The Russia-Ukraine war is changing the modern warfare forever, here’s why
The final scene of Spider-Man Far From Home is pretty epic and iconic to all of us. Hundreds of drones attacking Petter Parker in swarms, blasting laser beams, bullets, shock waves, and whatnot. On the other hand, the villain is safe from the war zone monitoring everything and giving commands. That might look pretty fictitious to some people and you might wonder why I am speaking about a comic-book inspired cinema but it has an untold indication about the future of warfare and which is getting quite clear since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s firepower is almost 5 times greater than Ukraine's. At the beginning of the invasion, Putin thought within 2-3 days they will capture Kyiv but ironically it’s been 2 months now still Russia is struggling to move forward, furthermore, they even retreated from some areas. Though Ukrainian civilian has shown tremendous courage, there was a specific weapon that acted as a game-changer at the beginning and middle period of this war. And those weapons are DRONES. Ukrainian air defense was destroyed since the beginning of the war by Russia and since then they kept crawling inside Ukraine. But the Turkey-made cheap drone BAYRAKTAR TB2 saved the day so many times for Ukrainians. TB2 drones destroyed countless armored vehicles, tanks, helicopters, missile launchers, SAM devices, etc. No one ever thought this little demon is capable of causing this much mischief to its opponents.
Cheap yet effective!
The approximate cost of a Bayraktar is 2 million dollars or less, on the other hand, the tanks, helicopters, air-defense systems, and armored vehicles that had been destroyed were 5 to 15 times more expensive than those drones or even more. Maybe saying 2 million is cheap sounds careless or ignorant to you but if you take a look at the defense/military budget of any county it will give you a clear idea. On average each country in the world spends 12 Billion dollars, though the USA always goes overboard by spending 778 Billion dollars or equivalent, so let’s just stick to the average number 12B. $. A simple F16 fighter jet costs 35 million which means you’ll get 17 drones in exchange for one fighter. Though replacing the entire air support with cheap drones is not a good idea but there is a big possibility that a huge amount of air support can be covered by unmanned aircraft.
The future warfare
The unbelievable performance of Bayraktar has made quite an impression on the whole world. As a result, a lot of countries are showing interest in enhancing their air power by considering unmanned aircraft such as drones.
The recent research on artificial intelligence and its integration with auto-piloting and navigation indicates that soon we will see drones with full autonomous control. Drones will operate automatically to search for targets and eliminate them on their own.
War will not be the same as we know it. A swarm of tiny autonomous suicidal drones capable of hitting targets and self-destructing is another category of drones that might come out soon which is currently under research. Looking at the progress of the technology it is very probable that near future we will see conflicts are carried out by drone war between two parties. Weaponized satellite is another promising weapon in the future but that’s a topic of another day.
Though new advancements of technology in unmanned weapons will save a lot of lives of one party, it will take more life from the other. No matter how advanced it gets the purpose of a weapon is still the same and that is destruction. Rather than focusing on war and destruction, nations should focus on sustainability and better use of these unmanned AI-controlled aircraft.
… The End…
