The Wall Street Journal studies that Ukraine has begun deploying AI–powered drone swarms in fight – utilizing software program developed by the Ukrainian firm Swarmer. Battlefield items have used the system greater than 100 instances, in keeping with the report, in deployments of between three to eight drones at a time in opposition to Russian positions.
“The expertise is upon us,” Rear Admiral (Ret.) Mike Studeman, who served as Commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence, advised The Cipher Brief. “There are many miles to go by way of probably the most refined swarm skills, however there are many causes to worry even the place we’re at the moment.”
Not way back, the mere existence of drone weapons was a battlefield game-changer; this newest paradigm shift includes complete items of drones that perform operations with people nearly completely out of the loop.
“If there have been a battle to go down at the moment, a number of the first engagements could be with unmanned techniques,” Studeman mentioned. “The most central engagements would contain loads of them. The race is on.”
It’s a “race” each by way of offensive “swarm” capabilities and the applied sciences to counter them.
“It’s an absolute game-changer for any marketing campaign,” Joey Gagnard, a former senior Army Chief Warrant Officer, advised The Cipher Brief. “It’s a drive multiplier for particular operations forces or for any army ingredient. Now it turns into incumbent on the defender to determine a option to down all of these drones, whereas not additionally hurting his personal capabilities.”
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What’s in a “swarm”?
Experts outline drone swarms as coordinated techniques of a minimum of three drones that act autonomously and with “swarm intelligence,” mirroring the conduct of birds or bugs after they journey in teams. An efficient drone swarm will use synthetic intelligence (AI) and machine studying to navigate obstacles and talk adjustments within the atmosphere to different drones within the group.
Experts draw a distinction between swarms in quantity solely, and people with the flexibility to function in dynamic situations. A 2022 take a look at in China, by which dozens of drones navigated their method by a bamboo forest, demonstrated the distinction. The drones have been in a position to transfer in and across the forest (you may watch the video right here), however there was nothing greater than the bamboo stalks to cease them – no protection techniques, nobody taking pictures at them.
“So now we have the elements in place equivalent to microchips and microprocessors, now we have battlefield experimentation and battlefield information that may allow these teams and swarms to function,” Samuel Bendett, an adviser to the CNA’s Strategy, Policy, Plans and Programs Center, advised The Cipher Brief. “But none of it has actually come collectively but to kind a full image from that mosaic that may spell a swarm.”
The largest problem lies within the dynamism of a battlefield. A static atmosphere – say a army base or airfield, or a bamboo forest – might be simpler for a drone swarm to navigate than a shifting drive. “If one thing adjustments, is the swarm clever sufficient to adapt after which assault?” Bendett requested. “How is it going to adapt and assault if there are adjustments?”
Even Ukraine’s advanced June drone strike, dubbed “Spider Web“, which deployed greater than 100 first-person-view (FPV) drones in opposition to Russian air bases, nonetheless relied closely on human route.
For a swarm to function efficiently, Bendett mentioned, “there must be safe communication between members; they should cross information to one another about their state of being, about their flight to focus on, concerning the situations that have an effect on their flight to focus on, about any actions or adjustments on the bottom or with a goal, clearly communication with floor management stations and those who launched them and so forth.”
Studeman famous that in a fluid fight scenario, “you could have all kinds of different challenges that exist, together with any person who desires to jam you, utilizing a high-power laser or microwave weapons, and also you’re encountering all kinds of issues that perhaps weren’t deliberate for at launch, might not truly be within the software program parameters of the drones.” For advanced operational situations, he mentioned that true swarms are “in all probability a bridge too far at the moment,” however he and different consultants careworn that the battlefield utility is coming quickly.
Dr. Stacie Pettyjohn, Director of the Defense Program on the Center for a New American Security, envisions situations by which drones in a swarm show “command and management” capabilities, “not solely appearing on their very own, however coordinating their conduct, with none human concerned, with a bunch of different drones.”
In such an operation, “the swarm as a complete makes choices about how one can modify its operations in one of the best ways to realize its goal,” Pettyjohn advised The Cipher Brief. “Another drone would possibly take its place, or the collective would possibly determine that they realized there have been air defenses in place and so they wanted to flush these out and truly ship a wave of them to assault the air defenses, drive them to have interaction just a few of the targets, which might then create a niche that the others may exploit to hit their precise goal.”
Gagnard mentioned that drone swarms will quickly be doing the work of dozens – maybe lots of – of drone operators.
“Instead of 1 man piloting one drone for a restricted period and having the ability to undergo your complete concentrating on cycle, you’d have a complete swarm of drones doing all of these mission features concurrently,” he mentioned. “You’ll have drones conducting reconnaissance, tagging off to different drones which can be going to conduct strikes or one-way assaults, tagging off to different drones which can be going to do logistics. So they’d make choices on their very own, and function freely on their very own, primarily based on the stimulus and the suggestions that they are getting within the atmosphere.”
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Coming quickly
Whether true AI-driven drone swarms hit the battlefield subsequent month, subsequent yr, or three years from now, this a lot is evident: the expertise is already a part of the planning for almost each superior army, and consequently, it’s a booming enterprise. Everyone, it appears, is coaching and experimenting with swarm expertise – starting on the battlefield the place drone innovation is most obvious.
“Both Russians and Ukrainians are actually busy making an attempt to develop swarm applied sciences,” Bendett mentioned, and either side are benefiting from exterior assist – the Russian army from China, the Ukrainians from the U.S. and Europe – to acquire the microprocessors and microelectronics that allow their operations.
Other militaries and protection tech corporations have watched the Ukraine theater and entered the drone-swarm “race.”
In the U.S., the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative to fast-track innovation contains a number of drone swarm initiatives. The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has awarded contracts to Anduril Industries, L3Harris Technologies, and Swarm Aero to provide prototype software program for drone swarms. The contracts are a part of the DoD’s “Autonomous Collaborative Teaming” (ACT) program, which seeks “automated coordination of swarms of lots of or 1000’s of uncrewed property,” in keeping with the DIU. Meanwhile, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been testing swarms for years, and says that by 2027, the U.S. may deploy swarms of as many as 1,000 armed drones. The DoD has additionally mandated the creation of devoted drone testing ranges to assist dwell swarm workout routines.
The U.S. hardly has a monopoly within the discipline, even within the West. One of NATO’s latest members, Sweden, is fast-tracking drone-swarm improvement, in what Defense Minister Pål Jonson mentioned was a response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. In January, the Swedish Armed Forces unveiled a drone swarm program, developed by protection large Saab, that may enable troopers to manage 100 drone weapons concurrently. Elsewhere in Europe, the German drone producer Quantum Systems has carried out checks on AI-controlled drones with the German army; Britain’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) has awarded contracts for “Mixed Multi-Domain Swarms”; the Dutch Research Council has funded an exploration of drone swarm expertise; and Hungarian researchers reported the design of a 100‑drone swarm working with out a central controller—primarily based on algorithms impressed by flocking conduct in animals.
Countering the swarms
Every army innovation – from gunpowder to the tank to the stealth bomber – prompts efforts to counter it, and AI-driven drone swarms are not any exception.
“We’re going to need to be nearly as good on the protection as we’re on the offense for the way we use drones,” Studeman mentioned. Asked about U.S. counter-drone efforts, he cited partnerships between the Pentagon and the non-public sector and mentioned, “I believe we’re shifting as quick as we are able to.”
If the world wanted a reminder of the necessity for counter-drone capabilities, it bought a stark one in July from Robert Brovdi, Ukraine’s newly appointed drone boss, who advised NATO commanders that his crews may flip a NATO base into “one other Pearl Harbor” in quarter-hour, with out coming nearer than 10km (6 miles). “I’m not saying this to scare anybody,” Brovdi mentioned, “solely to level out that these applied sciences at the moment are so accessible and low-cost.”
He went on to warn NATO: you’re unprepared.
“I don’t know of a single NATO nation able to defending its cities if confronted with 200-300 Shaheds (drones) daily, seven days per week,” Brovdi advised the LANDEURO convention. “Your nationwide safety urgently requires a strategic reassessment.”
Bendett agreed, citing Brovdi’s warning in addition to the harm Hamas inflicted with drones in opposition to Israeli forces within the early days of the 2023 Israel incursion into Gaza. “So the query,” Bendett mentioned, “is what wouldn’t it take for us to appreciate that we face the identical risk and what wouldn’t it take for our army to make these acceptable adjustments?”
As a place to begin, he mentioned that U.S. army services might want to guard in opposition to what he known as the “Ukraine-type risk” of small teams utilizing a number of drones to go after targets. “They solely have for use as soon as, and also you solely have to achieve success as soon as,” Bendett mentioned. “I do know the U.S. army is studying, and internalizing these classes, and individuals are making an attempt to know what sort of threats they’re dealing with. Is it taking place quick sufficient?”
The U.S. army has labored for a minimum of three years on counter-swarm protection – principally involving high-energy lasers and high-power microwave (HPM) techniques.
Recently the pinnacle of the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO) introduced a contest for high-energy laser weapon techniques targeted on countering drone swarms. The RCCTO has already constructed a number of directed power prototypes; this could be a higher-level weapon, and hopefully one that may transfer from prototype to operational system.
“We need to proceed to work more durable,” Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch, the RCCTO director, mentioned on the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in August. “We need to proceed to work with business to develop our directed-energy platforms and give attention to the areas of reliability.”
Among different American swarm-defense initiatives: The Air Force’s THOR, an HPM directed power weapon, and the Leonidas HPM system, developed by Epirus and fielded with the U.S. Army, each of which emit electromagnetic pulses able to disabling a number of drones concurrently.
On August 26, the Leonidas system defeated a swarm of 49 quadcopter drones in a take a look at carried out at an Indiana National Guard base. Axios reported that “instantly, all 49 — like a flock of stricken birds — crashed right into a grassy discipline.” Their circuits had been overwhelmed by the system’s electromagnetic waves.
Epirus’s CEO, Andy Lowery, says Leonidas creates an “digital useless zone” that disables something that carries pc chips.
“It works for drones, that are like flying computer systems,” Lowery advised Defense One. “It will cease a Tesla in its tracks, it’ll cease a ship motor in its tracks, something with a pc inside it.”
Other NATO members are engaged on counter-swarm expertise as effectively. The German startup Alpine Eagle has developed a system referred to as Sentinel – a platform that deploys drone swarms in opposition to different drone swarms. Sentinel has been examined by the German Armed Forces and in Ukraine in opposition to FPV (first-person view) drone threats; Poland has deployed SKYctrl, which sends drones to collide in “non-explosive” trend with different drones; and the British U.Okay. Ministry of Defense mentioned just lately that its “Radiofrequency Directed Energy Weapon,” mounted on a truck chassis, had efficiently “defeated” swarms of drones. Far from Europe, India’s Bhargavastra, developed by Solar Defence & Aerospace, used unguided rockets to eradicate swarms of drones at shut vary.
“The extra refined, newest variations are those that may truly intervene with the instructions contained in the unmanned drones,” Studeman mentioned. “This good neutralization, by a type of digital interference that goes after the precise logic and the instructions of the usunmanned aerial system itself, reveals you the place that is going.”
All that mentioned, some consultants fear that the U.S. army isn’t adequately ready for the drone-swarm risk.
“The U.S. will not be prepared,” Pettyjohn mentioned. “It has begun to acquire some defenses that have been particularly made to counter small drones…and that is good. But you actually need these layered defenses, the place you could have cost-effective interceptors.” She and different consultants say that for all of the checks and pledges, the U.S. has but to indicate that it has an efficient multi-layered protection in opposition to potential swarm assaults.
“High-powered microwaves are the one rising expertise that the U.S. Army has fielded just a few prototypes that maintain the promise of really having the ability to knock out a real swarm,” she mentioned. “The problem is it requires loads of power. It’s a really short-range weapon, so it is like your last drive discipline. You want these longer layers of kinetic and EW interceptors to attempt to skinny out the herd. And it’s a must to determine how one can use the high-power microwave in a method that does not fry the electronics of US army tools that it is making an attempt to defend.”
Gagnard agrees that extra work must be executed.
“I’d say now we have weapon techniques that may defeat drones on a small scale,” he mentioned, “however on a big scale, proper now the aggressor goes to have the decisive benefit in the event that they’re incorporating this swarm expertise into their repertoire.”
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China’s drone-swarm benefit
Military consultants – together with the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command – have mentioned that the opening salvos in any Pacific warfare would nearly definitely contain leading edge drone-swarm applied sciences. And final November, China unveiled a doubtlessly devastating instrument within the drone-swarm ecosystem. Experts known as it a “drone mothership.”
The Jiu Tian, launched on the Zhuhai Air Show, China’s largest aerospace commerce truthful, is an 11-ton plane billed because the world’s largest drone service. It is itself a drone, an unlimited one, working with out a crew. According to a number of studies, the Jiu Tian can carry as many as 100 smaller UAVs greater than 4,000 miles and unleash them in opposition to a goal. Essentially, it’s a supply automobile for a drone swarm.
“China goes like gangbusters proper now” within the drone house, Studeman mentioned. “They have the manufacturing functionality. They’ve constructed 1000’s of armed drones, and so they’ve constructed the equal of motherships, the place the intent is to throw deadly functionality ahead.”
As The Cipher Brief reported earlier this yr, China’s army is within the throes of an innovation and manufacturing increase in drone weaponry to organize Beijing for a possible warfare over Taiwan. China already produces some 70% of the world’s industrial drones – and is constructing a quickly rising AI business.
“They have the manufacturing, they’ve massive stock and now additionally they have the AI,” Dr. Michael Raska, a professor on the Military Transformation Programme at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, advised The Cipher Brief. “With all these mixed, they’ve been experiencing a leap ahead within the high quality and amount of all of the drones throughout the completely different domains.”
China additionally has greater than 3,000 producers producing anti-drone tools. In 2024, Beijing issued 205 procurement notices associated to counter-drone expertise; the determine was 122 in 2023, and solely 87 in 2022.
“Our manufacturing is weaker than the Chinese manufacturing on this regard, and scale issues,” Studeman mentioned. “Even with less complicated expertise. If any person places extra robots on the entrance strains, we have an issue, Houston.”
”This is certainly one space the place China has an higher hand with the numbers,” Bendett mentioned. “If Ukraine and Russia can manufacture hundreds of thousands (of drone weapons), then China can manufacture tens of hundreds of thousands, perhaps lots of of hundreds of thousands of UAVs.”
It’s not a stretch, Bendett mentioned, to think about China launching, within the early hours or days of a battle over Taiwan, “10,000 mid-range UAVs at a suspected American service battle group east of Taiwan. Do now we have sufficient to defend in opposition to that group?” he requested. “What do now we have in our arsenal?”
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The terror risk
Beyond the army purposes for drone swarms, there are necessary civilian makes use of. Disaster reduction, search and rescue missions, and combating wildfires are sometimes talked about, given the flexibility of drone swarms to map affected areas and conduct assist operations in harmful situations.
Then there are the nightmare purposes – primarily, the worry that as the benefit and accessibility of drone-swarm expertise grows, so will the chances that it’s going to land within the fingers of terrorists.
In March 2025, the U.S. carried out a warfare sport that envisioned a number of drone assaults in opposition to U.S. army services. The train, which concerned greater than 100 individuals from 30 businesses, uncovered deficiencies in response and highlighted the necessity for coordination amongst federal, state, and native authorities. A scarcity of clear guidelines of engagement throughout almost 500 U.S. army installations was recognized as a serious concern.
Experts additionally fear about assaults on non-military websites – which as a rule are far much less effectively defended.
“They might be at completely different sporting occasions or different massive gatherings,” Pettyjohn mentioned. “Obviously, as with every type of terrorism, you are not going to have the ability to shield folks in all places, however there must be much more counter-drone defenses for the homeland to stop terrorist assaults from succeeding in actually vital areas, both by way of infrastructure or the place there are massive numbers of individuals.”
“American infrastructure may be very weak,” Gagnard mentioned. “We haven’t got stable defenses which can be institutionalized, which can be in use in all places, and American infrastructure is a chief goal for that kind of assault.”
He added that drone expertise – and lax U.S. legal guidelines – may enable a would-be terrorist to conduct reconnaissance on a goal with out being observed. “In America, now we have a comparatively free sky,” he mentioned. “You may fly drones all day lengthy over sure issues and by no means actually increase anybody’s radar.”
In the nightmare situation for a drone-swarm terror assault, Gagnard mentioned, the goal could be assessed, the swarms effectively “briefed,” and – relying on the goal – defenses could be porous.
“You would not want very good drones in an effort to try this,” he mentioned. A drone swarm assault, he mentioned, “might be very profitable in America.”
Gagnard, who serves as a senior advisor on the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, has argued for a “nationwide counter-drone doctrine.”
“How are we going to counter drones? What’s acceptable, what is not acceptable? And then we want some type of unified command. Someone wants to find out precisely how we will counter drones.”
Several consultants cited Ukraine’s June Spider Web operation as a cause for concern – given how deeply it penetrated Russian territory, even with out utilizing the AI instruments which may produce a “pondering” drone swarm.
“We ought to actually, actually fear” a couple of drone-swarm terror assault, Bendett mentioned, “as a result of if something, the Spider Web operation confirmed {that a} well-organized effort that’s enabled by industrial applied sciences may be devastating in opposition to an unprepared goal.”
David Ochmanek, Senior International Defense Researcher at RAND, mentioned that the U.S. has been “a bit of gradual to acknowledge the magnitude of the risk” of drone assaults, partly as a result of Americans are so removed from Russia and Ukraine, the place the drone-war realities play out each day.
“We’ve seen how intelligent adversaries can smuggle these sorts of capabilities,” Ochmanek advised The Cipher Brief. “So we should not be lulled right into a false sense of safety that our oceans will shield us, even from assaults by pretty brief vary. The Houthis have proven us that they will launch these items. One can think about an enemy loading them onto ships off our coast that may be indistinguishable from service provider ships, and launching from there.”
While this yr’s White House government order for a “Golden Dome” mandated a protection in opposition to all air threats, the order particularly referenced refined missiles – not swarms of cheap drones.
Pettyjohn and different consultants mentioned that for home drone-swarm protection, the desire might be for non-kinetic techniques – microwaves, lasers and so forth – to keep away from shoot-downs that end in explosions or harm from falling particles. “In the homeland, there are much more restrictions on how one can take down overseas objects within the sky,” she mentioned. “The FAA will get concerned, Homeland Security, native authorities – the U.S. must work by all of those points and determine bureaucratically how it could reply and what the insurance policies and procedures are which can be in place.”
Studeman raised one other concern – that drone swarms could be notably efficient if tasked with pursuing a person.
“You take into consideration safety of senior principals in authorities – a president, prime minister and on down,” he mentioned. “There might be a swarm of drones coming to easily do one factor: preserve pounding till only one penetrates whereas one principal chief is uncovered.”
It’s a group of worrisome situations, few of which may be handled by even probably the most refined “Golden Dome” protection – which after all is years if not a long time away.
As Pettyjohn put it, “there is no such thing as a simple repair to this problem.”
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