Far from being a prospect for the distant future, the era of autonomous systems on (and off) the battlefield is here. Mass is back in warfare, not through much larger armies, but through growing numbers of increasingly capable low-cost drones.
Australia needs to face this reality and urgently acquire anti-drone systems. This can best be realised through developing them locally as part of broader national investment in autonomous warfare systems. Ideally, this independent industrial capability must be able to be rapidly scaled to meet a growing and diverse drone threat at short notice.
The war in Ukraine has highlighted the widespread use of uncrewed autonomous systems by both Ukraine and Russia. These systems are used for gathering tactical intelligence, supporting the targeting of long-range fires, and long-range precision strikes. Increasingly, armed first-person-view (FPV) drones are used for direct attack against exposed ground forces.
On 1 June, Ukraine launched two devastating attacks in what it called Operation Spiderweb, using containerised FPV drones. The first attack inflicted devastating losses on Russian strategic bombers. It caught the world’s attention and highlighted the effect of drones, and, especially, the challenge they pose to undefended targets. While the technology has been revealed and developed in Ukraine, other countries, including Australia, must learn the lessons, and quickly.
The proliferation of autonomous systems in warfare—operating in the air, on land and at sea—will continue and accelerate as these systems become smarter, more lethal and more capable.
It’s clear that autonomous systems are posing greater threats to expensive and exquisite legacy platforms in the land, sea and air domains. Combat aircraft, warships and armoured fighting vehicles, while not yet obsolete, are clearly more vulnerable to swarms of drones at the heart of sophisticated networked reconnaissance strike complexes, as is critical infrastructure.
This threat will only grow more potent as our adversaries begin incorporating artificial intelligence into their uncrewed systems and command-and-control networks. These developments are likely to see uncrewed systems operate with humans off the loop, meaning that AI will take actions based on its programming rather than through real-time human decision making.
Drones also present an emerging challenge outside the battlefield: they threaten our economies, supply chains, networked utilities and exposed civilian populations. If we fail to adequately defend ourselves, state adversaries or terrorist groups could use large numbers of cheap armed drones to launch long-range precision attacks against vulnerable soft targets in urban areas.
Meeting a low-cost drone threat demands equally low-cost countermeasures and cannot be achieved by relying on traditional air defence systems such as expensive surface-to-air missile technologies. The threat should be addressed by combining AI-enhanced sensor systems, jamming, other forms of electronic warfare and directed-energy weapons that can disable and bring down drones quickly and at long range.
Directed-energy weapons have virtually unlimited magazines, and the financial cost of each shot is measured in cents rather than, in the case of missile interceptors, tens of thousands, even millions, of dollars. The race to cost-effectiveness and minimum cost per kill lies at the heart of anti-drone concepts.
The flexibility of directed-energy weapons allows a variety of weapons configurations, including: portable systems such as drone guns; vehicle-mounted systems for use on land and at sea; and fixed-site defences for countering drones at extended ranges. Furthermore, directed-energy anti-drone systems are inherently non-lethal and non-kinetic in that they disable rather than physically destroy. Scaled accordingly through effective sensor and command and control, they can provide area defence against large swarms of drones far more cost-effectively than traditional kinetic technologies, such as missiles or guns.
In an era in which mass matters, the definition of self-reliance is vital. For some of the most complex sensors, aircraft, ships and vehicles, working with trusted and reliable partners is the best way to contribute to self-reliance in security. But autonomous systems such as drones require an ability to tap into innovation cycles directly and rapidly, rather than depending on access to foreign companies that may move at a slower pace or, in times of conflict, need to produce for their own nations. In these circumstances, an adequate level of local production of anti-drone technology is needed as part of an Australian strategy of self-reliance.
At the same time, by building independent anti-drone capability Australia can take on a leading role in a developing technology for 21st-century warfighting. It can become a valuable international partner in this cutting-edge area of military capability, including both defensive anti-drone technology and advanced-drone strike capability. This would open valuable export opportunities while supplying the needs of Australia’s defence forces and security actors. Rather than being simply a passive consumer, Australia can drive innovation and lead a rapidly growing global defence market as an active provider of autonomous systems and vital defensive technologies.