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The US Army recently took the bold initial step to fund and field commercial drones in infantry units, something many experts have been urging for some time. In a sense, the Ukraine warfighting experience has finally shifted the Army’s perspective on the combat effectiveness of low-cost, advanced commercial drones compared to expensive aircraft and military-grade drones. This shift has led to soldiers being encouraged to freely experiment and innovate in addressing the challenges of modern warfare.
This is precisely what violent non-state actors and criminals have been doing for years. Taking a needed step back, this piece explores the benefits behind commercial drone exploitation, similar to the US Marine Corps’ study of how to capitalize on the logistical merits of drug-running narco subs. The latter entails experimenting with prototype logistics supply drones, whose low profile and wake make them rather stealthy for operating in sea lanes contested by great power naval forces.
Such “fighting fire with fire” approaches can readily be applied to insurgent and organized crime groups using air power based on relatively cheap consumer drones. Media attention related to these systems has increasingly been in the news—initially in fits and starts—over the last decade. Their pronounced use, first by the Islamic State as a surrogate air force and later by other terrorist groups, has steadily increased along with their ongoing fielding by Mexican cartels, initially to smuggle narcotics and later as weapon systems. Consumer drones carrying improvised explosive devices (IEDs), including modified RPG warheads, are now daily social media fare in the Russia-Ukraine War, with tens of thousands of these systems being deployed on the battlefield.
