Drone Warfare: The more things change, the more they stay the same
Drone warfare isn’t a paradigm shift, it’s an evolutionary step in warfare. Without getting caught up in global arms races, Cyprus should aim at staying one step ahead. [Anas Baba/AFP/Getty Images, 2021]
In 2022, the mass integration of cheap, versatile drones into Russo-Ukrainian operations seemed to hallmark a paradigm shift in modern warfare: that drones would dominate the battlefield and supplant the role of maneuver forces on it. Three years later, however, this is proving only partially true. As the war in Ukraine intensifies, the staggering effect of drones is creating a global demand for development and manufacturing, but it isn’t catalyzing a paradigm shift. Like every weapon before and to follow, it’s catalyzing a demand for countermeasures.
During their recent aerial war, Israel and Iran demonstrated uses for drones beyond those characteristic of Russo-Ukrainian operations. For Israel, synchronized deployments helped neutralize Iranian air defense capabilities and clear the path for IDF jets to conduct more significant strikes. For Iran and its proxies, massive drone and missile barrages overloaded the IDF’s air defense systems, inflicting the worst damage within Israel-proper since October 7th. While they are yet to replace maneuver forces—or even piloted aircraft—the presence of drones on the battlefield is undeniable in its importance.
On the fringes of that conflict, Cyprus’ budding defense industry has become a regular talking point for the Christodoulides government which seeks to embolden domestic weapons developers and modernize the National Guard. In either effort, the offensive risk and defensive value of drones cannot be ignored. From a pragmatic point of view, Cypriots must understand—and many do, including the President—that an offensive buildup in the Republic could, at best, smash to pieces the decades of bicommunal progress between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. At worst, it could reignite the Cyprus Conflict and bring about catastrophe for Cyprus.
On that note, if Cypriot companies would like to provide substantive value to foreign militaries and themselves, they should avoid the global drone arms race—in which they will suffer—and invest their capabilities into drone countermeasures, or other defensive implementations. While we have long observed the offensive value of drones, their defensive values remain underdeveloped. In the case of Cyprus, pertinent spheres of research include drones that could be used 1) for air, land, and sea patrolling, 2) as a mobile defense against military aircraft and vessels, and 3) in anti-drone air defense systems.
Although a shift away from heavy materiel such as armored vehicles, artillery, and piloted aircraft is not recommended (drones are an added class of weaponry, not a replacement for others), the Republic of Cyprus must again acknowledge the numerical disadvantage it has against regional militaries, and prioritize the preservation of those assets through integrated drone and anti-drone defense systems.
Among current efforts is that of Ecliptic Defence and Space which unveiled the ANTIGONI C‑UAS system in May, a domestically engineered counter-drone platform designed to detect, track, and disable unmanned aerial threats using high-power microwave pulses. Capable of engaging targets at extended ranges and without traditional munitions, ANTIGONI integrates radar, RF sensors, and command software into a compact, scalable system.
Building on these gains, if the Christodoulides government wants to truly enable domestic research and development, it will heed the call by DISY MP Kyriakos Hadjiyiannis to expand this focus across other parts of government, beginning with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For drone and air defense technology, it seems not just logical, but also highly necessary to deepen cooperation with Israel through exchanges in data, experience, and intellectual property. Analytics conducted in Israel, or in Cyprus with Israeli data will greatly assist research of defensive implementations, as well as independent anti-drone materiel. Most importantly though, it will contribute to the E.U. and Cyprus’ need to explore and implement long-term protections against mass-integrated drone warfare.
Of course, such a threat might seem a remote for Cyprus—albeit not for the E.U.—and hopefully it is, but the Republic cannot afford to ignore the role that drones will play across battlefields for decades to come, or the opportunity it has to cripple and defeat a small, vulnerable military force.
