philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

The future of drone warfare

Where are these drones being made?
China is a top exporter. At least 10 countries — including Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates — have used Chinese-made UAVs to kill adversaries. Turkey has also emerged as a drone powerhouse. Its utilitarian Bayraktar TB2, a 21-foot-long UAV armed with four laser-guided missiles, first grabbed international attention in Syria in February 2020. After 36 Turkish troops were killed in a Syrian government airstrike, Turkey used a fleet of radio-guided TB2s — which are quiet and hard to spot on radar — to destroy Russian-made air defenses and kill hundreds, possibly thousands, of Syrian troops. TB2s also proved crucial in the Libyan civil war last year, helping the central government repel an assault on the capital, Tripoli, by the Russian-backed forces of rebel leader Khalifa Haftar. But the biggest demonstration of how drones are changing the nature of warfare was the 2020 conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan.

How else are drones changing warfare?
Experts worry that the proliferation of UAVs could make bloody conflicts more common, because countries that are reluctant to start a war and risk their soldiers’ lives won’t hesitate to send in drones.  ... The United Nations recently reported that a 15-pound Turkish-built quadcopter independently targeted and launched a suicide attack on retreating rebel forces in Libya. If anyone died in that March 2020 strike, said security consultant Zachary Kallenborn, it would be the “first known case of artificial intelligence–based autonomous weapons being used to kill.”

Defending against drones
The drone arms race has sparked an anti-drone arms race.

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