Shooting down drones is now an international pastime. In Ukraine, Russia, Sudan, Myanmar, and the Red Sea, militaries are scrambling to get their hands on counterdrone systems. In June, the US Navy issued a call for immediate kinetic counterdrone solutions and the UK is racing to have a high-energy laser operational as soon as possible. Market analysis estimates the global counterdrone market could reach $10.56 billion by 2030.
Global militaries, manufacturers, and pilots are not standing idly by.
Drone counter-countermeasures are a critical part of the competition between drone offense and defense. Today’s drones can defeat countermeasures through a broad range of technologies and tactics. Drones might fly nap-of-the-earth to avoid detection, adopt greater autonomy to reduce the effects of jamming, fly in mass to overwhelm defenses, incorporate onboard defenses like antiradiation missiles, and more. Our new Joint Force Quarterly article, “Breaking the Drone Shield,” describes and analyzes eleven such counter-countermeasures.
Drone warfare is best understood as a call-and-response innovation cycle, with each side responding to the other’s innovation. Whether drone offense or defense dominates will vary based on advancements in technology, the degree to which adversaries adopt those technologies, as well as supporting doctrine, organization, training, leadership, personnel, and facilities. In the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, drones gave Azerbaijan a significant military advantage because Armenia had limited defenses. Meanwhile, US forces in the Middle East are continually bombarded with low-cost drones from various terrorist and insurgent groups. Attackers are improving their drones too—Iran’s new jet-powered Shahed-238, for instance, boasts increased speed, albeit with a higher cost—and doing so more and more quickly. This accelerating cycle of innovation may also manifest differently across domains as drones are increasingly used on land, at sea, and beneath the waves.
While much focus has been given to drones and drone countermeasures, little analysis has looked at the tactical and strategic implications of counter-countermeasures. US policymakers must correct this oversight to ensure US forces are equipped with the tools they need in an increasingly drone-saturated global operational environment. Counter-countermeasures should be based on a detailed understanding of adversary countermeasures because to break drone defenses, you first must know what defenses you’re breaking.
Innovation and Counterinnovation
There are more ways than ever to defeat a drone—from radiofrequency and navigation system jamming to surface-to-air missiles, air defense guns, and plain old shotguns. RUSI estimated in 2023 that Ukraine was losing ten thousand drones per month, and this drone expenditure is likely matched on the Russian side of the ledger. For all the methods of downing drones, none is perfect. Drone countermeasures come with limitations and vulnerabilities that drone manufacturers can exploit. Even though the survivability of drones will define their utility in conflict, the subject receives scant attention from commentators.
Ukraine and Russia have used traditional air defenses to counter drones throughout the conflict. These have the advantage of already being fielded and understood by most militaries. Even supposedly obsolete air defense systems are finding a second life in a counterdrone role, such as the Gepard antiaircraft guns, whose production ended in 1980. The drawback is that many traditional air defense systems are not economical to use against small drones, particularly at range. Medium- and long-range air defense systems, like the Patriot, NASAMS, or S-400, are an order of magnitude more expensive to operate and resupply than all but the most expensive drones. Newer kinetic systems, like the L3 VAMPIRE, are less expensive but lack range, meaning militaries would have to procure and operate many of them to cover the same area as more advanced platforms. Attackers can turn these weaknesses to advantage. Russia’s continual bombardment of Ukraine’s infrastructure using mass drone attacks forces Ukrainian defenders to expend expensive magazines on low-value drones and keeps air defenses away from the front line to protect the rear. Even when Ukraine shoots down large percentages of incoming drones, civilians still feel the impact.
Naturally, both sides have sought more affordable, sustainable options like directed energy. Drones usually operate with either a wireless link to the operator and a link to a global navigation satellite system. Jamming or spoofing impedes the drone’s mission. These systems have the advantage of being low-cost, requiring little more than the power necessary to supply the jamming electromagnetic waves. Both sides in the war kicked off by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are slapping jammers on everything they can, including Russia’s infamous “turtle tank.”
The defensive emphasis on jamming resulted in an offensive emphasis on technologies and the techniques and tactics to counter them. Both Ukraine and Russia have been and are working to incorporate artificial intelligence, autonomy, and electronic defense. Basic countermeasures like frequency hopping on drone control systems have become commonplace. Both sides of the war in Ukraine began incorporating terminal guidance systems, in which drone pilots identify a target, and the drone matches the images or video it sees with the operator-selected target to make sure the drone is on target even if the connection is lost. Increasingly, Ukraine and Russia are also focusing on navigation systems to accommodate temporary losses in satellite navigation signal, such as inertial navigation units and terrain mapping.
Of course, it is not necessary to wait until drones are in the air to counter them. Militaries are also pursuing offensive antiair operations. Large numbers of drones are stored or placed on airfields and often require numerous operators and support staff. Striking the drones or their operators on the ground reduces the pressure on counterdrone operations by eliminating threats before they emerge. In April Ukraine used a light aircraft converted into a drone to strike a facility where Russia was manufacturing a variant of the Shahed-136 for use against Ukraine’s cities. A few months earlier in January, the United States struck twenty-eight locations in Yemen affiliated with the Houthi rebels’ missile and drone program, including munitions depots, launching systems, and production facilities. Striking drones on the ground or the factories that produce them will prove to be a key part of counterdrone operations as militaries grow dependent on steady flows of drones to the front lines. Of course, this may create unexpected escalation risks if those facilities are located near population centers or other critical assets.
The Future Drone Fight
The back-and-forth between innovation and counterinnovation in drone warfare can be expected to evolve in new ways. Currently, focus is on two technological developments: directed-energy weapons and autonomy. Neither is immune to counterinnovation. New drone defenses like high-energy weapons will incentivize the creation of new measures to minimize their impact or target those systems. Autonomy will also force defenders to consider what systems to use and how to exploit autonomous systems for their own ends. Each will be discussed in turn.
The Department of Defense is quite interested in directed-energy weapons like high-energy lasers and high-powered microwaves as the future of drone defense. In April, the Army announced it had sent two such laser systems abroad to protect US troops. Lasers and microwaves promise to down drones at very low per-shot cost and reduce the risk of collateral damage by not intercepting the drones kinetically. Microwaves have the added advantage of a large area of effect that can knock down several drones at once, which will be useful as the scale of drone attacks increases and actors field drone swarms.
However, directed energy is no panacea. Lasers and microwaves come with trade-offs that create opportunities for adaptive tactics, techniques, and procedures. A significant weakness with both kinds of systems is that the effective range is generally short. Although the shorter range might be fine for point defense of strategic targets, the value may be limited for area defense. In addition, lasers typically require several seconds on target to create harm, and particulates in the air like rain or smoke can disrupt that. For example, American forces that tested a laser mounted on a Stryker found that the system struggled to function on a moving vehicle in tough conditions. To exploit these weaknesses, attackers might deploy drones during rainy or foggy weather, relying on the higher environmental hardiness of their drones. Although bad weather might also inhibit visual-based navigation and targeting systems on the drone, that may not matter much for static targets with known locations. The Office of Naval Research has several lines of research aimed at countering directed-energy weapons, including material hardening. Likewise, future antiradiation missiles may have seekers able to target directed-energy systems. That could be a big challenge. Although lasers and microwaves have low cost per shot, they often have high cost per system: the US Army contracted Epirus for four prototype microwaves for $66.1 million, or approximately $16.5 million per unit. If an adversary can affordably target and destroy those systems, the low-cost advantage may turn into a high-cost risk. Plus, directed energy often requires significant power, which may be disrupted or depleted. An attacker might use cheap decoys of plywood and foam plastic to burn through the system’s stored power, before launching a larger attack.
On the other hand, autonomy presents its own set of challenges and opportunities. The Department of Defense is investing heavily in building autonomous drones, and Ukraine is reportedly working on machine-vision and terrain-mapping solutions to defeat Russia’s extensive array of jammers. As autonomous drones become more ubiquitous and reliable, counterdrone methods like jamming might have less utility. Autonomy also opens new avenues for hackers or other actors to manipulate drones for nefarious ends. For instance, several years ago Chinese researchers tricked a Tesla autopilot into steering the car into the oncoming traffic lane. The case raises the possibility that hackers could defeat or confuse autonomous systems into crashing, not recognizing a target, or even redirecting against its operators. As militaries adopt true drone swarms capable of autonomous communication the risk of interference will grow. The communication and collaboration necessary to create a true drone swarm may also create an opportunity for defenders to trick the whole swarm in such a way that errors propagate to every individual drone. More autonomous drones means more potential opportunities for failure as defenders learn to find and exploit the weakest link.
For defenders, autonomy might create dilemmas around incentives to shift to kinetic solutions, especially for homeland defense and security. Law enforcement and homeland security officials often rely on various jamming systems, including questionably effective handheld jammers. However, if drones rely on autonomous navigation, command, and control systems, then defenders will likely be forced to use physical effectors to shoot down or capture them. Although physical effectors vary in their risks from nets to surface-to-air missiles, the potential risk to bystanders can be expected to increase. If a major political leader were giving a speech and a potentially hostile drone showed up, would the Secret Service shoot it down over a crowd? Of course, the nuance is that even autonomous drones may differ in their immunity to jamming, as certain modern drones have automatic, difficult-to-disrupt return-to-home functions if the drone loses connection to its controller. But older, future, and do-it-yourself models may not have the same restrictions.
The Way Forward
Policymakers need to adapt to the back-and-forth evolution between drone offense and defense. In some contexts, drone offense might have the advantage while countermeasures are being developed, while in others effective countermeasures may blunt the impact of drones. That balance will vary in different locations, because actors will naturally differ in their access to various drone and counterdrone technologies and support capabilities. How domestic law enforcement protects airports and sporting events from drones will differ from how the military protects overseas bases.
To respond to—and get ahead of—the drone and counterdrone innovation cycle, American policymakers should consider three broad recommendations:
First, understand the adversary. Intelligence and defense officials study adversary drones intently, but they should give equal scrutiny to the US ability to down drones, and how quickly both sides of the equation are evolving. Close attention should also be given to nonstate actors, as insurgents, terrorists, and organized crime groups are also seeking to reduce the impact of drones on their operations. Simple jammers are often not difficult to make with off-the-shelf components, and are available commercially in some regions. Examining how adversaries conduct counterdrone operations should inform American drone development. That means investing in and expanding enabling capabilities like drone exploitation and forensics to quickly and effectively collect relevant information from downed adversary drones. Intelligence officials will need to work closely with acquisition officials to set appropriate requirements for industry. At the same time, balancing survivability with cost is key: hardening a drone against lasers may have little value against an adversary employing mostly kinetic defenses.
Second, increase the pace at which the United States can develop and deploy counter-countermeasures. The Ukrainian military claims a three-month innovation cycle to bring improvements to the battlefield in its war against Russia. That demonstrates that drone makers need to continuously develop solutions and modify drones to keep them survivable. The American development and procurement system is not optimized for such a rapid pace of evolution. The United States is in the middle of an agonizingly slow pivot from using drones in the permissive environments of the post-9/11 wars and counterterrorism operations to using them against adversaries with countermeasures. The slow pace has already cost the United States millions of dollars’ worth of drones. For instance, the United States has reportedly lost multiple drones over Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen. The issue led officials to look at a few modular solutions, like the MQ-9’s self-protection pod. Not every drone needs a full suite of expensive countermeasures, especially drones designed to be attritable, but drones will need to evolve faster than adversary countermeasures to consistently complete their missions.
As the United States and its allies ponder what would be needed for future confrontations with Russia, China, and Iran, focus should be on investment in research and development that can rapidly identify and target drone countermeasures, such as home-on-jam seekers and antiradiation missiles that operate on the microwave spectrum. In addition, the Department of Defense and each service should proactively investigate and experiment with tactics, techniques, and procedures. The White Sands Missile Range, Red Sands Integrated Experimentation Center, the UAE-based X-Range, and other test ranges already test and evaluate counterdrone systems. If they are not already doing so, the test ranges should incorporate and expand threats to counterdrone systems, and how American forces might attempt to defeat current and future adversary drone defenses. These results should inform virtual modeling and simulations to understand how changes to the probability of detecting or killing drones affect larger tactical and operational environments.
Third, understand the trade-offs of counter-countermeasures. Developing, manufacturing, and deploying counter-countermeasures could be expensive and raise unit costs. Hardening drones against every countermeasure can quickly lead to endlessly trying to keep pace with every new kind of drone defense. A main benefit of drones is affordable mass, so integrating expensive counter-countermeasures may diminish their core value to global militaries. Plus, counter-countermeasures may consume power, payload, compute, and other limited resources. So, the Department of Defense needs to carefully account for and consider these trade-offs in making acquisition decisions, organizing war games and exercises, and deploying and employing drones. In addition, the Department of Defense should support modular designs, and consider the appropriate drone fleet composition to account for regional and adversarial differences in drone defenses. Since different adversaries field different types of air defenses, acquisition officials should look for and incentivize modular solutions that can be added or removed for different kinds of missions. Effective solutions are likely to be technologically innovative with relatively low system complexity, so the Department of Defense would likely benefit from opening funding lines in the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs around specific counter-countermeasures of interest. Likewise, since American allies and partners are likely to face the same problem against similar adversaries, opportunities might exist for international development work, especially with states who already own American-made drones.
Drone innovation—like all military innovation—has been, is, and will be a continuous iteration between offensive and defensive innovation. The balance between US drones and adversary countermeasures will influence how future conflicts play out and US decision-makers must be sure US drones can complete their missions in nonpermissive environments. The United States must break the drone shield, and ensure it stays broken.
Zachary Kallenborn is an MPhil/PhD student in King’s College London’s Department of War Studies. He is also affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Schar School of Policy and Government, the National Institute for Deterrence Studies, and, until recently, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. Zachary appeared in Netflix’s Unknown: Killer Robots, is an officially proclaimed US Army “Mad Scientist,” and is on the board of advisors of Synthetic Decision Group, Inc. and the Michael J. Morell Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Akron.
Marcel Plichta is a PhD candidate in the School of International Relations at the University of St. Andrews and lead instructor at the Grey Dynamics Intelligence School. He previously worked as an analyst for the US Department of Defense.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: Sgt. Haden Tolbert, Oklahoma National Guard