitnessed the evolution of those
drones, going from one wayattack to now carriers of
different types of weapons andsystems. And so those drones can
(30:45):
carry fpvs to attack Russiantargets. They now carry short
range air missiles to attack anddestroy Russian helicopters. And
there are other weapons thatcould be installed on those usvs
against you again, Ukrainianswere the first movers. They
damaged and sunk a number ofRussian ships in port and at
(31:07):
sea, and that prompted Russiansto field a number of
countermeasures. And probablythe more effective one, until
that helicopter was shut down,was Russian Navy launching
helicopters against those usvs,to identify and destroy them,
and even though Russia probablyinterdicts a large share of
(31:29):
those usvs, those that actuallymake it through have an enormous
impact on the state of theRussian Black Sea Fleet and on
their morale. Russians arecopying some of those USV
designs. They're designing theirown and building their own also
as one way attack drones orcarriers of other weapons and
systems as ISR components tolook for and scour the Black Sea
(31:52):
for the appearance of theUkrainian usvs to communicate
this threat back to the BlackSea Fleet and to shore. Russians
are conducting FPV trainingacross all fleets so that
soldiers would be and navypersonnel would be able to fly
these drones At short distancesto target and destroy Ukrainian
(32:13):
usvs. The USV piloting coursesare now appearing in Russian
fleets, as well as a way toabsorb lessons from this war for
further applications. But again,Ukrainians were first to utilize
this weapon, and they showed theworld that it doesn't take a lot
(32:33):
of money and it doesn't take alot of technology to feel the
system that can threaten a whatis arguably one of the largest
navies in the world, and make itessentially ineffective,
Tad Schnaufer (32:46):
yeah, and cost, it's a very cost effective way
to, uh, sink major ships aswell. Exactly, exactly. So have
we seen, uh, a number of droneagainst drone countermeasures in
this case, or also in the aerialfield, where you just have
drones that are actually goingout seeking other drones to
destroy absolutely
Sam Bendett (33:05):
we've seen Ukraine utilize FPV type interceptors
against Russian ISR fixed wingdrones, and so they again did
that as a way to degrade Russiansurveillance capabilities and
use this tactic very effectivelyagainst Russian forces in the
Kursk, as we've mentionedearlier, again, Ukrainians were
(33:27):
the first movers in this space.
And because Russian observationUAVs fly relatively slow such as
the orlon, the Zala, theSuperCam series, they can become
easy targets for fast moving FTPdrones. Russians began
installing localized ew systemsand warning systems on their
UAVs to warn the operator that adrone may be approaching. And
(33:50):
we're sort of seeing how that isplaying out technologically, but
it doesn't seem to have a lot ofeffect against Ukrainian UAVs.
So Ukrainian interceptors aregiving sort of an impetus for
the Russian forces to changetheir operating tactics with
surveillance and reconnaissance.
Russians are using their dronesas interceptors as well against
(34:14):
Ukrainian larger, heavier UAVs,like the multi rotor heavy
drones, which Russian stuff BabaYaga after a an ogres and a
witch from the folktales, Slavicfolktales, because those type of
UAVs attack at night and cause alot of damage and havoc and
stress for the Russian military.
So they're using drones withthermal imagers to go after
(34:34):
Ukrainian slow flying bombingdrones as well. So again, we are
seeing a very quick and fastadoption of tactics, principles
and concepts, which becamesuccessful from one side. And
Tad Schnaufer (34:48):
then, you know, seeing this adaptation on an air
and at sea. What are we lookingat on land? You know, we've seen
the kind of drones that cancarry, obviously, equipment for
soldiers so they don't have tocarry it. We've seen drones. On
land that can do de miningoperations, so they can go out
and clear a field of mineswithout risking, obviously, the
life of the operator. And thenwe've seen drones, you know, in
(35:09):
the news with a, you know, AK 47mounted on top of it. How are we
seeing land drones used here?
Sam Bendett (35:14):
So land drones are following sort of the same
evolutionary concept as aerialdrones, as as FTV drones,
especially as movement in thisbattle space is becoming
increasingly difficult. Assupply and evacuation runs and
missions are becoming moredangerous for food soldiers, as
(35:35):
well as for any mechanizedvehicle or any vehicle. For that
matter, both sides are buildinglight UGV platforms probably no
bigger than your regular loveseat or a couch. Usually it's
tracked. Some of them arewheeled to act in or rather
perform surveillance orevacuation or supply or similar
(36:00):
type of mission, we're seeingfewer of those in combat, simply
because as soon as a drone likethat engages, engages their
targets, essentially, it couldbe attacked, and is almost
always attacked and destroyed byaerial drones. But because
Ukraine in front is very large,it's not always possible for
(36:22):
observation UAVs to monitor theentire battle space. And so
soldiers are building, or areusing those type of light
tactical UGVs, built by startupsand volunteer communities and
private sector and even themilitary for logistics and
resupply and evacuation runs.
And so this is done at shortdistances. These are also remote
controlled. UAVs, excuse me,UGVs on manground vehicles, some
(36:45):
of them are now also fiber opticcontrolled to again negate
adversarial jamming, so thatthey could go for up to several
kilometers and perform a missionthat would be very dangerous to
do for a regular food soldier,or even a food soldier in a
protected vehicle? Yeah,
Tad Schnaufer (37:05):
I've even seen videos of them, I guess,
prototyping drones that couldground, drones that could drive
out and pick up like a woundedsoldier and drag them back to
the safety of friendly lines.
Right,
Sam Bendett (37:18):
right. And of course, the safety of the
soldier who is evacuated thisway is also dependent on whether
or not this entire operation isobserved by an adversarial
Right.
Tad Schnaufer (37:28):
Absolutely. So we're seeing that advancement of
drones across the domains ofair, sea and on land. What you
know? What can we learn from thecurrent conflict in Ukraine, and
what can we see going forward inother conflicts, as you
mentioned the beginning of ourtalk around the world, how do we
see drones playing roles there?
Sam Bendett (37:49):
We witness in Ukraine a very rapid adaptation
of new technologies and newtactics. We witness a very rapid
adaptation of commercial type oftechnologies. And of course, the
commercial sector can move veryquickly in developing something
new, something relevant, it canmove much faster than a large
defense industrial enterprise.
And this is probably true theworld over, not just in Russia,
Ukraine, conflict. So thequestion arises, how quickly can
(38:13):
militaries around the worldabsorb these solutions? How
quickly they can acquire and sothe question of the the entire
research development, testing,evaluation and acquisition
cycle, which used to take placeover the course of years and
sometimes even decades, prior tothis specific conflict, now it
is shrinking. It is shrinking,by necessity, to less than a
(38:35):
year to a few months, to even afew weeks. So that's probably
major lesson, and this issomething that United States
military and US allies areactively discussing and debating
how quickly they can reformtheir acquisition to take
advantage of new technologiesand new salute and new solutions
that already exist. Obviously,there's a huge impact on
(38:58):
surveillance and reconnaissanceand how forces can operate
reconstitute themselves in anenvironment where they could be
observed by lots of differenttypes of UAVs. There's a lot of
issues related to the counterUAV tactics and concepts, which
include electronic warfare andsimilar countermeasures. What is
(39:19):
required for modern forces tohave in their arsenal to defend
against these UAVs? And ofcourse, there's a there are a
lot of questions about training,training of operators, training
of people to support these typeof tactical drone units. What is
required to do that, and how canforces best train with available
(39:41):
technologies so that they canoperate in that increasingly
busy battle space? Finally, it'sthe impact of numbers. Now, any
military force, any militaryformation or any force out
there, whether it's military orparamilitary or um. It could be
an organized crime group or evenempowered individuals have they
(40:03):
can all have access to thetechnology that's used in
Ukraine right now, simplybecause manuals on how to do and
assemble those UAVs, how tomanufacture them, are all over
the internet right now. So youcan take a few hours to learn.
You can take several days, afterseveral weeks to learn how to
solder and assemble andmanufacture these drones, but
(40:25):
ultimately, in a relativelyshort amount of time, you can
have a functioning quad copteror even a fixed wing light UAV.
You can also buy thesecommercially, and you can also
adapt them for militaryapplications. And again, the
instructions and evidence is outthere. And so it doesn't take a
lot anymore to build out anactual drone force. So the
(40:47):
threshold to entry right forindividuals, groups, formations
and countries and states toacquiring their own UAV force
has been lowered significantly.
And so we have to sort ofconsider how we can operate in
an environment where multipletypes of actors can have access
(41:10):
to this type of technology andimpact how United States or NATO
or allied forces operate. Well,
Tad Schnaufer (41:17):
it's particularly talking about how they're made,
and looking at the West, andeven Russia, for example, where,
at the time, was getting a lotof its drones from Iran. I'm
sure the domestic, domesticproduction is something on the
minds of Western leaders,because, as you mentioned, a lot
of the drones come from Chinacurrently. So you'd want that
supply probably to be more onthe domestic front than from
(41:38):
overseas,
Sam Bendett (41:39):
right? And so both sides in the war in Ukraine are
claiming an increasing share ofimport substitution. They're
claiming that they'remanufacturing drones to
substitute Chinese made UAVs tolessen the dependence on
components and and Chinesedrones in general. Of course,
the issue is that Chinabasically corners the commercial
(42:02):
drone market. It completelydominates it. You can still
acquire these drones easily atany number of online or physical
commercial marketplaces. And soagain, it would take a
determined individual or groupof people some time, but they
can ultimately learn how toconvert their civilian products
(42:23):
to military applications. And ofcourse, that also has a huge
effect on how establishedmilitaries will fight in
conventional attack conflictsgoing further,
Tad Schnaufer (42:35):
absolutely, absolutely. And as we look
forward, can we do we see apossibility of an in a sense, as
stationary drones, where youjust have a bunch of dugouts
with machine guns that areremotely operated, for example,
holding a front line orsomething like that, to again
decrease the risk to the actualsoldier. But having these kind
of remote control outposts,absolutely
Sam Bendett (42:57):
and both sides in the war in Ukraine are actually
developing such such systems,and this could be the future of
some of the tactical warfarewhere, again, a single soldier
or a group of soldiers canoperate a range of aerial and
ground and if necessary,maritime systems that can be
(43:20):
combined in a single sort ofnetworked environment, and can
identify targets and relay backthe priority of the targets that
they have selected for ultimatedecision by a human but it is
possible, and this is somethingboth sides and other militaries
around the world are working onright now. So
Tad Schnaufer (43:42):
yeah, certainly a force multiplier, where
eventually you could see where asmall group of soldiers could
command a plethora of weapons,remote controlling so they're in
relative safety in a bunkersomewhere or something in remote
controlling grounds and airassets. That's correct? Well,
that will certainly beinteresting play as the war in
(44:03):
Ukraine hopefully comes to anend at some point and then in
the future of how conflict willbe played out, whether that's in
the Indo Pacific or somewhereelse. Which one other thing to
note is the range of drones. Sowe would just know that we were
noting about different dronetypes in the Ukraine war, other
conflicts, such as maybe oneover Taiwan, would be much
different. Be just because ofthe ranges. It'd be harder to
(44:25):
use those civilian drones if, ifI'm not mistaken, in a long
scale, you know, if you'retalking hundreds of miles that
you have to cover to get to theactual fighting,
Sam Bendett (44:33):
right? And that's why, when it comes to long
range, UAVs, Russian andUkrainian manufacturers and
developers are building militarygrade drones, one way attack
drones, mostly coming from themilitary industrial sector, but
also relying on commercialcomponents in one form or
(44:56):
another. And so that's howRussia is fielding Iranian. UAVs
that they have rebuilt into adomestic version called Get on.
And Ukrainians are usingprobably at least a dozen at
this point, long range UAVs, oneway attack, UAVs that can go
after Russian targets more than1000 miles from the border. And
(45:22):
Ukraine has done itsuccessfully. Has done these
attacks quite successfullyagainst Russian energy
infrastructure, militaryinfrastructure, and even
civilian infrastructure. And ofcourse, Russia always responds
with the launches of these Geronloitering munitions against
Ukrainian targets. Also able tostrike essentially targets
(45:45):
across the entire Ukrainianterritory.
Tad Schnaufer (45:49):
Very interesting.
And just to wrap up today, thefinal question, kind of a two
parter, if you're just a normalinfantry soldier, what's the
biggest pro for the advancementof drones, as you see it right
now and then? What's the biggestcalm what should an infantry
soldier, you know, fear from theadvancement of drones as we
continue to see this war evolve.
Sam Bendett (46:09):
So an infantry soldier should fear the
appearance of a tactical UAVoverhead. And sometimes those
UAVs can sneak past all mannerof defenses. And that's where
you have videos right now ofRussian soldiers trying to hide
from the angry noise of an FPVdrone circling overhead, sort of
(46:32):
that very, very angry bee thatultimately has a deadly sting,
creating this new form of PTSD,where as soon as you hear this
noise, you need to takeappropriate evasive measures,
whether that UAV is a as a is anenemy drone or even a friendly
UAV, as far as pros, forinfantry soldiers, they can
(46:58):
carry A number of technologiesthat can enable them to identify
drones in flight and takeappropriate measures. And so
there's a a rapid evolution oftactics and technologies to
enable an individual warfighterto withstand drone attacks and
to mitigate the drone presence,but these technologies and
(47:19):
tactics have to adapt as quicklyas the adversarial drones are
evolving, and so it's a constantrace which creates not just
enormous technological pressure,but also has a massive emotional
impact. Now you have to look upall the time, and this is
something that militaries didn'treally have to do in certain
(47:43):
types of conflicts. Now, ifyou're entering any type of
conflict, you have to considerwhether your opponent is going
to field these type oftechnologies and systems to go
after your individual soldiers,groups of soldiers, groups of
vehicles, or essentiallyanything that is military grade
or military affiliated.
Tad Schnaufer (48:04):
Well, that sounds like a pretty scary type
conflict with so many droneslike that and well, thank you,
Sam, so much for your input, andwe look forward to hearing you
speak at our upcoming summit ina couple of weeks here at the
USF main campus. Thank you verymuch. Many. Thanks to our
special guest today, Sam beddeda researcher and advisor at the
Center for naval analysis,specializing in Russia. We've
(48:25):
learned a lot today about thecurrent state of the Russia
Ukraine war, as well as what thefuture may hold in Eastern
Europe, especially in terms oftechnological advancements
resulting from the war. If you'dlike to hear and see even more
of Sam, he'll be part of ourround table discussion featured
at GNSI Tampa Summit, numberfive in two weeks. Check out our
website for more information.
Next week, at at the boundary,we'll continue our conversations
(48:48):
about the Russia, Ukraine war.
This time, however, we'll bringin four outstanding students
from our future strategistprograms. Students can bring
fresh eyes and ideas to topics,and I'm looking forward to
hearing their perspective.
That's next week. If you don'twant to miss it or any of our
other episodes, please be sureto subscribe to the podcast
(49:13):
that's going to wrap up thisepisode of at the boundary. Each
new episode will feature globaland national security issues we
found to be worthy of attentionand discussion. I'm tashoffer,
your guest host, filling in forJim Cardoso, thanks again for
listening today, and we'll seeyou at the boundary. You.
Pat.
(00:12):
Hello everyone, and welcome toanother episode of at the
boundary, the podcast from theglobal and national security
Institute at the University ofSouth Florida. I'm tat
schnaufer, your host for at theboundary today, filling in for
the usual host, Jim Cardoso,we have an excellent discussion
lined up for the podcast today.
(00:32):
Sam bendit, a researcher andadvisor at the Center for naval
analysis, who specializes inRussia, will be our special
guest, having spent a lot oftime in the region, especially
Ukraine, I really look forwardto our discussion with him
today. A couple notes before webring Sam into the studio, we've
published three new decisionbriefs recently. They're all
quick reads, diving into somevery important topics that are
(00:54):
dominating the headlines. Thefirst brief is focused on
critical natural resources. Astensions and competition
escalate around the globe. Willthe United States and its allies
have access to those criticalresources? And if not, how can
we ensure access to them? Thisbrief explores it all. We also
examine the importance of alliesand partnerships around the
world. Many experts concludethat the asymmetric advantage of
(01:17):
the United States long held overits adversaries as its global
network of allies andpartnerships. Is that still true
today? The brief discusses this,and finally, we tackle the
controversial issues surroundingthe branding of Mexican cartels
as terrorist organizations bythe United States Congress. It
may seem like an open and shutquestion, but is it really our
(01:37):
brief will fill you in all ofthese decision briefs are
available now on our website,where I'll drop the link down in
our show notes. We're just acouple of weeks away from the
Tampa summit number five. We'dlove to have you join us for the
conference, which is titled TheRussia, Ukraine war lessons for
future conflicts. It's scheduledfor March 4 and fifth at the
Marshall Student Center here atthe Tampa campus of USF. It's
(02:01):
free to attend, but registrationis required. We'll drop the link
for register in the show notes.
Speaking of the Russia Ukrainewar, it's our time to welcome
our special guest, Sam bended.
He'll also be appearing at theTampa summit number five,
speaking at a round tablediscussion focused on technology
and conflict on day one. Sam isa researcher and advisor at the
(02:21):
Center for naval analysis, withhis work focused on Russian
defense and technologydevelopments, while also
studying the country's uncrewedrobotic and autonomous military
systems. He's an adjunct seniorfellow for the center of New
American Security previously, hewas part of the National Defense
University. Additionally, he'san honorary mad scientist. With
the mad scientist initiative ofthe US Army Training and Doctor
(02:44):
of command, we're always excitedto have mad scientists on the
podcast. Welcome to the podcast,Sam. Thank you very much. Glad
to be here absolutely so youknow, we're going to talk about
drones today and how it'saffected the battlefield in
Ukraine. What's it mean forfuture conflicts, and just
looking at the production sideof things. Just last October,
President Zelensky was hadannounced that Ukraine was
(03:05):
capable of manufacturing up to 4million drones annually, just a
massive production increase overthe course of this war. And
likely Russia is producingdrones at, you know, nearly the
same pace. What does this? Whatdoes this look like? How drones
changed the battlescape? Sam,well, I think the simplest
explanation the one that'sthat's been
Sam Bendett (03:25):
in discussions over the past three years, is the
increasing transparency of thebattle space in general, with so
many UAVs in the air lookingdown, trying to monitor every
square kilometer of this Combat,most of the battlefield, in
fact, can be observed. And whathas happened since the start of
the war is that it has becomeincreasingly difficult, and in
(03:47):
many ways nearly impossible, tomass your forces in any large
number, because any vehicle, anyany personnel, any soldier that
is observed on the battlefieldor moves on the battlefield will
be tracked and ultimately willbe attacked by a UAV, most
likely an FPV drone. So massingyour forces in large formations
(04:08):
is cost prohibitive and almostalways results in losses. And
Russia launched several minorassaults recently, even this
week with several tanks orseveral armored personnel
carriers, and that smallgrouping of forces was observed
by Ukrainians, attacked andessentially dismantled. So it is
(04:29):
difficult to conduct these typeof operations, and of course, it
prompted an emergence of tacticsand concepts to deal with the
ubiquity of intelligence,surveillance and reconnaissance
drones overhead and tacticalattack drones that can
essentially strike within thedepth of the entire battlefield,
Tad Schnaufer (04:52):
right? So it sounds like this is even
changing, you know, becausethere's a big question, are
drones a revolution in warfare?
Are they more just an evolutionof warfare?
War, but if you're talking aboutlimiting the ability to mass
forces, you're really getting atdiminishing one of the key
principles of warfare, which ismass being able to conduct a
large scale attack. So is it? Isthis
(05:13):
proliferation of drones? Is thisbecoming more beyond the
tactical implications? Is itmore strategic implications? Or
is this really just on thebattlefield?
Sam Bendett (05:22):
Well, I think the impact of drones is
evolutionary, simply becausewhile it makes it very dangerous
for infantry and ground forcesand mechanized infantry to
operate, it doesn't cancel themout. They're still needed to
capture and hold the territory.
So drones can do a lot of damageagainst the adversary, but it
still takes ground forces to goin and actually hold it. So in
(05:44):
many ways, the warfare inUkraine remained the same as it
was before, and in many ways itnow resembles World War Two, or
even World War One warfare, withRussia launching mass scale
infantry attacks against theUkrainian forces. But we also
have to consider to what extentthe war in Ukraine is a unique
(06:06):
conflict versus a conflict thatis going to impact many, many
other conflicts. And so we areseeing, for example, drones
proliferate to other parts ofthe world, to other combat
zones. So from Syria to Israel,Hezbollah Gaza to Myanmar to
Sudan to Iran to Mexican cartelsand possibly other actors, we
(06:31):
see adaptation of some of theprinciples of drone warfare,
adaptation of technologies,concepts and tactics in some
form or another. But again,ultimately, warfare is about
holding the territory right. Andso UAE is robotic systems, no
matter how advanced they can, infact, do a lot of damage. They
(06:55):
cannot hold territory, and thatrequires infantry, ground
forces, regular soldiers, to goin and do what they've done for
centuries before. Sure,
Tad Schnaufer (07:06):
sure. So the fundamentals are still there,
but the tactics seem to bechanging as you have to deal
with these overhead threats fromdrones. What has that looked
like? You know, speaking ofmassing, how have tax over the
past couple of years been ableto manifest themselves without
being seen by drones. I'mthinking of the Ukrainian
incursion into Kursk province.
How were they able to massforces without being seen in
(07:27):
advance?
Sam Bendett (07:31):
So this required a lot of preparation on the part
of the Ukrainians to go afterRussian ISR assets, to go after
Russian intelligence,surveillance and reconnaissance
assets. This was accomplished bylaunching UAVs that intercepted
and took down a lot of Russianobservation drones. This was
also accomplished in no smallpart, by electronic warfare,
(07:52):
jamming of drone operatingfrequencies as well as
communication frequencies bysoldiers and units on the
ground. On the Russian side,Ukrainians conducted a lot of
intelligence, and haveidentified a specific section of
the front, or rather the borderin the Kursk region, where
Russian soldiers were not aswell prepared and not as well
(08:13):
equipped as soldiers at othersection of the border, and
certainly not as well equippedas The soldiers fighting
Ukrainians in eastern part ofthe country, so they were able
to kind of bring it all togetherright to go after ISR assets to
conduct electronic warfare,jamming and degrade Russian
(08:35):
communications, as well as takeadvantage of the fact that a lot
of soldiers on the Russian sideactually lacked combat
experience, and so Ukrainegathered experienced forces, and
once it conducted those tactics,it was able to create a gap, and
it poured into that gap, intothe Russian territory,
Tad Schnaufer (08:53):
right? So it sounds like surprise and speed
are still one of the keyelements to get around. You
know, the use of drones,particularly that is our
capability. That's correct, yes.
What are some of the other useswe're seeing? Let's stick on
aerial drones for the moment.
What are some other uses ofaerial drones have we seen
adapted since the war began? Soobviously you have surveillance,
(09:14):
you have being able to observeenemy movements and enemy
positions. But what else havethese drones been able to allow
the Russians and the Ukrainiansto do, and how has that changed
since the war started?
Sam Bendett (09:25):
Given a wide variety of UAVs operating fixed
wing, short and long rangedrones, fixed wing, Kamikaze,
one way attack drones,quadcopter logistics, supply and
combat UAVs, multi rotor, heavydrones that can also conduct
military missions and othermissions. And other missions
we're seeing uh, UAVs, uh,essentially perform signal
(09:47):
repeater roles where they canextend the operating signal by
care and communicationsequipment on board, so that FPV
drones and short range dronescan operate farther. And this
can be accomplished by uh.
Drones operating on their own assignal repeaters, or, for
example, heavier drones carryingshort range drones with them as
an aircraft carrier, releasingthem and then acting as a signal
(10:09):
repeater. We've seen UAVs,especially quadcopters and heavy
multi rotors, act as mining,where they can drop mines on
roads and locations in advanceof the adversarial forces, or
where adversarial forces areconcentrated, we've seen drones
actually perform logistics andsupply roles, probably with
(10:30):
increasing capacity as resupplyby any type of vehicle is
increasingly dangerous for bothsides. They're now resorting to
heavy or mid range quadcoptersand multi rotors actually
delivering ammunition, food,water and medicine.
Tad Schnaufer (10:50):
Well, I mean, that's a pretty extensive use of
drones. I mean, do we see dronesin the air, or even a land and
sea? Are they? We know you'dmentioned that the infantry, you
obviously have to hold ground,but are drones able to replace
soldiers and maybe other jobsduring the course of the war. So
whether we're talking aboutlogistics or surveillance,
Sam Bendett (11:08):
well, obviously, years ago, if you needed to
conduct surveillance, you wouldsend a foot soldier, or you
would try to send a lighthelicopter or light aircraft. To
do that, United States and justa handful of other countries had
more advanced capabilities wherethey could send an expensive
drone to conduct thosereconnaissance missions, but
(11:29):
those were expensive UAVs, andthe missions were limited to
just very high priority targets.
Now with the ubiquity ofcommercial type quadcopters,
which are either purchased fromChina or assembled from mostly
Chinese components, althoughboth sides are now manufacturing
these quadcopters with theincreasing share of domestic
(11:51):
components. Now you can justlaunch a light quadcopter right
that can go just several milesout, surveil the territory and
deliver information real time.
That has really had a massiveimpact, where you could be very
precise with your artillerystrikes, motor strike, motor
strikes, tank strikes and othertype of attacks by surveilling
(12:15):
and identifying the target inreal time while your forces are
actually held back, while yoursoldiers are held back. So this
is has had a very significantimpact on how forces are
operating and how they'restructuring their tactics,
Tad Schnaufer (12:31):
sure, but in the end, you still have, as they
say, a human in the loop, right?
So you're still having humans,you know, drive some of these
drones, and you still need themto be somewhere, whether they're
in a bunker or something likethat, to patrol them. So it's
not necessarily affecting, Iguess, the overall manpower
issues that the either sidemight be facing. That's
Sam Bendett (12:51):
correct. In fact, most of the drones that you see
operating, most of the videosfrom UAVs that you now see on
social media, on Twitter andtelegram and other platforms,
they actually come from not justa single individual, but from a
groups, from a group ofindividuals. So for an FPV drone
to conduct a strike, you need anFPV pilot. You also need an
(13:11):
overhead ISR drone to surveilthe territory and lead that FPV
to target and provide additionalinformation back to the drone
unit, and of course, FPV pilotis just going to be busy
piloting the drone. So you needa commander. You need someone
who can actually take theinformation from a
(13:32):
reconnaissance quadcopter andactually combine that with the
data that is seen and receivedby an FPV operator. And then
also, occasionally, you need anadditional individual who would
be a munitions expert, someonewho would be able to attach
munitions or even conduct repairfor either an FPV drone or a
(13:52):
quadcopter. You also sometimesneed a driver to take the drone
crew in and out of combat. Sowe're talking anywhere between
two to five people permission.
So this is still very muchmanpower intensive operation,
but that is what can assure theprecision, because you have
multiple eyes in the air,literally with an FPD pilot
(14:14):
flying to target, with areconnaissance drone overhead
providing Overwatch, and otherpeople actually trying to
combine all that information fora precise strike. Could you
Tad Schnaufer (14:26):
explain a little bit more detail what FPV is for
the our audience?
Sam Bendett (14:30):
So three years into the war, FPV has become the
weapon of choice. FPV drone is afirst person view. It's a racing
drone. It's a commercial dronewhich was built for racing in a
commercial setting, and it wasvery quickly adapted to carry
munitions, such as an RPGwarhead, for example, an
(14:50):
explosive directly at Target. Sowhat it basically does is that
it turns a pilot into a flyingbullet. Yeah. Or a flying
explosive so FPV drones arehighly maneuverable. You can
strike a very precise locationon the target. You can go up,
you can go left, right, you cancircle, you can come back for
(15:13):
another run. So it makes it avery versatile tactical weapon
in the in the beginning of theconflict, FPV drones at a short
range, probably no more thanthree to five kilometers. There
are now models on both sideswhich fly farther and with a
signal repeater, those dronescan potentially strike 1015,
kilometers behind the line ofcontact. So an FPV drone is
(15:36):
mostly assembled from commercialcomponents, and both sides are
still assembling these in largequantities from components they
can get from China. Soessentially, the bulk of the
millions of UAVs flying on bothsides are sourced from China,
and are still sourced fromChina. And in the sense that it
(15:58):
is cheap to acquire thesecomponents in very large
quantities, and that's exactlywhat Russians and Ukrainians are
doing. And I said earlier,they're claiming to increase the
substitution of these componentswith the domestic parts, and
that's happening slowly butsurely still. However, the
reliance on these importedcomponents is relatively high,
(16:19):
which is why, again, both sidescan claim to field such enormous
numbers of UAVs a year well.
Tad Schnaufer (16:28):
And with that in mind, you know, talking about
again, the beginning of the warin February 22 until now, how
has drone types, you know, losttheir usefulness or
effectiveness? As this kind oftechnology cycle goes a new
drone comes into play, you know,whether we're talking about
kamikaze drones and then airdefenses are, you know,
technology advances enough to,you know, make them, in a sense,
obsolete, and then you have anew set of drones that come in
(16:48):
later. Can you go throughbriefly, kind of what that cycle
looks like in, in this case,
Sam Bendett (16:53):
well, it's a proverbial sword versus shield
fight. As soon as the swordbecomes more advanced and
sharper, the shield becomes morepowerful, and in turn, the sword
becomes and the shield and so onand so forth. So the rapid
development and fielding ofdifferent types of UAVs in the
war also led to the rapiddevelopment of countermeasures,
(17:16):
and these are electronic warfarecountermeasures, jamming of
drone operating frequencies andcommand and control signals. As
that happened, drones startedoperating at different
frequencies, and as soon as thathappened, electronic warfare
systems had to be adjusted andbuilt for those type of
frequencies. So now you haveelectronic warfare systems that
(17:37):
can operate on multiplefrequency bands to go after a
variety of operating frequenciesfor UAVs, you now have frequency
analyzers as well as dronedetectors. Some of these
technologies are moresophisticated. Frequency
analyzer can actually analyzethe frequency band of a drone
(17:58):
overhead so you can determineexactly what it is and whether
it's friendly or not, and thedrone, a detector, will simply
tell you that there's a drone inyour immediate vicinity, so that
you can take appropriatemeasures. A lot of these
technologies are alsocommercial, or have commercial
origins, and have flooded thecombat and so now both sides are
(18:21):
manufacturing these type ofdetectors and jammers in very
large quantities. And this workessentially gave birth to a
tactical ew complex, tacticalelectronic warfare complex
called trench electronicwarfare, which is the which is
the term that's used a lot thesedays. There's been a push
towards physical protection ofweapons systems, locations
(18:46):
soldiers, trenches and dugoutswith nets and other mechanisms.
And again, these evolve as thethreat evolves as well. There's
been a push for the kineticdestruction of UAVs, if nothing
else works, and that's why youhave soldiers on both sides
training to shoot down thesetactical drones with shotguns
(19:08):
and rifles, pump action riflesand and and other types of
systems. These, of course, aretactical short range drones.
We're not even talking aboutlong range UAVs, the ones that
are used by both sides. Butagain, at the tactical level,
there's been a lot ofdevelopments leading to how to
(19:31):
take down these drones and thenhow to operate. So there's lots
of instructions which are publicand are released on a regular
basis by both sides of whatsoldiers should and should not
be doing if they are in atrench, if they are in a dugout,
how they should be moving onfoot, how they should be moving
in a vehicle, what to do if youcited a drone, how to hide, how
(19:52):
to run, how to take it down. Sothis type of evolution is
probably daily, and you. Dronetechnology can can become
obsolete and stale within acouple of months, so you have to
iterate very, very quickly, andthat's why both sides are racing
against each other and probablyone of the largest technology
(20:15):
races in war, probably since theend of the Cold War. And this
involves not just the militaryinstitutions or military
companies and defense industrialenterprises, but it also
involves a massive share of ofthe civilian society as well,
(20:36):
with lots of volunteers andtechnical startups which rose to
prominence over the past threeyears, and number and in the
many hundreds now on both sides,which manufacture and assemble
UAVs, kind of UAV systems, andanything else that's needed for
the front
Tad Schnaufer (20:55):
right? Because we've seen an explosion of use
of just basic civilian dronesyou can buy off the shelf that
have been modified for the war,whether if it includes an extra
camera or the ability, asmentioned, the drop of mine, or
a grenade on a tank, orsomething like that. So we're
seeing these civilian quadcopters that, you know, you
might have at home also beingused, you know, modified,
obviously, for the war,
Sam Bendett (21:17):
right? And so this started on both sides, with
volunteers bringing to thesoldiers the types of supplies
that the soldiers lack. And sowhen we talk about drones,
obviously the number one gapidentified at the tactical
level, once the war becamestationary and attritional was
the lack of that tactical UAV,something that can be easily
(21:41):
operated, uh, easily used,easily lost and quickly
replaced, uh, up to a range of,let's say, five to 10
kilometers. This is why, in 2022we've seen an explosion of in
the use rather of Chinese madeDGI Mavic series, right? And
these are civilian quad coptersbuilt for civilian applications.
(22:03):
They're easy to learn, they'reeasy to maintain, they're just
easy to fly right out of thebox. And so that's why, in 2022
commercial quadcopters basicallygave other weapons the precision
they lacked in this war. Andthen DGI Mavic series quad
copters still remain the weaponof choice for both sides, and
(22:26):
even as Russia and Ukraine areclaiming that they're now
manufacturing domestic quadcopters that can substitute a
DJI Mavic that's still probablya long shot, considering how
ubiquitous, cheap and easy DJImavics really are. And then
moving into 2023 and 24 we seethe rise of FPV drones, one way,
(22:47):
kamikaze drones, which weremanufactured in increasing
quantities, from 1000s a monthto 10s of 1000s, to now hundreds
of 1000s per month. And withthat, we saw the rise of other
similar type of drones, forexample, fixed wing aircraft
type kamikaze UAVs, which alsofly short distances between five
(23:08):
to 20 kilometers. And a lot ofthese were assembled by
commercial enterprises, bystartups, even by individuals,
literally in their garage or intheir kitchen or on their
balcony. The problem, of course,with that is that you don't have
a standard. You have a differentquality of assembly, different
(23:30):
quality of manufacturing. And alot of soldiers and operators
complain that a lot of theseUAVs actually didn't work as
intended when they weredelivered to the front. So this
prompted both militaries andboth governments to institute
checks and balances andorganizations that would be able
to facilitate the quality check,the quality control and official
(23:55):
testing and evaluation of thesetechnologies. And so Ukraine has
a brave one platform, which hasbeen very efficient and very
effective in giving theopportunity for lots and lots of
Ukrainian private sectordevelopers to showcase their
technology for Ukrainianmilitary and for the Ukrainian
(24:15):
military to test that technologyand either accept it for mass
scale application or rejectedfor further improvements. Russia
was behind that curve, but italso established these type of
accelerators and platforms wherethese type of commercial techs
could be used alongside with andoverlap with military grade
technologies.
Tad Schnaufer (24:37):
And with that in mind, with with the drones
continuing to expand. As yousaid, over the period of the
war, have we seen, you know,quote, unquote, drones swarms
attacking targets, whetherthey're civilian based quad
copters or these more fixed wingcrafts. Are we seeing these
large number drone attacks, oris it's primarily just the more
observation and smaller scaledrone usage?
Sam Bendett (25:00):
We're starting to see more and more groups used by
especially by Ukrainians andRussians. Can play this
complaint as far back as 2023that Ukrainians were flying
their UAVs in groups with aheavy drone accompanied by
smaller drones made by anoverhead ISR drone. So anywhere
between five, six to 10 or evenmore of those UAVs, but those
(25:22):
are all human piloted. Those areall Remote Piloted. So you don't
actually have an intelligentswarm that we have been
theorizing for years at thispoint, and even since the
beginning of the war, there werehints that the growing number of
UAVs will ultimately beassembled into swarms. It's not
as technologically feasible, andis not as easy as originally
(25:45):
intended. And so humans are verymuch in the loop. And so for
every grouping of UAVs which areoperating, you have at least
several operators andaccompanying personnel making
sure that this grouping can fly.
Ultimately, of course, with theadvance of commercial
technologies and militarytechnologies used in the war,
both sides are starting to claimthat in the near future, they
(26:06):
can actually field a swarm rightover you at ease, that would be
able to operate more or lessindependently, and have the
human on the loop, not firmly inThe Loop. But again, that's
technologically difficult in ain the Ukrainian battle space
that steaming with so manycountermeasures, right? But
last, I believe, last December,November, Ukraine claimed that a
(26:30):
2025, would be the year of anactual emergence of a swar,
right? And so we will see howfar Ukraine will go. And of
course, Russians are copyingUkrainian tactics. Sometimes
they're trying to get ahead ofthe Ukrainian tactics, but they
will do so as well. I shouldhave mentioned earlier, when we
were talking about the types ofUAVs used the new type that made
(26:51):
its appearance, of course, bythe Russians as the first movers
in the space was the fiber opticcontrolled UAV, and that's a new
development where all thecommand and control and video is
essentially delivered by a fiberoptic cable that unspools behind
the drone as it flies, and sothat negates electronic warfare
(27:12):
jamming countermeasures, andprompts both sides, which are
now fielding these drones tocome up with new ways to defend
themselves against a drone thatcannot be jammed. And so
Russians started using thesefiber optic UAVs against the
Ukrainians in Kursk Region.
They're they're using more andmore of these UAVs. Now,
(27:35):
Ukrainians are alsomanufacturing a large number of
these fiber optic drones andextending the range of those
UAVs, where you go from a fiberoptic spool of five to 10
kilometers at the beginning, nowup to 40
Tad Schnaufer (27:48):
kilometers.
That's a lot of coil there.
That's a lot of coil, and
Sam Bendett (27:53):
there's a lot of coil on the on the battlefield.
Now, there's videos emergingfrom the Russians, which
basically show a field, andit's, it's almost like, it's
almost like it's covered inspider webs, which is, and these
are fiber optic coils going backand forth. So that creates its
own set of challenges for thedefenders and the attackers.
(28:13):
Well, it's fascinating
Tad Schnaufer (28:15):
to see how that technology evolves, and you
would think that it wouldcontinually go remote, but it's
interesting to see wiresconnected back to the drones.
You think it kind of go theother way with way, where they
become more autonomous, butbecause of the jamming
capabilities, they're having togo straight back to landlines.
Well,
Sam Bendett (28:31):
there's still a lot of development on autonomous
UAVs. There's limited autonomyin play with a target lock and
target recognition for a drone,where operator identifies the
target, and then the drone lockson that target and flies there
without communicating with theoperator, and is therefore also
impervious to electronic warfareat that section of its flight.
(28:51):
There's still a lot ofdevelopment in that direction,
but as true autonomy was lackingand swarms were probably far
away, both sides switch to morepractical applications of UAVs,
and that's why we have a fiberoptic drone, which could also be
assembled relatively cheaply andalso with components that could
(29:13):
be sourced from China. A Ithink, a 10 kilometer fiber
optic spool that you can buy inAliexpress costs about $130
okay, so once again, you canaugment your existing FPV drone
or quadcopter to become a fiberoptic UAV relatively quickly and
relatively cheaply.
Tad Schnaufer (29:33):
And with that in mind and looking we've been
speaking a lot about the aerialversions of drones, but just to
take a quick turn to going backto land and then sea drones as
well, which have played a largepart in the conflict, maybe not
as large as the aerial drones,but certainly have played a
role. So if we're looking at theBlack Sea and what the
Ukrainians have been able to dowith their drones at sea, what
(29:55):
are the big implications you seethere?
Sam Bendett (29:58):
Well, Ukrainians were definitely. First movers,
and had the enormous advantagein launching their land surface
vessels against the RussianBlack Sea Fleet. This was a
tactic that the Russians simplywere not ready for, were not
prepared for, and took a longtime to adjust to. In the
meantime, Ukraine launchedseveral generations of usvs
against, excuse me, again, builtwith commercial components, with
(30:22):
Starlink communication system asthe focal point of those usvs,
to maintain communication overhundreds of kilometers. And
those were coming out usvs,which would essentially explode
at Target. And we've seen andwitnessed the evolution of those
drones, going from one wayattack to now carriers of
different types of weapons andsystems. And so those drones can
(30:45):
carry fpvs to attack Russiantargets. They now carry short
range air missiles to attack anddestroy Russian helicopters. And
there are other weapons thatcould be installed on those usvs
against you again, Ukrainianswere the first movers. They
damaged and sunk a number ofRussian ships in port and at
(31:07):
sea, and that prompted Russiansto field a number of
countermeasures. And probablythe more effective one, until
that helicopter was shut down,was Russian Navy launching
helicopters against those usvs,to identify and destroy them,
and even though Russia probablyinterdicts a large share of
(31:29):
those usvs, those that actuallymake it through have an enormous
impact on the state of theRussian Black Sea Fleet and on
their morale. Russians arecopying some of those USV
designs. They're designing theirown and building their own also
as one way attack drones orcarriers of other weapons and
systems as ISR components tolook for and scour the Black Sea
(31:52):
for the appearance of theUkrainian usvs to communicate
this threat back to the BlackSea Fleet and to shore. Russians
are conducting FPV trainingacross all fleets so that
soldiers would be and navypersonnel would be able to fly
these drones At short distancesto target and destroy Ukrainian
(32:13):
usvs. The USV piloting coursesare now appearing in Russian
fleets, as well as a way toabsorb lessons from this war for
further applications. But again,Ukrainians were first to utilize
this weapon, and they showed theworld that it doesn't take a lot
(32:33):
of money and it doesn't take alot of technology to feel the
system that can threaten a whatis arguably one of the largest
navies in the world, and make itessentially ineffective,
Tad Schnaufer (32:46):
yeah, and cost, it's a very cost effective way
to, uh, sink major ships aswell. Exactly, exactly. So have
we seen, uh, a number of droneagainst drone countermeasures in
this case, or also in the aerialfield, where you just have
drones that are actually goingout seeking other drones to
destroy absolutely
Sam Bendett (33:05):
we've seen Ukraine utilize FPV type interceptors
against Russian ISR fixed wingdrones, and so they again did
that as a way to degrade Russiansurveillance capabilities and
use this tactic very effectivelyagainst Russian forces in the
Kursk, as we've mentionedearlier, again, Ukrainians were
(33:27):
the first movers in this space.
And because Russian observationUAVs fly relatively slow such as
the orlon, the Zala, theSuperCam series, they can become
easy targets for fast moving FTPdrones. Russians began
installing localized ew systemsand warning systems on their
UAVs to warn the operator that adrone may be approaching. And
(33:50):
we're sort of seeing how that isplaying out technologically, but
it doesn't seem to have a lot ofeffect against Ukrainian UAVs.
So Ukrainian interceptors aregiving sort of an impetus for
the Russian forces to changetheir operating tactics with
surveillance and reconnaissance.
Russians are using their dronesas interceptors as well against
(34:14):
Ukrainian larger, heavier UAVs,like the multi rotor heavy
drones, which Russian stuff BabaYaga after a an ogres and a
witch from the folktales, Slavicfolktales, because those type of
UAVs attack at night and cause alot of damage and havoc and
stress for the Russian military.
So they're using drones withthermal imagers to go after
(34:34):
Ukrainian slow flying bombingdrones as well. So again, we are
seeing a very quick and fastadoption of tactics, principles
and concepts, which becamesuccessful from one side. And
Tad Schnaufer (34:48):
then, you know, seeing this adaptation on an air
and at sea. What are we lookingat on land? You know, we've seen
the kind of drones that cancarry, obviously, equipment for
soldiers so they don't have tocarry it. We've seen drones. On
land that can do de miningoperations, so they can go out
and clear a field of mineswithout risking, obviously, the
life of the operator. And thenwe've seen drones, you know, in
(35:09):
the news with a, you know, AK 47mounted on top of it. How are we
seeing land drones used here?
Sam Bendett (35:14):
So land drones are following sort of the same
evolutionary concept as aerialdrones, as as FTV drones,
especially as movement in thisbattle space is becoming
increasingly difficult. Assupply and evacuation runs and
missions are becoming moredangerous for food soldiers, as
(35:35):
well as for any mechanizedvehicle or any vehicle. For that
matter, both sides are buildinglight UGV platforms probably no
bigger than your regular loveseat or a couch. Usually it's
tracked. Some of them arewheeled to act in or rather
perform surveillance orevacuation or supply or similar
(36:00):
type of mission, we're seeingfewer of those in combat, simply
because as soon as a drone likethat engages, engages their
targets, essentially, it couldbe attacked, and is almost
always attacked and destroyed byaerial drones. But because
Ukraine in front is very large,it's not always possible for
(36:22):
observation UAVs to monitor theentire battle space. And so
soldiers are building, or areusing those type of light
tactical UGVs, built by startupsand volunteer communities and
private sector and even themilitary for logistics and
resupply and evacuation runs.
And so this is done at shortdistances. These are also remote
controlled. UAVs, excuse me,UGVs on manground vehicles, some
(36:45):
of them are now also fiber opticcontrolled to again negate
adversarial jamming, so thatthey could go for up to several
kilometers and perform a missionthat would be very dangerous to
do for a regular food soldier,or even a food soldier in a
protected vehicle? Yeah,
Tad Schnaufer (37:05):
I've even seen videos of them, I guess,
prototyping drones that couldground, drones that could drive
out and pick up like a woundedsoldier and drag them back to
the safety of friendly lines.
Right,
Sam Bendett (37:18):
right. And of course, the safety of the
soldier who is evacuated thisway is also dependent on whether
or not this entire operation isobserved by an adversarial
Right.
Tad Schnaufer (37:28):
Absolutely. So we're seeing that advancement of
drones across the domains ofair, sea and on land. What you
know? What can we learn from thecurrent conflict in Ukraine, and
what can we see going forward inother conflicts, as you
mentioned the beginning of ourtalk around the world, how do we
see drones playing roles there?
Sam Bendett (37:49):
We witness in Ukraine a very rapid adaptation
of new technologies and newtactics. We witness a very rapid
adaptation of commercial type oftechnologies. And of course, the
commercial sector can move veryquickly in developing something
new, something relevant, it canmove much faster than a large
defense industrial enterprise.
And this is probably true theworld over, not just in Russia,
Ukraine, conflict. So thequestion arises, how quickly can
(38:13):
militaries around the worldabsorb these solutions? How
quickly they can acquire and sothe question of the the entire
research development, testing,evaluation and acquisition
cycle, which used to take placeover the course of years and
sometimes even decades, prior tothis specific conflict, now it
is shrinking. It is shrinking,by necessity, to less than a
(38:35):
year to a few months, to even afew weeks. So that's probably
major lesson, and this issomething that United States
military and US allies areactively discussing and debating
how quickly they can reformtheir acquisition to take
advantage of new technologiesand new salute and new solutions
that already exist. Obviously,there's a huge impact on
(38:58):
surveillance and reconnaissanceand how forces can operate
reconstitute themselves in anenvironment where they could be
observed by lots of differenttypes of UAVs. There's a lot of
issues related to the counterUAV tactics and concepts, which
include electronic warfare andsimilar countermeasures. What is
(39:19):
required for modern forces tohave in their arsenal to defend
against these UAVs? And ofcourse, there's a there are a
lot of questions about training,training of operators, training
of people to support these typeof tactical drone units. What is
required to do that, and how canforces best train with available
(39:41):
technologies so that they canoperate in that increasingly
busy battle space? Finally, it'sthe impact of numbers. Now, any
military force, any militaryformation or any force out
there, whether it's military orparamilitary or um. It could be
an organized crime group or evenempowered individuals have they
(40:03):
can all have access to thetechnology that's used in
Ukraine right now, simplybecause manuals on how to do and
assemble those UAVs, how tomanufacture them, are all over
the internet right now. So youcan take a few hours to learn.
You can take several days, afterseveral weeks to learn how to
solder and assemble andmanufacture these drones, but
(40:25):
ultimately, in a relativelyshort amount of time, you can
have a functioning quad copteror even a fixed wing light UAV.
You can also buy thesecommercially, and you can also
adapt them for militaryapplications. And again, the
instructions and evidence is outthere. And so it doesn't take a
lot anymore to build out anactual drone force. So the
(40:47):
threshold to entry right forindividuals, groups, formations
and countries and states toacquiring their own UAV force
has been lowered significantly.
And so we have to sort ofconsider how we can operate in
an environment where multipletypes of actors can have access
(41:10):
to this type of technology andimpact how United States or NATO
or allied forces operate. Well,
Tad Schnaufer (41:17):
it's particularly talking about how they're made,
and looking at the West, andeven Russia, for example, where,
at the time, was getting a lotof its drones from Iran. I'm
sure the domestic, domesticproduction is something on the
minds of Western leaders,because, as you mentioned, a lot
of the drones come from Chinacurrently. So you'd want that
supply probably to be more onthe domestic front than from
(41:38):
overseas,
Sam Bendett (41:39):
right? And so both sides in the war in Ukraine are
claiming an increasing share ofimport substitution. They're
claiming that they'remanufacturing drones to
substitute Chinese made UAVs tolessen the dependence on
components and and Chinesedrones in general. Of course,
the issue is that Chinabasically corners the commercial
(42:02):
drone market. It completelydominates it. You can still
acquire these drones easily atany number of online or physical
commercial marketplaces. And soagain, it would take a
determined individual or groupof people some time, but they
can ultimately learn how toconvert their civilian products
(42:23):
to military applications. And ofcourse, that also has a huge
effect on how establishedmilitaries will fight in
conventional attack conflictsgoing further,
Tad Schnaufer (42:35):
absolutely, absolutely. And as we look
forward, can we do we see apossibility of an in a sense, as
stationary drones, where youjust have a bunch of dugouts
with machine guns that areremotely operated, for example,
holding a front line orsomething like that, to again
decrease the risk to the actualsoldier. But having these kind
of remote control outposts,absolutely
Sam Bendett (42:57):
and both sides in the war in Ukraine are actually
developing such such systems,and this could be the future of
some of the tactical warfarewhere, again, a single soldier
or a group of soldiers canoperate a range of aerial and
ground and if necessary,maritime systems that can be
(43:20):
combined in a single sort ofnetworked environment, and can
identify targets and relay backthe priority of the targets that
they have selected for ultimatedecision by a human but it is
possible, and this is somethingboth sides and other militaries
around the world are working onright now. So
Tad Schnaufer (43:42):
yeah, certainly a force multiplier, where
eventually you could see where asmall group of soldiers could
command a plethora of weapons,remote controlling so they're in
relative safety in a bunkersomewhere or something in remote
controlling grounds and airassets. That's correct? Well,
that will certainly beinteresting play as the war in
(44:03):
Ukraine hopefully comes to anend at some point and then in
the future of how conflict willbe played out, whether that's in
the Indo Pacific or somewhereelse. Which one other thing to
note is the range of drones. Sowe would just know that we were
noting about different dronetypes in the Ukraine war, other
conflicts, such as maybe oneover Taiwan, would be much
different. Be just because ofthe ranges. It'd be harder to
(44:25):
use those civilian drones if, ifI'm not mistaken, in a long
scale, you know, if you'retalking hundreds of miles that
you have to cover to get to theactual fighting,
Sam Bendett (44:33):
right? And that's why, when it comes to long
range, UAVs, Russian andUkrainian manufacturers and
developers are building militarygrade drones, one way attack
drones, mostly coming from themilitary industrial sector, but
also relying on commercialcomponents in one form or
(44:56):
another. And so that's howRussia is fielding Iranian. UAVs
that they have rebuilt into adomestic version called Get on.
And Ukrainians are usingprobably at least a dozen at
this point, long range UAVs, oneway attack, UAVs that can go
after Russian targets more than1000 miles from the border. And
(45:22):
Ukraine has done itsuccessfully. Has done these
attacks quite successfullyagainst Russian energy
infrastructure, militaryinfrastructure, and even
civilian infrastructure. And ofcourse, Russia always responds
with the launches of these Geronloitering munitions against
Ukrainian targets. Also able tostrike essentially targets
(45:45):
across the entire Ukrainianterritory.
Tad Schnaufer (45:49):
Very interesting.
And just to wrap up today, thefinal question, kind of a two
parter, if you're just a normalinfantry soldier, what's the
biggest pro for the advancementof drones, as you see it right
now and then? What's the biggestcalm what should an infantry
soldier, you know, fear from theadvancement of drones as we
continue to see this war evolve.
Sam Bendett (46:09):
So an infantry soldier should fear the
appearance of a tactical UAVoverhead. And sometimes those
UAVs can sneak past all mannerof defenses. And that's where
you have videos right now ofRussian soldiers trying to hide
from the angry noise of an FPVdrone circling overhead, sort of
(46:32):
that very, very angry bee thatultimately has a deadly sting,
creating this new form of PTSD,where as soon as you hear this
noise, you need to takeappropriate evasive measures,
whether that UAV is a as a is anenemy drone or even a friendly
UAV, as far as pros, forinfantry soldiers, they can
(46:58):
carry A number of technologiesthat can enable them to identify
drones in flight and takeappropriate measures. And so
there's a a rapid evolution oftactics and technologies to
enable an individual warfighterto withstand drone attacks and
to mitigate the drone presence,but these technologies and
(47:19):
tactics have to adapt as quicklyas the adversarial drones are
evolving, and so it's a constantrace which creates not just
enormous technological pressure,but also has a massive emotional
impact. Now you have to look upall the time, and this is
something that militaries didn'treally have to do in certain
(47:43):
types of conflicts. Now, ifyou're entering any type of
conflict, you have to considerwhether your opponent is going
to field these type oftechnologies and systems to go
after your individual soldiers,groups of soldiers, groups of
vehicles, or essentiallyanything that is military grade
or military affiliated.
Tad Schnaufer (48:04):
Well, that sounds like a pretty scary type
conflict with so many droneslike that and well, thank you,
Sam, so much for your input, andwe look forward to hearing you
speak at our upcoming summit ina couple of weeks here at the
USF main campus. Thank you verymuch. Many. Thanks to our
special guest today, Sam beddeda researcher and advisor at the
Center for naval analysis,specializing in Russia. We've
(48:25):
learned a lot today about thecurrent state of the Russia
Ukraine war, as well as what thefuture may hold in Eastern
Europe, especially in terms oftechnological advancements
resulting from the war. If you'dlike to hear and see even more
of Sam, he'll be part of ourround table discussion featured
at GNSI Tampa Summit, numberfive in two weeks. Check out our
website for more information.
Next week, at at the boundary,we'll continue our conversations
(48:48):
about the Russia, Ukraine war.
This time, however, we'll bringin four outstanding students
from our future strategistprograms. Students can bring
fresh eyes and ideas to topics,and I'm looking forward to
hearing their perspective.
That's next week. If you don'twant to miss it or any of our
other episodes, please be sureto subscribe to the podcast
(49:13):
that's going to wrap up thisepisode of at the boundary. Each
new episode will feature globaland national security issues we
found to be worthy of attentionand discussion. I'm tashoffer,
your guest host, filling in forJim Cardoso, thanks again for
listening today, and we'll seeyou at the boundary. You.
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