Russia’s war in Ukraine heralds an era of democratized airpower, one characterized by the extensive use of uncrewed aerial systems, more commonly known as drones, by state and non-state actors alike. As the character of conflict changes, United Nations peacekeeping operations should evolve as well. This emerging age of democratized airpower will not only present growing aerial threats to UN personnel and civilians, but it will also create new opportunities to improve peacekeeping situational awareness and proactively counter disinformation against UN peacekeeping operations.
The Democratization of Airpower
The war in Ukraine reflects the increasing democratization of airpower. In past wars, none but major military powers could afford the expensive aircraft and key enabling capabilities required to access and fully exploit the air domain. The helicopters called the “workhorses” of UN peacekeeping—the MI-8 series—have a price tag of $16-18 million, with hourly operating costs in the thousands of dollars. Such aircraft also require highly skilled pilots to fly them, and trained mechanics and technicians to keep them in the air. These scientific, technological, and economic hurdles have made it exceedingly difficult for most states to contribute large numbers of aircraft to UN peacekeeping missions. At the same time, these barriers to entry have traditionally limited the ability of potential peace spoilers to access and exploit the air domain
All that is now changing. The global spread of military-grade and commercial drones, as well as dual-use sensors and software-based technologies, have made airpower available to a much broader range of actors. The Bayraktar TB2 military drone became a symbol of Ukraine’s resistance early in the war, but it is the “Costco drones”—built for consumers and hobbyists, not soldiers—that now rule Ukraine’ skies. These commercial systems come equipped with zoom cameras and thermal sensors, and easy-to-fly controls. Ukraine’s drone schools teach novices to fly drones in only five days.
Commercial drones are also widely available, cheap, and easy to hide and transport across international borders. At a price tag of a couple thousand dollars or less, they are also more expendable. State and non-state actors may find it easier to buy and replenish them in large numbers. Indeed, Kyiv has created its own “drone army” from crowdfunded purchases of commercial drones. Though the Chinese company DJI, the world’s largest consumer drone manufacturer, halted sales in Russia and Ukraine last April, these “dronations” (as Kyiv calls them and which Russia has now copied) have resulted in a steady supply of new drones bought from abroad with cryptocurrency. Importantly, because these systems are sold on the commercial market, they are subject to fewer export control regulations and therefore easier to transport across international borders than their military counterparts.
The war in Ukraine has sent global drone markets skyrocketing. The demand is so high for the TB2 armed drone that its Turkish manufacturer now has a three-year-long waitlist, with sales to countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia providing governments with a far cheaper alternative to wield airpower against armed groups than traditionally crewed aircraft. The global sales of loitering munitions—one-time use drones capable of dive bombing their targets—is also rapidly growing, as observers assess their effect in Ukraine. Given some of these systems cost as little as $20,000 per unit, they will increasingly place precision-strike capabilities in the hands of a broader range of actors. Equally important, governments are not the only ones employing drones on battlefields. The drone of choice among violent non-state actors is the commercial quadcopter, especially the DJI Mavic series, employed by groups like the Islamic State, Houthis, and Hezbollah. The diffusion of drone technologies makes it easier for state and non-state actors to wage air warfare, and thus threatens to make such wars both more likely and deadlier.
The Spherical Challenge to UN Peacekeeping Operations
The democratization of airpower has three significant implications for the future of UN peacekeeping missions. Firstly, threats to the safety and security of UN personnel and that of the civilians under their protection will increasingly come from the lower altitudes of the air domain. In Ukraine, fighters have modified commercial drones into bombers, which drop grenades and other small explosives on Russian soldiers. In addition, both sides have used loitering munitions as a cheap alternative to cruise missiles.
This emerging operational environment suggests that UN peacekeepers will increasingly confront a “spherical challenge,” with threats to their own security and that of civilians coming from both horizontal and vertical dimensions. Last year, at least 16 peacekeepers were killed and another 17 injured in improvised explosive device (IED) and mine attacks against UN convoys in Mali. Small drones will increasingly offer armed groups another way to deliver IEDs. UN peacekeepers will not only have to protect themselves from IEDs on the ground, but also “IEDs that can fly.” Future peacekeeping missions, for example, could be called upon to protect civilians in cities and towns under siege from loitering munitions, similar to the use of rockets and artillery in past conflicts. Multiple types of systems for defending against drones are still under development, however, suggesting that passive countermeasures, like target hardening, may still be the best option to mitigate the threat.
The “Good” and “Bad” of Improved Situational Awareness
Secondly, small, cheap drones stand to significantly improve the situational awareness of both UN peacekeepers and armed groups. Above all, drones are most useful for putting eyes in the sky. In Ukraine, drones hover day and night. Their operators monitor a live video feed of the battlefield, spotting enemy positions and tracking their movements without risking the lives of scouts. Ukrainian commanders are able to watch the live footage, using commercial software like Google Meet. Put simply, the commercial market increasingly offers state and non-state actors intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities that were until recently only the purview of major military powers.
This near-persistent surveillance will present both new challenges and opportunities for UN peacekeeping missions. On the one hand, the diffusion of commercial surveillance drones will allow armed groups to more effectively observe the movements and activities of UN peacekeepers, improving their ability to plan, coordinate, and carry out attacks on UN bases and patrol convoys. On the other hand, peacekeeping forces also have an opportunity to leverage these same trends to improve their own situational awareness and ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and civilians. This is already occurring in some missions, as small drones fly ahead of and behind convoys. These systems can search the road for signs of danger—IEDs or fighters waiting to ambush—giving peacekeeping contingents time to address the threat or find an alternative route.
UN missions can also use drones to increase awareness for conflict prevention, for instance by monitoring the movements of armed groups towards civilian population centers, including the often massive camps housing displaced people in conflict zones. But to save lives, UN peacekeepers need the capacity to quickly analyze the footage and turn it into actionable peacekeeping-intelligence. Of course, none of that matters if host-state governments refuse or withdraw their consent for the use of drones by UN peacekeepers, as has occurred in several mission settings.
Drones and the Information Environment
Finally, though drones are likely to contribute to the growing problem of disinformation targeting UN peacekeeping operations, they might also offer a new way to address this issue. The world is watching the war in Ukraine through drone footage and cellphone video posted on social media and other digital platforms, shaping global public opinion. Manipulated videos—known as deepfakes—have also appeared online. As drone use by armed groups becomes even more widespread, fake or doctored drone videos will almost certainly become part of the arsenal for creating disinformation against UN peacekeepers. Tackling this growing threat will require more than responding to individual falsehoods; it will require a preventive approach, one that might include proactively spreading authoritative drone footage to promote transparency and trust. The age of democratized airpower is now, and it is full of promise and peril for UN peacekeeping operations. The United Nations will need to adapt to this new reality to leverage the benefits of airpower, while safeguarding against related emerging threats in the peacekeeping environment.
What Can UN Peacekeeping Learn from Ukraine’s Drones?
By Kelly A. Grieco
Peacekeeping
Russia’s war in Ukraine heralds an era of democratized airpower, one characterized by the extensive use of uncrewed aerial systems, more commonly known as drones, by state and non-state actors alike. As the character of conflict changes, United Nations peacekeeping operations should evolve as well. This emerging age of democratized airpower will not only present growing aerial threats to UN personnel and civilians, but it will also create new opportunities to improve peacekeeping situational awareness and proactively counter disinformation against UN peacekeeping operations.
The Democratization of Airpower
The war in Ukraine reflects the increasing democratization of airpower. In past wars, none but major military powers could afford the expensive aircraft and key enabling capabilities required to access and fully exploit the air domain. The helicopters called the “workhorses” of UN peacekeeping—the MI-8 series—have a price tag of $16-18 million, with hourly operating costs in the thousands of dollars. Such aircraft also require highly skilled pilots to fly them, and trained mechanics and technicians to keep them in the air. These scientific, technological, and economic hurdles have made it exceedingly difficult for most states to contribute large numbers of aircraft to UN peacekeeping missions. At the same time, these barriers to entry have traditionally limited the ability of potential peace spoilers to access and exploit the air domain
All that is now changing. The global spread of military-grade and commercial drones, as well as dual-use sensors and software-based technologies, have made airpower available to a much broader range of actors. The Bayraktar TB2 military drone became a symbol of Ukraine’s resistance early in the war, but it is the “Costco drones”—built for consumers and hobbyists, not soldiers—that now rule Ukraine’ skies. These commercial systems come equipped with zoom cameras and thermal sensors, and easy-to-fly controls. Ukraine’s drone schools teach novices to fly drones in only five days.
Commercial drones are also widely available, cheap, and easy to hide and transport across international borders. At a price tag of a couple thousand dollars or less, they are also more expendable. State and non-state actors may find it easier to buy and replenish them in large numbers. Indeed, Kyiv has created its own “drone army” from crowdfunded purchases of commercial drones. Though the Chinese company DJI, the world’s largest consumer drone manufacturer, halted sales in Russia and Ukraine last April, these “dronations” (as Kyiv calls them and which Russia has now copied) have resulted in a steady supply of new drones bought from abroad with cryptocurrency. Importantly, because these systems are sold on the commercial market, they are subject to fewer export control regulations and therefore easier to transport across international borders than their military counterparts.
The war in Ukraine has sent global drone markets skyrocketing. The demand is so high for the TB2 armed drone that its Turkish manufacturer now has a three-year-long waitlist, with sales to countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia providing governments with a far cheaper alternative to wield airpower against armed groups than traditionally crewed aircraft. The global sales of loitering munitions—one-time use drones capable of dive bombing their targets—is also rapidly growing, as observers assess their effect in Ukraine. Given some of these systems cost as little as $20,000 per unit, they will increasingly place precision-strike capabilities in the hands of a broader range of actors. Equally important, governments are not the only ones employing drones on battlefields. The drone of choice among violent non-state actors is the commercial quadcopter, especially the DJI Mavic series, employed by groups like the Islamic State, Houthis, and Hezbollah. The diffusion of drone technologies makes it easier for state and non-state actors to wage air warfare, and thus threatens to make such wars both more likely and deadlier.
The Spherical Challenge to UN Peacekeeping Operations
The democratization of airpower has three significant implications for the future of UN peacekeeping missions. Firstly, threats to the safety and security of UN personnel and that of the civilians under their protection will increasingly come from the lower altitudes of the air domain. In Ukraine, fighters have modified commercial drones into bombers, which drop grenades and other small explosives on Russian soldiers. In addition, both sides have used loitering munitions as a cheap alternative to cruise missiles.
This emerging operational environment suggests that UN peacekeepers will increasingly confront a “spherical challenge,” with threats to their own security and that of civilians coming from both horizontal and vertical dimensions. Last year, at least 16 peacekeepers were killed and another 17 injured in improvised explosive device (IED) and mine attacks against UN convoys in Mali. Small drones will increasingly offer armed groups another way to deliver IEDs. UN peacekeepers will not only have to protect themselves from IEDs on the ground, but also “IEDs that can fly.” Future peacekeeping missions, for example, could be called upon to protect civilians in cities and towns under siege from loitering munitions, similar to the use of rockets and artillery in past conflicts. Multiple types of systems for defending against drones are still under development, however, suggesting that passive countermeasures, like target hardening, may still be the best option to mitigate the threat.
The “Good” and “Bad” of Improved Situational Awareness
Secondly, small, cheap drones stand to significantly improve the situational awareness of both UN peacekeepers and armed groups. Above all, drones are most useful for putting eyes in the sky. In Ukraine, drones hover day and night. Their operators monitor a live video feed of the battlefield, spotting enemy positions and tracking their movements without risking the lives of scouts. Ukrainian commanders are able to watch the live footage, using commercial software like Google Meet. Put simply, the commercial market increasingly offers state and non-state actors intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities that were until recently only the purview of major military powers.
This near-persistent surveillance will present both new challenges and opportunities for UN peacekeeping missions. On the one hand, the diffusion of commercial surveillance drones will allow armed groups to more effectively observe the movements and activities of UN peacekeepers, improving their ability to plan, coordinate, and carry out attacks on UN bases and patrol convoys. On the other hand, peacekeeping forces also have an opportunity to leverage these same trends to improve their own situational awareness and ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and civilians. This is already occurring in some missions, as small drones fly ahead of and behind convoys. These systems can search the road for signs of danger—IEDs or fighters waiting to ambush—giving peacekeeping contingents time to address the threat or find an alternative route.
UN missions can also use drones to increase awareness for conflict prevention, for instance by monitoring the movements of armed groups towards civilian population centers, including the often massive camps housing displaced people in conflict zones. But to save lives, UN peacekeepers need the capacity to quickly analyze the footage and turn it into actionable peacekeeping-intelligence. Of course, none of that matters if host-state governments refuse or withdraw their consent for the use of drones by UN peacekeepers, as has occurred in several mission settings.
Drones and the Information Environment
Finally, though drones are likely to contribute to the growing problem of disinformation targeting UN peacekeeping operations, they might also offer a new way to address this issue. The world is watching the war in Ukraine through drone footage and cellphone video posted on social media and other digital platforms, shaping global public opinion. Manipulated videos—known as deepfakes—have also appeared online. As drone use by armed groups becomes even more widespread, fake or doctored drone videos will almost certainly become part of the arsenal for creating disinformation against UN peacekeepers. Tackling this growing threat will require more than responding to individual falsehoods; it will require a preventive approach, one that might include proactively spreading authoritative drone footage to promote transparency and trust. The age of democratized airpower is now, and it is full of promise and peril for UN peacekeeping operations. The United Nations will need to adapt to this new reality to leverage the benefits of airpower, while safeguarding against related emerging threats in the peacekeeping environment.
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