December 06, 2023

How an Army of Drones Changed the Battlefield in Ukraine

Ukraine’s top military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, recently wrote in the Economist that the war against Russia had entered a stalemate in which neither side currently seems capable of a strategic breakthrough. His comments came after five months of heavy fighting, during which the much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive failed to achieve significant territorial gains. Reasons for the lack of progress include the Russians’ formidable system of layered defenses, willingness to take high losses in lives and materiel, and fierce local counterattacks. Ukraine’s initially uncoordinated and poorly executed attacks, as well as some delays in the delivery of Western weapons and limits to the amounts and types of arms given to Ukraine, surely played a role as well.

The new conventional wisdom that ever-present swarms of drones have made it almost impossible to attack and achieve success therefore needs to be qualified.

Some analysts, however, argue that the Ukrainian advance has been stopped by something much more fundamental than minefields and trenches: the changing character of warfare itself.

The advent of pervasive surveillance, these observers argue, has created a newly transparent battlefield. Ubiquitous drones and other technologies make it possible to track, in real time, any troop movements by either side, making it all but impossible to hide massing forces and concentrations of armored vehicles from the enemy. That same surveillance then makes sure that forces, once detected, are immediately hit by barrages of artillery rounds, missiles, and suicide drones. Sustaining any attempt at a breakthrough has become a most difficult proposition.

Read the full article from Foreign Policy.

  • Reports
    • March 13, 2025
    Safe and Effective

    The promise of artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy to change the character of war inches closer to reality...

    By Josh Wallin

  • Commentary
    • Foreign Affairs
    • March 10, 2025
    America’s Eroding Airpower

    To have a chance at success, the United States would need more low-end drones and missiles that can provide it with mass....

    By Stacie Pettyjohn

  • Commentary
    • Foreign Policy
    • February 24, 2025
    Build Allied AI or Risk Fighting Alone

    Amid the hype about artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous systems, militaries around the world are developing, experimenting with, and integrating these tools into every...

    By Becca Wasser & Josh Wallin

  • Podcast
    • October 27, 2024
    The Evolution of Drones with Stacie Pettyjohn, Center for a New American Security

    Stacie Pettyjohn, Senior Fellow and Director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security, joins Squaring the Circle to discuss the evolution of drones. ...

    By Stacie Pettyjohn

View All Reports View All Articles & Multimedia