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FORT WALTON BEACH, Florida—The U.S. military does not have an effective, overall answer to the question of how to protect austere locations and aircraft from the threat of uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS), and needs both improved technology and a planning mindset change, officials say.
Both operations in the Middle East and the ongoing war in Ukraine have shown the increasing threat of UAS. An official speaking under Chatham House rules Feb. 26 at the Special Air Warfare Symposium here warned that UAS are “very clearly the most dangerous threat” to aircraft and personnel.
“Right now, we don’t have a way to stop this threat,” the official warns.
The Pentagon has brought on several systems to down UAS, which have largely been dealt with as a nuisance. But the proliferation of the systems and changing tactics have kept the threat ahead of protection efforts.
Companies should work to improve detection and characterization of UAS to help protect installations, the official says. At the same time, within the military there needs to be a different way of thinking that acknowledges that personnel and aircraft will always be under threat. The world has changed from the mid-2000s operations in the Middle East, during which incoming threats could be dealt with and that was it, one of the officials says.
Broadly speaking, the U.S. military is in what is known as “Phase Zero” operations. In joint doctrine, this means shaping a theater to prepare for a conflict. The U.S. now needs to work with host nations where troops are deployed to understand what authorities and legal barriers there are to downing UAS, so that if drones abruptly change from a nuisance to a genuine threat to aircraft, there is an understanding of how to operate, an official says.
Another official speaking at the event highlighted operations in Ukraine as an example of how the technology has evolved. For much of the war, UAS operators flew drones the typical ways with remote connections—something that exposed them to detection. Now drone operators are using fly-by-wire fiber optic controls, so older technology has effectively avoided detection and jamming systems.
“That’s the kind of thing that scares me,” the official says.
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