Would Ukrainian Victory Be Secured By All-Season Drone Attacks, With Western-Funded Expansion of Ukrainian Drone Production Tipping the Balance?
As reports come of more Ukrainian drone attacks within Russia, one wonders if drones, especially all-season drones, could prove pivotal at tipping the balance for Ukraine military and politically.
Since, to some extent, Ukraine can make its own drones, one course of action for Ukraine's Western supporters might be to nominally purchase large numbers of drones from Ukraine, funding and stimulating expanded Ukrainian drone production and innovation, then lend or give the drones to Ukraine for use in their national defense against Russian aggression.
Absent events such as storms, drone attacks conceivably could continue all year, provided that drones are built, or adapted, for winter. Western support should emphasize those points, which undoubtedly already are more than apparent to the Ukrainians.
A risk for the West, of course, would be that some drones could end up being used for attacks on targets inside Russia, connecting Western supporters more closely with attacks on Russian territory. At the same time, Ukraine appears intent upon maintaining public ambiguity about whether it is responsible for attacks Russian territory at all.
Another issue would be what would happen to excess numbers of drones after the Russo-Ukrainian War concludes. By nominally purchasing the drones, and allowing the Ukrainians to retain them for Ukrainian use, Western supporters could press their ownership of the drones as a basis for excess drones to be delivered to the West post-war, or to third parties designated by the West. A lot, of course, would depend upon the nature of the war's conclusion, and the nature of the administration in place in Kyiv or the regime in place in Moscow.
Even in peace Ukraine likely will need to maintain a robust overall arsenal for some time.
In any event, in a battle for national survival, one would expect that Ukraine would make use of all tools available up to the point when Russian capitulation results in Ukrainian victory.
Among waves of Ukrainian drone attacks inside Russia, not long ago, reports surfaced about a Ukrainian drone destroying a strategic bomber at a Russian base. Now it is reported that fresh Ukrainian drone attacks have hit targets in six Russian regions, including an airport not far from the Baltics.
As written by this author near the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the conflict that Russia started offers an opportunity to significantly degrade Russian military assets. A more generalized and much broader program of Ukrainian drones destroying Russian aircraft, missiles, tanks and military production assets would contribute to global peace and stability as much as to Ukrainian national defense and survival.
The point has never been to use Ukraine as a proxy. The reality is that Russia attacked, and attacked illegally, and Ukraine has every right to defend itself by neutralizing Russian military assets and related industrial or scientific foundations for Russian aggression.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has enountered potential political pitfalls from heightened expectations after bigger gains last year and gushy hopes for a quick resolution, combined with budget- and stockpile-minded Western supporters carefully monitoring levels of aid.
As pointed out by a former NATO general, Ukraine has not only survived and held Russian aggressors in check, it has seized the initiative in the war. Yet heightened expectations
Drone attacks deep inside Russia inevitably contribute favorably to those political perceptions, including perceptions of Ukrainian effectiveness and prospects for victory.
Drones also can render moot Russia's decision to hunker down in a defensive posture behind massive trenches and minefields.
Amidst a stalemate, or painstaking, grinding advances, sudden news of successful Ukrainian unmanned aerial attacks inside Russia change perceptions as well as have an incremental military and cost-inflicting impact.
There used to be cliched criticisms of generals preparing to fight the last war, rather than addressing all the conditions of the next one. Analysts or journalists wanting to sound plausible or informed might resort to pat wisdom about the weather and different seasons in Ukraine.
If drones are made winter-ready, drone-related tactics could make trenches, snow, and mud less relevant.
A scenario in which smaller countries such as Ukraine and Iran, a supplier of military drones to Russia, can manufacture effective military drones, poses curious new realities for modern warfare. That especially is the case when potentially asymmetrical impacts occur, such as the destruction of much larger assets like strategic bombers sitting on the ground.
Ironically, Ukraine once held one of the world's largest, superpower-caliber nuclear arsenals, which it inherited as a former major component of the Soviet Union. Ukraine, of course, gave up that enormous nuclear arsenal voluntarily in exchange for the promise that no one, Russia especially, would violate their territory.
Russia signed the related treaty, as did Ukraine, the United States and the United Kingdom. The current Russian aggression falls into a past pattern of Kremlin cowardice and opportunism, to capitalize on emerging vulnerabilities or a target placed in a weaker position, while avoiding bigger challenges.
In World War II, the Kremlin sat out half of the war, i.e., the war in the Pacific Theater, when it could have been a huge asset against Imperial Japan given geographic proximity.
Indeed, when one of General Doolittle's crews made their way to Vladivostok after running low on fuel following their daring early raid on Tokyo, the Kremlin had them held them prisoner for more than a year, declaring itself neutral against Japan. Only after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Japan, when the war in the Pacific was essentially wrapping up and Japan was most vulnerable, did the Kremlin suddenly declare war on the Japanese Empire, used as a cowardly and opportunistic gimmick to grab Japanese territory.
After World War II, the Kremlin capitalized on the weakened, war-battered condition of Eastern Europe to annex the Baltics and seize control over most of the rest of Eastern Europe.
It was after the Iranian revolution of 1979, when oil-rich Iran flipped from being a staunch U.S. ally to being a vicious U.S. adversary, that the Kremlin invaded neighboring Afghanistan.
Now, with Ukraine, the Kremlin waited until years after Ukraine was tricked into giving up its nuclear arsenal with promises of peace, to later attack Ukraine and carry out atrocities.
Meanwhile, Russia's paranoid bluster that NATO expansion was a threat was a thinly veiled admission that the only way NATO expansion threatend Moscow was if Moscow wanted to launch an aggression against one of its neighbors that had not yet joined NATO.
It is notable that NATO expansion has been a recipe for peace, given that allies do not attack each other. Growing numbers of countries which, while under Moscow's control, might have conceivably planned for war against European neighbors instead are now allies of those neighbors.
It is tempting to play down Ukrainian drone attacks within Russia as having been more symbolic, or limited emblematic forays reminiscent of General Doolittle's raid on Tokyo a few months after Pearl Harbor. However, the attacks seem to have been stepping up, and with greater impact.
A vast expansion of Ukrainian drone production and deployment, and Western support for continued expansion and innovation, seems the create a prospect of not only bypassing the painstaking quagmires of Russian minefields and trenches and spiking favorable political perceptions. There also seems to be a potentially plausible mathematical prospect of inflicting "death by a thousand cuts" on Russian military and military-related industrial and scientific assets, even within the confines of the Russian Federation.
The questions of, how many drones would it take, and how far could the technology be pushed, promise to be quite compelling against the multifaceted tactical and political contexts of the conflict.
Additional Resources
> Ukraine war: Wave of drone strikes hits several Russian regions - BBC 8.30.23
> Ukrainian drone destroys Russian supersonic bomber - BBC 8.22.23
> Wave of drone attacks on Russia - Sky News 8.30.23
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Key Words: Ukraine, Russia, Drones, Russo-Ukrainian War, Ukrainian Military
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