Emulating underdogs: Tactical drones in the Russia-Ukraine war

IF 4 1区社会学 Q1 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Contemporary Security Policy Pub Date : 2023-09-21 DOI:10.1080/13523260.2023.2257964

Kerry Chávez, Ori Swed

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引用次数: 2

Abstract

ABSTRACTEarly studies on state drone proliferation argued that it would be temperate, constrained by high financial, technical, and infrastructural requisites and fielded according to the logic of scarce, exquisite airpower. While this rationale has held for limited conflicts, the high attrition and massive demand of a total war compelled strong standing armies to follow a different model of adoption: emulating weaker violent nonstate actors leveraging low-cost commercial platforms. The Russia-Ukraine war has captured this trend. Despite earlier expectations of armies maintaining advanced airpower for strategic ends, underdog Ukraine, followed by Russia have developed heavy reliance on commercial drone technologies for tactical aims. Framing this in military and battlefield innovation literature and drawing on studies on commercial drone use among violent nonstate actors, we argue that this constitutes a new trajectory involving mixed military arsenals enhanced with dual-use commercial platforms.KEYWORDS: Dronesunmanned aerial vehiclesinterstate conflictmilitary innovationmodern warfare Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Islamic State is a prime example, but certainly not the only one. Many VNSAs from Houthi rebels, Burmese resistors, Syrian fighters, African insurgents, and Mexican cartels use commercial drones in one, some, or all the ways listed to advance their agendas.

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模仿弱者:俄乌战争中的战术无人机

关于国家无人机扩散的早期研究认为，它将是有节制的，受到高财政、技术和基础设施要求的限制，并根据稀缺、精致的空中力量的逻辑进行部署。虽然这种理论适用于有限的冲突，但全面战争的高消耗和巨大需求迫使强大的常备军遵循一种不同的采用模式:模仿较弱的暴力非国家行为体，利用低成本的商业平台。俄乌战争抓住了这一趋势。尽管早些时候的预期是，军队将为战略目的保持先进的空中力量，但处于劣势的乌克兰，以及紧随其后的俄罗斯，已经严重依赖商用无人机技术来实现战术目标。在军事和战场创新文献中构建这一框架，并借鉴对暴力非国家行为者商业无人机使用的研究，我们认为这构成了一个新的轨迹，涉及双重用途商业平台增强的混合军事武器库。关键词:无人机;国家间冲突;军事创新;现代战争披露声明作者未报告潜在的利益冲突。注1伊斯兰国是一个典型的例子，但肯定不是唯一的。许多来自胡塞叛军、缅甸抵抗分子、叙利亚武装分子、非洲叛乱分子和墨西哥贩毒集团的vnsa，都以上述一种、几种或所有方式使用商用无人机来推进他们的议程。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Contemporary Security Policy Multiple-

CiteScore

14.60

自引率

6.80%

发文量

期刊介绍： One of the oldest peer-reviewed journals in international conflict and security, Contemporary Security Policy promotes theoretically-based research on policy problems of armed conflict, intervention and conflict resolution. Since it first appeared in 1980, CSP has established its unique place as a meeting ground for research at the nexus of theory and policy. Spanning the gap between academic and policy approaches, CSP offers policy analysts a place to pursue fundamental issues, and academic writers a venue for addressing policy. Major fields of concern include: War and armed conflict Peacekeeping Conflict resolution Arms control and disarmament Defense policy Strategic culture International institutions. CSP is committed to a broad range of intellectual perspectives. Articles promote new analytical approaches, iconoclastic interpretations and previously overlooked perspectives. Its pages encourage novel contributions and outlooks, not particular methodologies or policy goals. Its geographical scope is worldwide and includes security challenges in Europe, Africa, the Middle-East and Asia. Authors are encouraged to examine established priorities in innovative ways and to apply traditional methods to new problems.