The ever-expanding role of unmanned and autonomous platforms in conflict—whether hybrid, gray zone, or conventional—presents both opportunities and challenges for the United States and its allies. While we stay ahead of our adversaries in key drone capabilities, the numbers alone are daunting: China has more than a million drones, and its growth remains on an upward trend. Although our defense dollars far outpace China, China continues to close the overall lethality gap on multiple fronts, including the unmanned and autonomous systems (UAS) space. UAS is an important growth area in modern warfare, one where it is imperative to maintain the advantage, especially as it relates to counter-drone operations.

While UAS are not new, their widespread use in warfare is a more recent phenomenon, with perhaps the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia standing out due to the advantage these systems provided Azerbaijan. Russia’s current war against Ukraine has further led to the use and development of such assets to great strategic effect, with several prominent examples such as the April 2022 sinking of Russia’s Black Sea flagship, Moskva, and the July 2023 attack to degrade the Kerch Strait Bridge with multiple jet skis that were altered for autonomous deployment and ladened with explosives. As a result of this conflict and owing to the innovative nature of its people, Ukraine is on the forefront of advancement in UAS capabilities as well as UAS tactics, techniques, and procedures.

UAS, whether aerial, surface, or sub-surface, are a growing threat not just during war but also in today’s era of strategic competition, when the global commons, and indeed our homelands, are threatened by adversary hybrid campaigns that fall short of conventional war but can be nonetheless costly. The increasing tensions throughout the world will likely result in greater use of UAS due to their unique characteristics such as affordability, potential for non-attribution, and the safety to one’s own forces when deploying UAS for surveillance or attack.

Importantly, due to advancements in UAS, there is increased risk to critical infrastructure by state and non-state adversaries who seek to disrupt our way of life and discredit our governments and institutions. The risks include taking such infrastructure offline along with the essential services they provide, whether electricity to power our homes, oil to fuel our economy, or data to drive significant aspects of our economy. We must harden our critical infrastructure, whether undersea or within our communities, to threats, increase surveillance and our capability to identify perpetrators, respond to adversaries who attack us, and raise the stakes (economically, diplomatically, and militarily as necessary) to further enhance deterrence against those who would do us harm.

While the United States and its allies and partners are making UAS advances on all fronts, the reality remains that it is easier to destroy than to protect. To protect requires a heavy emphasis not just on countering UAS threats but on leveraging UAS and other means to further the resilience of combat troops and critical infrastructure back home. Indeed, the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv has learned important lessons in the balancing of low-density, high-demand air defense systems between the front lines and major urban areas to protect the population and critical infrastructure from threats such as drones. Ukraine’s local security forces were unprepared for drone threats, and considering the vastness of our own critical infrastructure systems and population centers, there is little reason to believe we are as well-protected as may be desired against such threats, especially hybrid and in the maritime gray zone.

It is critical that we continue UAS advancements in the innovation OODA Loop, where we must Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act more quickly than our adversaries in order to maintain the advantage in countering drones, furthering resilience, and developing response options that will hold offenders accountable.

To conclude, I would like to thank all of the contributors to this special edition of CTX to include the authors, editors, and designers, as well as the NPS Global ECCO leadership for their continued and valuable partnership with the Center on Combating Hybrid Threats and for providing this platform to share and advance the dialogue on unmanned and autonomous systems in today’s hybrid environment.