After watching videos of flaming Russian bombers on Sunday, Canberra decision makers have no excuse for foot-dragging in fielding counters to small, cheap drones.

A similar attack could happen in Australia at any moment and cripple the nation’s defences, yet work to counter such threats isn’t due to produce much until 2028. The effort must be accelerated urgently.

As Ukraine showed so spectacularly on 1 June, soft targets even thousands of kilometres from front lines are now more vulnerable than ever. Kyiv’s attack involved 117 small one-way drones concealed in modified prefabricated houses. These were driven by unsuspecting truck drivers more than 4,000 km until they were close to Russian airbases, at which point the roofs opened by remote control and the attack began.

As many as 40 or so large Russian aircraft, including irreplaceable strategic bombers, were damaged or destroyed as the drones’ operators guided them to weak points, such as the aircraft’s fuel tanks, to make the best use of their small explosive payloads.

A similar attack would be quite feasible in Australia. Indeed, one should be more appealing to an adversary than an attack with conventional strike weapons, such as cruise or ballistic missiles. Three factors make this so.

Firstly, Australia’s defence assets are soft targets that are vulnerable to even small explosive-carrying drones, particularly ones that can be guided by operators (or in future their onboard AI targeting systems) to strike weak points.

For example, large aircraft such as our C-17 airlifters and A330 MRTT tankers are parked in the open, much like the Russian bombers. Many of our other aircraft are kept in shed-like hangars. One drone could blow a hole in the roof through which more could descend. Australian aircraft are also often parked under weather shelters that look like big carports. Drones could simply fly in from one end or the other.

Similarly, ships in port have delicate radars and other sensors exposed to attack. Also vulnerable are the large electronic arrays at critical facilities like the Harold E Holt naval communications station at Exmouth or the three Jindalee radar sites in the Outback. And then there are above-ground fuel storage tanks.

Further, all these sites can reasonably be approached to within a few kilometres by people in innocent-looking trucks or vans.

Secondly, a drone attack is far easier and cheaper to execute than one using conventional weapons and can be much harder to attribute to the attacker. If China (or any other adversary) wanted to strike Australia using standard military forces, it would need to use scarce and expensive ballistic or cruise missiles, launched either from its mainland, large ships, submarines or bombers.

Yet small drones can be procured for a pittance and cargo containers to hide them in exist in the millions. And if an attack occurred, it would be much more difficult to prove who did it, not least in the world’s eyes. The victim would wonder whether a terrorist group had done the deed—and indeed one might even claim to have done so, to gain notoriety and followers.

Thirdly, Defence’s leadership is moving only slowly to acquire protection. Yes, the threat from small drones is recognised, but, at least publicly, there is only one base protected by a defensive system—RAAF Darwin, using technology from Anduril for a trial running from 2024 to 2027. For a more enduring solution, Defence’s Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator office in May 2025 announced Mission Syracuse to develop a system to counter small drones by the end of 2027, while Defence Project Land 156 will deliver a comprehensive capability in 2032.

All this means that, aside from RAAF Darwin, it seems the rest of Defence’s bases will simply be at risk until 2028 at the earliest and likely for much longer.

To address these dangers, Canberra should move faster and accept some cost and capability risk to mitigate the threat. Anduril’s trial could be expanded to cover other facilities, and selected sites could be given counter-drone cannons or lasers, such as those made by Australia’s EOS. High-power microwave weapons are another possible solution.

While such systems may not prove to be part of the ultimate solution delivered by Mission Syracuse and Land 156, for now the good (or even sufficient) is the rightful enemy of the perfect. Such defences would at least raise questions in the mind of an aggressor of whether an attack would be successful, hopefully deterring it or inducing caution, and in the case of a strike would provide a measure of protection.

The alternative is simply to hope that nothing happens. But this seems unwise. We note the government’s constant commentary about Australia’s worsening military circumstances and loss of strategic warning time. And then there are concerns about a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan in 2027—which quite conceivably might involve a pre-emptive attack on Australia to take our chess pieces off the board.

Defence should move faster, and now.