Drones have boots: Learning from Russia’s war in Ukraine

TLDR

Prior to Russia’s 2022 invasion, scholars largely ignored the tactical and enabling roles of small drones, focusing instead on strategic impacts and ethical concerns of larger drone systems. The study calls for a systematic examination of drone diversity in contemporary conflicts. The Ukraine war demonstrates that thousands of small drones—scouts, loitering munitions, and suicide drones—are reshaping battlefield dynamics from lower airspace, contradicting prior assumptions of their limited impact.

Abstract

Before Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, security studies scholars were myopic about small drones' enabling functions and tactical benefits. They were preoccupied with drone impacts on international security and the ethical dimensions of counterterrorism drone strikes. Similarly, literature on the revolution in military affairs has examined emerging drone technologies based on their strategic advantages. "Low-tech" drone innovations have received less attention. The war has highlighted the collective magnitude of these omissions. At first, scholars followed extant predictions by concluding that large drones did not revolutionize warfare, proliferated slowly, and were too costly and complex to operate. Yet, one year into the war, thousands of drones—scouts, loitering grenades, drone bomblets, and suicide drones—are defying the field's assumptions of their uselessness sans air superiority. Contrary to most theoretical expectations, small drones in Ukraine are changing battlefield dynamics from lower airspace. Scholars must begin to study drone diversity in modern wars.