Dr Jack Watling and Professor Justin Bronk
The impact of uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) on land operations has been a subject of extensive discussion, from the war in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine beginning in 2022. The corollary to the importance of armies fielding UAS is that effective, layered and efficient counter-UAS (C-UAS) capabilities are neither a luxury nor a concept to be explored as part of an abstract ‘future force’. They are a basic requirement for a land force to be suitable for operations on the modern battlefield. Without C-UAS capabilities, a force will be seen first, engaged more accurately, and ultimately defeated by an opposing force that successfully fields UAS and C-UAS capabilities at scale. For NATO members, the aiming mark set by the Alliance’s senior leadership is to be ready to deter Russia by 2028. Fielding C-UAS capabilities, which are absent in any structured sense from the British Army and from most other NATO land force elements, is therefore an urgent operational requirement.
There is a risk that in attempting to fill this critical gap, NATO members purchase a range of C-UAS capabilities that are overly specialised in dealing with specific threat systems, are not integrated effectively across the force, and cannot keep pace with the threat as UAS continue to rapidly evolve. This paper outlines the core tasks and capabilities required to provide coherent, layered C-UAS protection. The paper then explores how to integrate layered C-UAS protection across land forces without overburdening units and thus preventing them from performing their primary tasks.
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