Why Drones Failed to Revolutionise Air Warfare (Part 1)

Since 2010, Turkish-made UAVs and UCAVs have developed very rapidly, and have been writing important success stories not only for Turkey but also for the world. These aircraft have taken part in many operations, and some of them have proven themselves in operations (Combat Proven). However, the Turkish public is not sufficiently informed about the operations in which these aircraft have participated. Unfortunately, information is not shared from reliable sources in Turkish that can be verified by the relevant institutions. This makes it difficult for Turkish researchers to conduct research on this subject. Due to the lack of information on operations involving Turkish-made UAVs and UCAVs, we are unable to verify the accuracy of the information we obtain from foreign sources. This lack of information makes it difficult for us researchers to provide accurate information and tell the truth, and increases the risk of misinformation.

Published in 2022, I found this article very interesting and it will be published in STRASAM in 2 parts. While reading the translation, I would like to mention some preliminary definitions and concepts for a better understanding of the subject:

The terms UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and Drone are often used interchangeably, but in fact there are some important differences. It is a general term that covers all unmanned aerial vehicles controlled by remote control or autonomous systems.

Drone:

A popular name for UAVs, which are usually small, propeller-driven and used to capture aerial images and video.

Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS):

It covers the entire system, including the UAV as well as the ground station and command and control link.

Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA):

Used for UAVs controlled by remote control.

Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS):

In UAVs, RPAS stands for "Remotely Piloted Aircraft System" and refers to the entire system that constitutes everything related to the unmanned aerial vehicle. In other words, it includes not only the UAV, but also the ground control system and the communication between the two.

The NATO Joint Capabilities Group established a classification system for unmanned aerial systems (UAS) at its UAV meeting in September 2009. UAS are divided into three categories: CLASS I, II and III; each class is further sub-categorised based on certain parameters. While parameters such as altitude and mission radius provide guidance, the weight of the UAS is the primary determinant of classification, overriding other factors.

Class I UAS, which are smaller in size, are generally portable, hand-launched and operated by a separate controller. They generally have a range of less than 20 miles and an endurance of up to two hours. Due to the ease of launch and recovery, units can deploy UAS quickly. Users can track them using a tracking system. Class I UAS are sub-categorised as micro, mini and small.

Class II UAS are medium-sized tactical systems that can fly up to 10,000 feet above ground level with a mission radius (line of sight) of 200 kilometres.

On the other hand, Class III fixed-wing UAVs, unlike Class I, require runways and additional logistical support and infrastructure for launch and recovery. They also have more airspace management considerations compared to manned aircraft. Class III UAS include Medium-altitude long endurance (MALE) and High altitude long endurance (HALE) aircraft.

NATO UAV Classification Table

Cover Photo: Turkish Air Force's Baykar Bayraktar TB2 UCAV and Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker are seen in the same frame at Incirlik 10th Main Jet Base photo by Leszek Szymanski/EPA

After sharing our important notes, it's time to start translating!

According to the accepted wisdom in security studies, unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones, have revolutionary effects on warfare and world politics. Drones are allegedly tipping the military balance in favour of the offensive, reducing existing asymmetries in military power between major and minor actors and eliminating close conflicts on modern battlefields. A new theory on the hide-and-seek competition between airspace penetration and air defence suggests that drones are vulnerable to air defences and electronic warfare systems and require support from other force structure assets to be effective. This competition imposes high costs on those who do not master the tactics, techniques, procedures, technologies and capabilities necessary to limit exposure to enemy fire and detect enemy targets. Three conflicts where UAVs have been used extensively: Western Libyan military action in the Second Libyan Civil War (2019-2020), the Syrian civil war (2011-2021) and the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh (2020), where drones have been used extensively, explore the mechanisms of the theory. Drones do not by themselves produce the revolutionary effects that many attribute to them.

Introduction

Over the past two decades, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have increasingly become a constant feature of modern conflicts, and if current trends continue, they will become even more important in the future. The replacement of troops on land, in the air and at sea with various robotic systems raises important ethical, legal and philosophical questions. Equally important are the implications for international security: For example, some scholars believe that drone technology could usher in an "unmanned revolution in military affairs" that would affect not only military doctrine, organisation and force structure, but also regional and international stability. According to conventional wisdom, drones are considered revolutionary because of three direct effects they exert on military conflict and the world.

The first is politics; it is assumed that, given their small size and other characteristics, military drones are more effective in avoiding or limiting detection by modern radars compared to conventional military aircraft. Thus, drones can penetrate enemy air defence systems more easily, which supports offensive military operations.

Second, conventional wisdom argues that the affordability and technological sophistication of drones reduce the barriers to entry for acquiring advanced military capabilities. By cancelling or reducing existing asymmetries in military power, drones can strengthen militarily weaker and resource-scarce actors. Finally, some believe that UAVs will make long-range precision strikes more accessible, eliminating close combat on the battlefield, which in turn will free states from the need to deploy ground troops.

If we are at the beginning of the drone revolution, world politics will change dramatically in the near future. If drones were to lower the barrier to entry for acquiring and using advanced military capabilities, the age-old links between wealth and power could weaken or disappear. As a result, a "new medievalism" could emerge in which a large number of state and non-state actors could wage large-scale wars. Moreover, more widespread military power could lead to more instability and conflict.

As Amy Zegart notes, because "drones carry significantly lower human and financial costs", they make it more politically expedient for states to "keep shooting indefinitely", thus threatening lasting peace. Finally, if a drone revolution is imminent, states will need to significantly revise their defence policies. Ian Shaw, for example, claims that "large-scale ground wars are being overshadowed by fleets of armed drones."

Similarly, Francis Fukuyama suggests that "the use of drones will change the nature of ground power" and thus "undermine existing force structures". T. X. Hammes also argues that "many states, and even insurgent or terrorist groups, will be able to project power at intercontinental range" and that, as a result, "the ability of adversaries to threaten intermediate [US] bases will increase". Accordingly, the US global reach defence posture using forward-deployed troops and capabilities will become increasingly vulnerable, and all states will be forced to restructure their armed forces away from expensive and complex military platforms in favour of new, less sophisticated and cheaper technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles.

These concerns are legitimate, especially in light of the unprecedented technological transformation that is unfolding. Yet, as Stephen Biddle noted nearly two decades ago about the debate on revolution in military affairs, "change is inevitable, of course. But so is continuity. Today's political debate systematically overestimates the former and underestimates the latter." As we explain in this article, Biddle's ideas also apply to the drone revolution in military affairs.

Analysts, policymakers and scientists who have analysed and discussed drones have generally neglected their unforgiving lethality, a constant that has defined air warfare since at least the 1960s, and their impact on modern military operations. They have neglected the penetrative capability of air power, which sits somewhere between the lethality of air warfare and air defence.

It imposes high costs on those who fail to master the set of tactics, techniques, procedures, technologies and capabilities necessary to limit exposure to enemy fire and detect enemy targets. Borrowing Biddle's work, we call this the modern system of force employment in air warfare. Rather than representing a break with the past, our framework suggests that drones are part of the evolution of air warfare, whose fundamental principle is to avoid exposure to enemy fire. We argue that drones do not in themselves produce the revolutionary effects that many attribute to them. Specifically, drones are unlikely to shift the attack-defence balance towards attack, because they are vulnerable to electronic warfare and air defence systems. Drones are also unlikely to cancel existing military asymmetries because they require support from expensive and complex military assets as well as highly trained personnel. Finally, drones are unlikely to eliminate the importance of skill and proficiency in modern warfare due to their elimination of close combat and opportunities to conceal ground capabilities.

Despite widespread acceptance, proponents of the drone revolution have used only anecdotal or fragmented evidence to support their claims, and have yet to present a systematic assessment. We fill this gap by testing the assumptions of the drone revolution thesis with hypotheses derived from our framework of three recent conflicts in which drones have been used extensively: The Western Libyan military campaign of the second Libyan civil war (2019-2020), the Syrian civil war (2011-2021), and the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh (2020). Methodologically, these cases have significant within- and between-case variations for key independent variables (e.g., availability of air defence systems and electronic warfare systems, as well as personnel skills and combat proficiency). In military jobs, despite being hailed as paradigmatic examples of the drone revolution that followed, these cases do not support this dominant narrative. In contrast, our findings confirm the validity of the modern force employment system and highlight the importance of specialist personnel as well as electronic warfare and air defence systems, factors often neglected in the public and political debate surrounding drones. Compared to Biddle's analysis of ground warfare, ours shows that in air warfare the modern system is much more dependent on technology.

We draw two key policy implications from our analysis. First, the available data suggest that the supposedly revolutionary effects of drones are at least premature and probably exaggerated. Policymakers should therefore be cautious about calls for radical changes in force structure and defence posture. Second, our analysis suggests that a regional or major power can rebalance an ongoing, drone-intensive conflict by providing air defence systems, electronic warfare systems and skilled military personnel to its local allies.

Conventional Wisdom on Drone Warfare

Over the last two decades, armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and their use in military operations have attracted increasing attention from analysts, practitioners and academics from different traditions. Yet, instead of empirically investigating the tactical and operational effects of UAVs, most authors have assumed that these effects exist. From these assumptions, they derived the strategic, political, and ontological implications of drone warfare.

Drone Revolution Advocates

According to accepted wisdom, drones represent an important turning point in warfare.  P. W. Singer, for example, states that "unmanned systems are increasingly game-changing". James Rogers argues that, like gunpowder, drones are the most important development in the history of weapons. Similarly, Tim Hsia and Jared Sperli believe that robotics will be the first revolution in "military affairs of the 21st century". This drone revolution narrative is built on three key effects that drones should demonstrate:

First, drones are claimed to provide an offensive advantage because they can penetrate modern air defence systems. While some scholars have not confirmed this assumption, others have openly argued that conventional air defence systems have difficulty detecting drones due to their small size as well as their capacity to fly at low altitude and low speed.

Second, due to the alleged low cost and limited complexity of UAVs, many observers argue that drones lower the barriers to entry for modern military operations and are thus an equalising force between large and small military actors. By decoupling economic and industrial power from military power, drones can become the "poor man's air force", allowing resource-scarce actors to acquire, develop and utilise advanced military capabilities.

Third, some believe that drones could allow states to fight from a distance without deploying troops on the ground. By eliminating "distance" from the modern battlefield, drones would render close combat obsolete and remove physical barriers to unlimited power projection, "invalidating the twentieth century's faith in 'boots on the ground' as a proxy war necessity."

Together, these three putative effects explain the significant attention that the proliferation of drones has received over the past two decades.

Drone Revolution Sceptics

Some scholars question the drone revolution thesis, pointing out that only wealthy and militarily powerful states can effectively use drones in military operations because they first need complementary support in terms of command, control and communications infrastructure. Others emphasise that the current generation of drones is vulnerable to modern air defences, making them possible candidates for conventional conflicts against capable states. However, this scholarship failed to address some important issues in the debate on drones.

First, these scholars acknowledged, but did not explore, some basic claims, such as the vulnerability of drones to modern air defence systems. This is particularly important, not only because proponents of the drone revolution put forward the opposite premise, but also because some sceptics have changed their views on this issue. Similarly, some sceptics have also changed their position on the infrastructure requirements of drone operations. In addition, in recent conflicts such as Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, contrary to the expectations of some sceptics, current generation drones have been successfully used in conventional environments. Finally, noting the vulnerability of current-generation drones to modern air defence systems, scholars have considered drones in isolation, not in combined arms operations, thus raising the question of whether and to what extent combat skills and supporting assets can overcome the technological limitations of current-generation drones.

Modern Use of Force in Air Warfare

To understand the effectiveness of military drones, we develop a theory based on Stephen Biddle's modern use of force and adapt it to air warfare.

The Evolution of the Firepower Revolution

The starting point for Biddle's analysis is the firepower revolution shortly before World War I, when a series of technological changes in weapons production dramatically increased the speed, volume and precision of firepower. Exposure to radical firepower became deadly and troops had to develop new solutions to advance on the battlefield. These solutions are what Biddle calls the modern system of use of force, a set of tactics and procedures requiring "cover, concealment, dispersal, suppression, small unit independent manoeuvre and combined arms at the tactical level" and "depth, reserves and differential concentration at the operational level of warfare". Biddle claims that these techniques "sharply reduce vulnerability even to twenty-first century weapons and sensors". Whether or not states have Mastering the Modern System explains victory and defeat in modern (land) warfare throughout the twentieth century and beyond.

Beginning in the 1960s, we argue that a second firepower revolution dramatically increased the lethality of air warfare, both for airspace penetration and air defence.  This second firepower revolution is part of what the late General William DePuy called the era of "new lethality; we can kill what we hit." It is the result of simultaneous advances in electronics, materials and propulsion that have enabled dramatic improvements in perception, communication, precision and destruction. The resulting unforgiving lethality, in turn, led to a hider-finding competition between the air force and air defence, which required hiding from enemy sensors while finding enemy targets.  This hide-and-seek competition rewards those who can do it skilfully. Use tactics, techniques, procedures, technologies and capabilities that limit exposure to enemy fire while successfully detecting and targeting the enemy. Compared to ground warfare, the modern force employment system is much more demanding in air warfare, both for air defence and air penetration. In the following sections we explain why this is so.

Modern System for Air Defence

Air defence must detect, locate, identify, track, monitor and, if necessary, engage intruders, while avoiding being disrupted by an adversary's cyber and electronic countermeasures (e.g., hacking, jamming) and being targeted by an adversary's suppression of enemy air defence assets. Detecting targets while avoiding detection is very difficult for two reasons.

The difficulty of air defence. As Biddle explains, in ground warfare, the modern system of force employment is extremely difficult and laborious, since it requires skilled and competent military personnel to perform a large number of complex and coordinated tasks in a strict and time-sensitive sequence. The modern system for air defence is even more difficult than in ground warfare. To begin with, the protection opportunities for ground-based air defences are much more limited due to the height difference with penetrating aircraft. While terrain irregularities such as trenches and crevices protect troops on the ground from direct firepower, they lose much of their effectiveness against air-to-ground guided munitions.

Moreover, concealment is more difficult for air defence than for ground troops tasked with defending a given area. In order for the air defence to detect and track airborne intruders, radars must actively search the sky, which inevitably reveals the position of the antenna emitting electromagnetic signals. In addition, even with radar off, air defence systems are difficult to conceal because airborne sensors can intercept radio communications and their thermal, radar or visual signatures (produced by power generation, radar reflections or poor camouflage). Here, the complexity of the surrounding terrain becomes central, as some environments, such as deserts, provide much less opportunity for concealment than cities or forests.

Finally, the technology needs for air defence are greater than for ground warfare.  While only well-trained soldiers armed with automatic weapons and explosives can pose a serious threat to highly mechanised ground forces, air defence requires advanced technologies such as early warning and target designation radars as well as anti-aircraft guns and surface-to-air missiles to detect, locate, identify, track and engage airspace intruders.

The hiding finder competition for air defence. The challenges of air defence exceed these independent challenges. Detecting incoming targets while avoiding detection also depends on the skills and capabilities of the enemy: its infrastructure, organisation and technological capabilities, as well as the competence of its personnel. Air defence requires specific tactics, procedures, techniques, technologies, operational planning and supporting assets and capabilities to successfully intercept intruders, while at the same time preventing the enemy from detecting, disrupting and destroying its own assets.

Air defence against a state that has only low-performance aircraft and no supporting assets requires relatively limited effort, skills and capabilities (e.g. early warning radar, command and communications centres and relatively unsophisticated air defence systems). However, as the performances of enemy aircraft and supporting assets increase, the challenges of air defence are becoming increasingly daunting, especially when considering decoys, electronic warfare, cyber attacks and attempted suppression of enemy air defence assets to disrupt and destroy the enemy's integrated air defence system or its individual units.

Against capable adversaries, effective air defence requires an integrated network of multiple air and ground-based sensors and firing platforms that complement each other.  This integrated network must have sensors that provide long-range detection, which increases the reaction time for other systems to receive and respond to incoming targets. In general, these sensors include strategically placed early warning radars that cannot be reached by an adversary's suppression or electronic warfare assets (i.e., deep in a region or in safe havens). Air defence also requires a secure and reliable communications system capable of rapidly transmitting information to command and control centres for processing and then to multiple engagement outposts so that the latter can acquire, track and engage the intended target. Furthermore, a State must have multiple engagement systems capable of intercepting both short-range/low-altitude and long-range/high-altitude incoming enemy aircraft.

An enemy's efforts to find and disrupt key nodes of air defence systems and to evade detection make air defence missions more difficult. The enemy will use: cyber attacks to interfere with all or part of the defence network, traps and decoys to deceive radars, jamming to disrupt radars and communications, specific tactics such as flying at very low altitude to delay or reduce the chance of detection, and suppressing assets to destroy radars or force emissions to limit and relocate. Accordingly, states need to protect both their integrated air defence networks and individual units from cyber, electronic and physical (kinetic) attacks. To this end, engagement posts require radars with advanced electronic countermeasures, such as frequency hopping and low-probability intercept capabilities." However, to be effective, electronic countermeasures must be more advanced than the enemy's electronic countermeasures, which require participation in a never-ending technological race. The same applies to cyber defence. In addition, the air defence network requires advanced ground-based and airborne radar systems capable of detecting small targets flying at low altitude. Such detection capability requires these radar systems to automatically and effectively filter out unwanted radar returns, match radar returns of potential interest to an existing stock of radar signatures, or utilise other features of intruders (e.g., Identification Friend or Foe [IFF], transponder) to increase the likelihood of detecting an intruder and use them accurately. To distinguish it from traps or clutter.  Finally, air defence also requires highly skilled personnel as well as appropriate concepts of operation. Maintaining radio silence, enforcing emission control and relocating mobile air defence systems are cumbersome, dangerous and difficult. If they are detected by enemy platforms, mobile air defence system operators must relocate quickly, taking advantage of the terrain to conceal their movements and new positions.

Modern System for Penetrating Airspace

Modern air defence systems pose a deadly threat to military aircraft. Accordingly, military aircraft must avoid, disrupt or destroy ground-based air defence systems in order to penetrate the enemy's airspace and carry out the intended task. Avoiding detection when searching for enemy targets within enemy territory is very difficult for two groups of factors.

Difficulty penetrating airspace. The modern force employment system is even more daunting for penetrating aircraft than air defence. Critically, the airfield does not provide opportunities for protection from enemy fire. Since aircraft can tolerate very little structural damage, they must completely avoid detection. Moreover, unlike land space, airspace offers only limited opportunities for concealment. To radar systems, aircraft appear significantly different from the background against which they operate, i.e. the sky. As a result, detecting and targeting penetrating aircraft is generally easier than ground-based air defence systems due to the differences between the environments around them simple for aircraft and complex for ground-based systems. Finally, airspace penetration is highly dependent on technologies that reduce an aircraft's exposure to enemy firepower, both to limit detection and to prevent interception once detected.

The hiding finder competition for airspace penetration. In addition to these independent constraints, the difficulty of penetrating airspace is a function of an enemy's air defences: the capabilities and complexity of the available technologies and assets, and the proficiency of the personnel using them. To penetrate the airspace of a country with limited air defences, such as anti-aircraft guns and man-portable air defence systems, an air force will need to fly just beyond its maximum altitude reach. In this scenario, airspace penetration still requires significant infrastructure support in terms of intelligence collection and processing, target identification and mission planning, as well as communications. However, it may not even be necessary to disrupt and destroy enemy air defences.

Airspace penetration becomes more challenging as the enemy deploys more advanced air defence systems. Against a state with an integrated air defence system capable of detecting, tracking and engaging both long-range high-altitude and short-range low-altitude targets, airspace penetration requires specific tactics, proven procedures, comprehensive operational planning, supporting assets, advanced technology and experienced and competent personnel. To penetrate and operate in highly contested airspace, a state needs aircraft specially designed for the task (i.e. stealth), which in turn requires a developed industrial, scientific and technological base. Stealth aircraft, however, are necessary but insufficient against advanced air defence systems. A state will also has to use a mix of cyber attacks, electronic warfare and suppression assets to reduce the risk of interference for its stealth aircraft. But each of these options requires significant infrastructural, organisational and technological capabilities, and their success is a function of the relative capabilities of the two belligerents.

In particular, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms must detect and locate an enemy's forward air defence outposts and share their exact coordinates with mission planners in a timely manner. In this way, mission planners can determine path profiles that minimise the risk of aircraft penetration, either by exploiting existing gaps in radar coverage or by creating them by suppressing electronic warfare assets that target and disrupt enemy air defence systems and critical nodes in the enemy's network.  These personnel must perform their individual tasks in a strict and time-sensitive sequence with limited margins of error to maximise surprise and impact.

Such tasks are made more difficult by the enemy's attempt to conceal key assets, create false targets (e.g. radio frequency emitters and weapon system mock-ups), and take countermeasures aimed at maintaining active ground-based air defences. In the face of the threat posed by hidden, mobile or surviving air defence systems, military personnel must use decoys to deceive the enemy's air defence systems in order to activate their detection radars and thus expose their positions allowing suppression assets to detect and target them. In addition, electronic warfare platforms must be in position to effectively attenuate (i.e. "blind" or "deceive") any remaining enemy radars to minimise threats to the attack aircraft. The aircraft must then pass through temporary corridors created by degraded or destroyed enemy air defence systems, taking advantage of natural and artificial obstacles such as mountains or buildings. Given the lethality of modern air defence systems, these considerations apply to all aircraft, including stealth. Finally, penetrating aircraft require reliable and secure communications.

Research Design

In this section, we derive the observable effects of both the drone revolution thesis and the modern system of force employment in air warfare for three dependent variables: offensive-defensive balance, power distribution and force employment. We then explain the rationale behind our case selection.

Offence-Defence Balance: What is the Offensive Advantage of Drones?

Scientists have argued that drones provide an offensive advantage because they can penetrate an enemy's air defence systems. According to some, due to their small size and other physical characteristics, drones are difficult for modern air defence systems to detect, track and intercept. According to others, the cheap cost of drones makes them expendable and will allow countries to use them to numerically overwhelm an enemy's air defence system (saturation). If the drone revolution thesis is correct, we should observe at least one of the following three consequences:

(1) Drones should experience little attrition when entering enemy airspace;

(2) Drones should be able to conduct air-to-ground attacks over enemy territory protected by air defence systems; or

(3) Unmanned aerial vehicles should be able to systematically destroy enemy air defences. Given that the current generation of drones is vulnerable to air defence systems, according to our framework, the rate of attrition drones experience, and hence their success in conducting air-to-ground attacks, is a function of the relative skill, competence and capabilities of the conflicting parties (i.e., hiding from the enemy's sensors while finding the enemy's targets).

Power Distribution: The balancing effect of drones?

Proponents of the drone revolution thesis argue that because drones are easy to produce, cheap to procure and simple to operate, drones empower militarily weaker and resource-scarce actors, thus exerting a balancing effect on international politics. If this thesis is correct, across conflicts, weaker actors should be more likely to rely on drones (in absolute terms or relative to other weapon systems), especially when facing significantly stronger adversaries or when military defeat is imminent. Conversely, we expect that effectively using drones will require additional assets to blind and deceive enemy radars, suppress air defences, detect and acquire long-range targets, and transmit and receive real-time communications (especially when line of sight is not available). As a result, the stronger actor in a conflict will be more likely to use drones.

Use of Force: Can Close Combat Become Obsolete?

Finally, some proponents of the drone revolution believe that drones allow for unlimited long-range precision strikes that can destroy any intended target at will. As a result, the use of drones should make ground combat unnecessary and make factors affecting performance in ground combat (for example, the competence of military personnel) less relevant. According to our theory, close combat will not disappear because ground forces will continue to have opportunities for concealment, especially in urban environments.

Case selection

We test the observable effects of the drone revolution on military affairs and the modern use of force system in three recent conflicts: The Western Libyan military campaign, the Syrian civil war, and the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. UAVs were used extensively in these conflicts, which some have hailed as examples of the revolutionary effects of drones on the battlefield.  As Jason Lyall writes, "The world has entered an era of drone wars. In four major interstate wars in Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh, Syria and Ukraine, armed drones played a dominant, perhaps decisive, role." A priori, these cases should be particularly favourable to the drone revolution thesis and unfavourable to our argument. Moreover, these conflicts have significant intra- and inter-case differences, allowing us to address several of them. The war in Libya was fought between two relatively weak actors, the Government of National Accord (GNA) and the Libyan National Army (LNA). However, their external support has changed over time. Specifically, the LNA received significantly stronger initial support, while the GNA received more support in the later stages of the conflict. Similarly, the intervention of foreign states upset the tactical and operational balance in Syria (i.e. Iran and Russia provided support to the Syrian regime, the US supported the Syrian opposition, and Turkey fought against Kurdish groups). Finally, in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan had superior capabilities compared to Armenia, taking advantage of Turkey's ISR and electronic warfare assets and relying on special forces for infiltration behind enemy lines and mercenaries for ground operations.

Our empirical analysis is based on information from news organisations, published reports and open-source operational assessments. For recent conflicts, such sources are inherently problematic because some information may be inaccurate, embellished, biased or fraudulent. These issues affect war studies in general and even more recent conflicts where independent scholars and analysts do not have the opportunity to assess and verify multiple sources.  To compensate for this limitation, we analyse and triangulate several primary and secondary sources for each claim to minimise the risk of relying on misinformation. While we doubt that new evidence will challenge our conclusions, this cautionary warning is nevertheless necessary.

This concludes the first part. We will pick up the article where we left off in part two.

Bibliography

https://umilesgroup.com/en/rpas-uas-and-uav-what-are-they-and-how-do-they-differ/

https://cuashub.com/en/content/what-do-the-uas-groups-mean/

Antonio CALCARA, Andrea GILLI, Raffaele MARCHETTI, Ivan ZACCAGNINI. (2022). "Why Drones Have Not Revolutionized War: The Enduring Hider-Finder Competition in Air Warfare". (Translated by Burak ÖZCAN). MIT Press. International Security (2022) 46 (4): 130-171.