{"id":77484,"date":"2024-08-23T01:02:55","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T07:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/?p=77484"},"modified":"2024-08-23T01:02:55","modified_gmt":"2024-08-23T07:02:55","slug":"4gw-harnessing-insurgent-and-narco-criminal-drone-tactics-for-special-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/23\/4gw-harnessing-insurgent-and-narco-criminal-drone-tactics-for-special-operations\/","title":{"rendered":"4GW: Harnessing Insurgent and Narco-Criminal Drone Tactics for Special Operations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Harnessing Insurgent and Narco-Criminal Drone Tactics for Special Operations<\/a><\/h1>\n

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Editor\u2019s note: This article is part of Project Air Power, which explores and advocates for the totality of air, aviation, and space power in irregular, hybrid, and gray-zone environments. We invite you to contribute to the discussion, explore the difficult questions, and help influence the future of air and space power. Please\u00a0<\/a>contact us<\/a>\u00a0if you would like to propose an article, podcast, or event.<\/em><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The US Army recently took the bold initial step to fund and field\u00a0commercial drones in infantry units<\/a>, something many experts have been urging for some time. In a sense, the Ukraine warfighting experience has finally shifted the Army\u2019s 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.<\/h2>\n

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\u2019 study of how to capitalize on the\u00a0logistical merits<\/a>\u00a0of drug-running\u00a0narco subs<\/a>. 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.<\/h2>\n

Such \u201cfighting fire with fire\u201d 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\u2014initially in fits and starts\u2014over the last decade. Their pronounced use, first by the Islamic State\u00a0as a surrogate air force<\/a>\u00a0and later by other terrorist groups, has steadily increased along with their ongoing fielding by Mexican cartels, initially to smuggle narcotics and\u00a0later as weapon systems<\/a>. Consumer drones carrying improvised explosive devices (IEDs), including modified RPG warheads, are now daily social media fare in the Russia-Ukraine War, with\u00a0tens of thousands<\/a>\u00a0of these systems being deployed on the battlefield.<\/h2>\n

RTWT<\/a><\/h2>\n

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Harnessing Insurgent and Narco-Criminal Drone Tactics for Special Operations   Editor\u2019s note: This article is part of Project Air Power, which explores and advocates for the totality of air, aviation, and space power in irregular, hybrid, and gray-zone environments. We invite you to contribute to the discussion, explore the difficult questions, and help influence the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[5581,5445,2280,2636,2351,5406,3140,13,7561,4479,4333,2004,65,3712,10,6166,1898,7357,24],"tags":[5001,2406,17855,9997,14685,1558,9366,16142,8123],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77484"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77485,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77484\/revisions\/77485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}