JERUSALEM, Israel – As anyone living in the north of Israel can tell you, cheap, unmanned drones have revolutionized warfare. They’re used for surveillance, as well as fast, lethal military strikes. We sat down with Israeli expert and author Seth Frantzman to break it down for us.
To watch the interview, click on the video above. The text of the interview is below.
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CHRIS MITCHELL: Seth Frantzman, thanks for joining us. You’re a senior fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracy and also the author of Drone Wars. “Wars”.Tell us how drones are changing warfare as we know it.
SETH FRANZMAN: Well, drones are just, you know, exponentially exploding in terms of the numbers of use with soldiers on the battlefield and obviously with terrorist groups, with cartels. You know, everyone is using them.
And so we’re basically seeing that drones are being operated at every level, you know, from the lowest-level battalion commander, a company or squad is using small drones, you know, in the urban battlefield where we’re seeing also the big drones that are the size of a plane where they’re, you know, it can use for surveillance or use for strike missions. And those larger ones might operate, you know, for 24, 48 hours, whereas smaller ones are being used, you know, 15 minutes or whatever.
So, we’re seeing how all these robotics are basically flooding the battlefield. That takes people kind of further away from the battle, but nevertheless, the drones, you know, cause casualties and wreak havoc.
CM: Is this a big change? So, like the advent of gunpowder, something like that?
SF: Yes. I mean, I wrote in my book, Drone Wars, you know, this is basically kind of like the First or Second World War, where suddenly you have tanks, or you have airplanes suddenly make an appearance on the battlefield, and totally change the way war works. Right?
Because once you had tanks, you know, you could just drive through, you know, trench lines. Once you had planes, you could sink, you know, battleships like at the Pearl Harbor attack. So this is a huge evolutionary jump, you know, where warfare is totally changing. It’s going to become much more unmanned, much more robotic. But we’re not there yet. It’s going to take, you know, another few decades.
CM: And in what way, in what battlefield right now would you say Ukraine, Russia, is where most of this is playing out right now?
SF: Well, I think, you know, Ukraine is a good example of a battlefield that oddly looks a lot like the First World War. Drones are being used in huge numbers, you know, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands a month or something, but what’s happening in Ukraine is that slowed down the battle, and there’s kind of the stagnant frontline, and this huge no man’s land where drones are being flown back and forth, and basically soldiers can’t exist there. So that’s one example.
But I would say that that’s not the future of drone warfare. What we’re seeing other places, like what the Chinese are building or what Israel is pioneering or the Americans, is a lot of different types of drones that will be used, you know, by infantry, you know, by the Air Force, by the Navy, will have unmanned vehicles on the ground. We’ll have robotics; we’ll have unmanned, you know, naval ships or submarines or whatever, small things in the sea. So it’s just a huge menagerie that we’re looking at, and we’re going to see that more and more.
CM: Yeah. And how have we seen the Ukraine war? Has Ukraine become one of the leading, I guess, battlefield tests for these drones?
SF: Yeah, Ukraine is an example where you see a country Ukraine was invaded – and then what Ukraine has had to do is – it’s kind of the necessity of invention, right? Because they are the country being invaded, they don’t have as much tech. They’ve plowed a lot of what they have into these drones, and they’re making small, simple drones, but they’re making hundreds of thousands of them. And those drones can be flown by operators on the front line, you know, using like a small phone like I have in my hand or whatever.
And those drones can basically keep the Russian army, which is a much larger army, and kind of keep it back and hold it back, and eliminate it. So I think we’re seeing a huge technological marvel in Ukraine. But again, it’s what comes next, which is learning from that battlefield. Take the technology back to the United States or Israel or countries and kind of look at what works and what doesn’t work, and that is going to be the future.
CM: And so what do you see for the future of the next battlefield? What will it look like?
SF: I think what it will look like is we’ll have just every unit that goes into war, whether it’s a tank or an infantry soldier, each one of them will have a drone with them. Whether it’s that person or in the squad, they’ll have an operator with a drone. Or every single armored vehicle will be able to launch drones. They’ll have different types: surveillance drones, kamikaze drones.
And so we’ll just see these systems being used at all levels so that the human becomes the minority in terms of what’s happening on the battlefield. And that will be a big difference. It won’t be like Star Wars or whatever, because that’s just fantasy. But it will be something very different.
CM: Yeah. Well, Seth Frantzman, thanks for your expertise. This is, I guess, a picture of where we are now and where we’re heading. Thanks so much.
