VANESSA BATTAGLIA: We Must Catch Up To China In The Drone Arms Race

The Pentagon has big plans for revamping our military capabilities: the F-47 fighter jet, new ships, and the Golden Dome. These are things we’ve done before, at which we’ll surely excel. But there’s a novel combat capability which a known adversary is publicly developing, which you don’t hear about nearly as much. Something that’s never been seen before on a battlefield: drone swarms. So what does China have by way of advanced drone technology, and what are we doing about it?

China’s been ahead with small drone technology and tactics since the beginning, from its commercial DJI spyware that beguiled our military until DJI’s banishment from DoD supply chains in 2018, to the Covid Karen drone nannies tyrannizing Chinese people on their balconies and capturing video footage of their reactions.

A February 2024 leaked document from the Chinese military suggests China anticipates a conflict with the US over Taiwan around 2035; and intends to reduce casualties using advanced drone robotics and coordinated drone swarms.

This announcement was followed by dazzling “cyber fireworks” across China. Chinese companies have been curating drone light shows at public festivals for years, starting with an 80-drone fleet in 2016, and cresting with a Guinness World Record-breaking 10,197 coordinated drones during China’s National Day festivities last October.

Networked computing; coordinated movements; lights which could easily be replaced with laser or projectiles. This sounds like China’s military-civil fusion way of saying: remember how we invented gun powder, then fireworks, and then firearms?

The Chinese military continues its less publicized drone program with some setbacks, but the theme is a persistent focus on drone-based warfare. A Chinese military “Intelligent Precision Strike System” demonstration last month revealed its latest technology: an unmanned system that can autonomously scan the battlefield, fuse data streams, identify targets, and devise a strike plan. If a legitimate demo, this technology would give our Project Overmatch a run for its money.

The DoD is also working on a networked, “smart” drone swarm. In 2017 the Perdix Program initially tested a coordinated swarm of 103 drones which completed a series of tasks, similar in size and scope to China’s first documented drone light show in 2016. The Perdix program continues development, though with fewer details – perhaps by design.

We are also developing a number of anti-drone defense systems designed to intercept or disable incoming drones. But there is deeper defensive concern with all this unmanned tech. Are these swirling, loitering robot mobs meant to harass enemy systems like aircraft and ships? Assuming all such drones have sufficient “brains” to independently chase and kill targets, China’s plans for drones that can autonomously “navigate obstacles,” fly long distances, and dive “deep underwater” are concerning. Any device that can target and disable a vehicle can do the same to its human operators who then try to flee.

Horrifying nightmare 2023 footage of an injured Russian soldier – hunted to his death by a pair of Ukrainian drones – comes to mind. This is as inhumane as the appearance of nerve gas on the fields in World War I; arguably more so because of the footage produced.

American warfighters cannot be placed within operational range of this technology in any hypothetical conflict, exposed to brutality by robots without skin in the game or a conscience. Futuristic drone-on-drone warfare seems fine enough; near-term drone-on-human combat is unacceptable.

And yet, most of our big plans are to build human-operated weapon systems. Pesky little death-robot-mosquitos seem inherently beta and un-American. We like large systems with pointy tips commanded by dashing leaders. But aquila non capit muscas has been turned on its head; the swarm of flies is now going after the eagle. In a battlefield of killer robots, we need to be prepared to take the human out of the loop.

Vanessa Battaglia is a defense engineer with 14 years’ experience designing software, hardware, and airborne systems for the Army, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, Special Operations Command, and the Federal Aviation Administration. She spent most of her time in the defense world at Raytheon, and lately writes for The Federalist and Human Events as well.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.