• Drones are big in the Ukraine war, and technology and tactics are rapidly evolving.
• NATO is taking note, realizing it desperately needs drones, too.
• A defense minister said the Ukraine war made his country realize it must "invest significantly."

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a conflict dominated by drones, and NATO's been taking notes, learning how to move faster.

Uncrewed systems are being used more in this war than in any other conflict in history. They are expendable intelligence-gathering and surveillance platforms, bombers, minelayers, and even precision-strike options for attacks on troops, vehicles, and fixed positions like trenches, bases, and oil refineries.

Drones come in different designs and sizes, from smaller off-the-shelf drones that are available to civilians all over the world to larger, military-grade ones. They're versatile and expected to play a significant role in future fights.

One Ukrainian soldier who works with drones and unmanned systems told Business Insider that "what we're doing in Ukraine will define warfare for the next decade."

And Western countries are paying attention.

Learning from the war in Ukraine

Pål Jonson, Sweden's defense minister, said one of the key lessons identified by Sweden from war was the need for more autonomous capabilities. At war, Ukraine has been developing artificial intelligence-driven drones and other autonomous systems. There's tremendous innovation underway in the drone space.

"The scale and volume and also how quick technological developments have been taking place inside Ukraine: That made us cognizant that this is an area where we need to invest significantly," he said.

Sweden said last month it had developed drone swarm technology that allows many different-sized drones to work together. This is something many other Western nations are working on as well with industry partners.

Sweden, like other NATO countries, is also investing in counter-drone technology and armed drones, Jonson said. "This is something we've been laser-focusing on."

Jonson said swarm drones took less than a year when it would typically take five. He said "we were laser-focused on developing this capability quickly to get this in the hands of the warfighter as quickly as possible."

The speed was possible because Sweden used a "slightly unconventional" process, including close collaboration between Sweden's military, its procurement agency, and other bodies.

Sweden joined NATO in March 2024, abandoning decades of neutrality in direct response to Russia's invasion.

It is among the members that exceed the 2% of GDP defense spending guideline set by NATO, and its military was designed to counter Russia. It has repeatedly warned the alliance needs to be prepared for a possible Russian attack. Jonson said last year that Russia "poses a threat to Sweden, as it does to the rest of NATO," adding that "we cannot rule out a Russian attack on our country."

Sweden's betting big on drones, and it isn't the only NATO ally doing so. The UK and Latvia founded a "drone coalition" last year to procure drones for Ukraine. It has 17 members, including France, Germany, Italy, and Canada, with support from members reaching around $1.8 billion last year.

Those lessons are being used at home as well to boost defense. Latvia is building a "drone army" for its own military. Andris Sprūds, Latvia's defense minister, told BI that the country is strengthening its drone capabilities "at all levels of the National Armed Forces."

He said working so hard on the coalition isn't helping just Ukraine. Because Latvian companies are making some of those drones, and because drone technology is developing and being adapted so quickly, that work has been hugely helpful for Latvia's own defense.

He said the coalition has "made a significant contribution to the development of Latvia's drone industry."

And in Ukraine, he said, drones have "proven themselves to be critical in modern warfare."

Getting ready for a drone fight

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said last month that drones are changing the way war is fought, identifying this shift as a key observation from the war in Ukraine.

He said NATO is using drone tech in its operations in the Baltic Sea to defend against Russian hybrid attacks alongside "more traditional technology" like ships and aircraft.

He also told NATO allies in December to be ready for a drone fight, noting that the "Ukrainians are fighting against Russian swarms of drones. That's what we need to be prepared for."

There is a danger of moving too fast. Drone and counter-drone technology and tactics are rapidly evolving in Ukraine. Building too many drones too early without the ability to make improvements could see some systems become obsolete.

But Warfare experts say the key is to be ready, to have an industry that is monitoring, learning, and evolving too and ready to produce on a large scale, as well as a military that's trained and ready to incorporate and use drones when needed.

Jonson said he advised all allies to invest in drone and counter-drone technology "because this is an aspect of contemporary warfare that has become very clear, has a very significant role on the battlefield in Ukraine."

European defense spending has soared, and many European countries say they'll spend much more, noting it is necessary. The timing is key for Europe, not just with Russia threatening the continent but with US President Donald Trump stepping back from European defense.

Sprūds said: '"We have to invest in our defense already today — this means increasing defense funding, ramping up production, boosting our resilience, and supporting Ukraine as it fights for all of us."

• Ukrainian company Sine.Engineering is developing technology to help drones resist Russia's electronic warfare.
• Sine is focused on better communication between operators and drones, including non-GPS navigation.
• Its swarm technology is currently being tested with the Ukrainian army, its executives said.

A Ukrainian drone technology company is working to defeat Russia's intense electronic warfare, but it isn't hard-wiring them like fiber-optic drones.

Top Sine.Engineering executives told Business Insider that their work aims to completely change how operators work with drones as uncrewed systems continue to dominate the battlefield.

Sine develops communication platforms for uncrewed aerial vehicles operating in contested and GPS-denied environments, growing problems in modern conflicts like the war in Ukraine. It began focusing on designing solutions for drone communication challenges in 2022, and it started mass production the next year.

Sine uses non-GPS navigation systems to avoid jamming, relying on time-of-flight calculations to determine location. Its products are being employed by over 50 drone makers in Ukraine, as well as some outside of the country, it said.

The company's co-founder and CEO Andriy Chulyk told BI that knowing the battlefield is critical to designing technology for a war, especially when the goal is to defeat the electronic warfare capabilities of a major military power.

"You should try and test different kind of things" and be connected with the Ukrainian military "to receive constant feedback," he said.

Sine's data chips are as small as an SD card and designed to facilitate drone navigation to targets without satellites.

Many off-the-shelf drone systems and GPS-guided munitions rely on satellite information, but drones equipped with Sine technology depend on signals from a communication module that keeps track of the drone's location in a way that is somewhat reminiscent of the pre-GPS "dead reckoning" by pilots.

Sine's hardware and software tools are intended to provide reliable navigation and flight control, as well as resistance to GPS jamming. The company is also working on how to keep drones flying on radio signals even in contested environments filled with frequency jamming, electronic warfare that involves flooding frequencies with noise to disrupt signals.

Chulyk and Sine's Chief Strategy Officer Andriy Zvirko said that their drone parts are self-produced and affordable, both of which are crucial to scaling up operations.

When it comes to comms technologies for drones, "it's not only about price; it's about how they work," Zvirko said. "It's so hard to find a good provider. That's why we created our own because we have seen this gap on the market."

Many of Sine's products are active on the battlefield, but one of its newer focuses being tested with the Ukrainian army is drone swarming, which involves using autonomy to pilot multiple drones to targets. Drone swarming isn't a new concept, but Chulyk and Zvirko said that many drone developers have different ideas of what the capabilities look like.

Their vision involves an operator being able to run multiple uncrewed vehicles at once and switch to the drone they want to at a given moment. "We believe," Chulyk said, "it will make our military forces more effective because it will be possible to operate a lot of drones in the same time from one or two operators."

Sine is working to achieve autonomy in drone technology, but a key challenge is the amount of data that it needs to calculate for navigation and precision.

Artificial intelligence hasn't seen widespread usage on the battlefield yet, Ukraine's special drone unit Typhoon told BI this month, but such a capability could fundamentally change drone warfare and help overcome electronic warfare — the drone can continue flying on to its target even if the signal is severed.

Fiber-optic drones arose as a countermeasure to electronic warfare issues but aren't seeing extensive use just yet either, at least not compared to regular FPV drones. The drones are hard-wired to the operator, ensuring a reliable connection, but they have their own cons, including potentially limited range and environmental obstacles. The benefit though is that they can't be jammed by radio frequency jammers that have complicated drone operations.

Jamming has created a battlespace where drone units have to work harder and smarter to identify how the enemy is trying to sabotage their drones and how they need to adapt their systems to fly and get to their targets. It's also demanding more from industry.

• A drone unit in Ukraine said it destroyed three prized Russian air defense systems in a single day.
• It posted clips of drone attacks, saying it hit a Tor-M2, a Buk-M2, and a Buk-M3.
• In its post on Saturday, the unit also highlighted that the drones were funded by civilians.

The drone unit of a Ukrainian brigade in Zaporizhzhia said it destroyed three advanced Russian air defense systems in a single day.

The Ronin company of the 65th Mechanized Rifle Brigade posted footage of the first-person view drone attacks on Saturday, saying it took out a Tor-M2, a Buk-M2, and a Buk-M3.

Those are some of Moscow's most prized mobile surface-to-air missile systems, with the Tor-M2 lauded in Russian state media in 2023 as a "cutting-edge" weapon that can counter drone swarms on the move.

With a range of about 7.5 miles, the Tor-M2 is designed to engage up to 48 targets at once at low to medium altitudes.

The Buk-M3 is also one of Russia's newest air defenses. Russian state media outlet TASS compared it in 2016 to the Medium Extended Air Defense System, a Western-made system meant to replace the Patriot. Each Patriot system is estimated to cost about $1.1 billion.

The clips posted by the Ronin company on Saturday showed first-person view drones closely approaching the air defense systems before their video feeds went dark. While the drones' flight trajectory and distance to the Russian defenses indicate a successful hit, Business Insider couldn't independently verify if the systems were actively deployed assets or were destroyed.

But the videos show yet another example of how the fighting in Ukraine is increasingly relying on cheap loitering munitions, even to counter high-value targets.

Drone makers in Ukraine usually tell BI that they sell or create exploding drones for $750 to $1,500 apiece, depending on the device's size.

Meanwhile, it's difficult to pinpoint how much Russia spends on its air defense systems. The Ukrainian military has estimated that the Tor-M2 costs about $27 million per unit and that the Buk-M3 costs about $40 to $50 million per unit.

The Ronin company's post on Saturday also indicated that the drones used in the attack weren't officially supplied but received through civilian donations.

"The sponsor of the defeat is the Sternenko community," the unit wrote on its social media channel, referring to the Ukrainian crowdfunding activist Serhii Sternenko.

Sternenko, one of the biggest drone crowdfunders in Ukraine, acknowledged the attacks on Saturday, calling the drone unit "true masters of their craft" in a post on his Telegram channel.

"We provide them with drones upon individual requests specifically for performing such tasks," he wrote, adding that the air defense systems were positioned at the Russian rear.

Drone warfare continues to evolve on the battlefield in Ukraine.

For example, with loitering munitions becoming so ubiquitous, the war fronts have increasingly been reported to become saturated with jammers. That prompted Russian units to bring fiber-optic drones to the fight last year, and Ukrainian companies and brigades have been following suit in manufacturing their own versions.

Russia's defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment sent by BI outside regular business hours.

• The Pentagon is developing AI-enabled satellite technology.
• AI satellites offer advantages amid intensifying competition in space.
• They could supercharge data analysis and help evade the consequences of a Chinese cyber-attack.

A vast network of military satellites belonging to the US has long underpinned its dominance in space. But China is challenging the US status as the space superpower, and its satellite system is in the crosshairs.

Defense News reported last month that the US Navy is moving forward with plans to build a network of fully autonomous satellites that are able to navigate independently without GPS or ground control.

Analysts say that AI could help the US stay ahead, providing its satellites with the capacity to evade the consequences of a potentially crippling attack, as well as more power to collect and analyze large amounts of data.

The race for satellite dominance

The stakes in the battle for satellite supremacy are high, Melanie Garson, an associate professor in International Conflict Resolution & International Security at University College London, told Business Insider.

The winner would control a vital aspect of space infrastructure, which would also provide an advantage in intelligence gathering and precision strikes in the event of a war.

AI "will provide additional capabilities for surveillance and espionage as well as being able to interfere with the other's space assets through spectrum warfare or cyberattacks," Garson said.

The US has hundreds of military satellites in orbit, with China and Russia not far behind.

If a war were to break out between the US and China, military experts say that China has the capability to do serious damage to US space-based assets through a range of anti-satellite, or ASAT, capabilities, including programming its satellites to attack others.

A CIA report that leaked in 2023 said China was focusing its efforts in the event of a war on hacking the systems used to control US satellite networks.

Systems confrontation and destruction warfare is believed to be a preferred Chinese military tactic for 21st-century warfare.

Crippling these systems would leave satellites unable to transfer communications and data, or even coordinate with each other, the report said.

AI could be the key

AI for satellites could be crucial to preserving US capabilities. Unlike satellites that require human input, autonomous satellites can operate independently, processing and analyzing data to make their own decisions.

The autonomy makes them less vulnerable to possible attacks on bases or communications networks or to being cut off from operators by electronic warfare like signal jamming, said Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project and a senior fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Decentralized decision-making may add resilience by decreasing the reliance on ground-based infrastructure," Krista Langeland, deputy lead of the RAND Space Enterprise Initiative, told BI. "AI capabilities could also help with detection and characterization of an attack."

Another advantage is that AI could help process vast amounts of data in space, and identify potentially hostile satellites more quickly.

"Space is huge," Swope said, "so AI will help satellites better understand what's happening around them and keep track of what other satellites are doing."

"That could help US satellites maneuver to avoid accidental collisions but also stay clear of potentially hostile adversarial satellites," he said.

A distant goal

The power of the technology to revolutionize US satellite technology and security is significant, Alison Grey, a satellites expert at PA Consulting, told BI.

"Ultimately, AI-enabled automation can enable a network to react and recover from various threats in space," she said, "whether that's from natural phenomena, anomalies in one's own system, or potentially hostile activity."

However, while the technology is already being applied in some military satellites, realizing its full potential is likely to be some way off.

Space Force's former top acquisition official, Frank Calvelli, told an event last year that he expects satellites to be "significantly more autonomous" within the next 10 to 15 years.

Even so, efforts are intensifying to begin realizing its potential. Defense News said that the US Navy is researching a fully autonomous model, the Autosat, and wants to take the tests further.

"We've done a demo of this and proven out the principles and are looking for the next step," Steven Meier, director of space technology at the Naval Research Laboratory, said at a recent summit in Virginia. "We want to get funding to actually build a system along these lines and launch it."

Warfare experts rate 14 scenes from "Lord of the Rings" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" and judge how real they are.

Archer Jim Kent ("Grizzly Jim") analyzes the archery by Legolas in "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers." Blacksmith Neil Kamimura rates forging scenes from "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring." Jousting world champion Shane Adams rates the horseback fight scene from Helm's Deep for accuracy. Medieval fortification expert Michael Fulton looks at the Minas Tirith fortress defense scenes from "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." Ancient warfare historian Roel Konijnendijk analyzes the battle tactics depicted in the Siege of Gondor and "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power."

Archery expert Grizzly Jim has been practicing archery for over 20 years and has traveled across Europe for archery events and demonstrations.

Shane Adams has 20 jousting world championships. He hosted the History Channel show "Full Metal Jousting" and the jousting reality show "Tilt."

Tobias Capwell is the curator of arms and armor at The Wallace Collection in London.

Michael Fulton is an assistant professor of medieval history at Western University in Ontario, Canada.

Neil Kamimura owns and operates the forge T Kamimura Blacksmith in Hawaii.

Roel Konijnendijk is a historian of ancient warfare at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. He specializes in classical Greek warfare.

You can find Follow Grizzly Jim on Instagram here.

You can find Roel Konijnendijk on Bluesky here.

You can find Neil Kamimura on Instagram here.

For more information about Tobias Capwell and The Wallace Collection, you can visit the Wallace Collection website.

You can find more information about Shane Adams and Extreme Jousting here.

Michael Fulton's medieval warfare books can be found here.

• US destroyers operating in the Red Sea last year defeated Houthi drones without firing a shot.
• The warships used "non-kinetic" capabilities to defeat the threat, per documents reviewed by BI.
• The Navy said the incidents demonstrated a new way for its warships to battle enemy threats.

US Navy destroyers fended off Houthi drones in the Red Sea last year without firing a shot, demonstrating alternative ways for warships to battle these threats.

Documents obtained by Business Insider detail multiple incidents throughout the Navy's counter-Houthi mission in which US destroyers used "non-kinetic" capabilities, engagement methods not dependent on munitions and physical destruction, to defeat the hostile drones launched by the Iran-backed Yemeni rebels.

Between November 27, 2023, and March 9, 2024, sailors aboard the USS Mason "successfully executed the engagements" of a drone using undefined "non-kinetic effects" to intercept the uncrewed system. These actions prevented damage to Navy and coalition warships and commercial vessels, one of the documents said.

And on February 19, 2024, sailors aboard USS Gravely used an unspecified "Non-Kinetic Weapon system" in multiple successful non-kinetic engagements against drones in combat, according to another document.

It said that these non-kinetic engagements are "not only proving non-kinetic weapon systems work underway, but changing the way the Surface Navy fights wars at sea."

The document said that these engagements trained the rest of the Navy on how to use non-kinetic weapon systems successfully — which other US warships went on to do. The Mason and Gravely spent months deployed to the Middle East last year as part of the US military's counter-Houthi mission.

Navy officials declined to comment on the non-kinetic capabilities of US warships, but destroyers have several ways to defeat enemy drones without firing a shot. A kinetic means of interception would be something like launching a surface-to-air missile at the drone, hitting it with the ship's close-in weapons system, or blasting it out of the sky with rounds from a five-inch deck gun.

Bryan Clark, a former Navy officer and defense analyst at the Hudson Institute, explained to BI that US destroyers are equipped with the AN/SLQ-32 electronic warfare suite, commonly referred to as Slick-32.

The SLQ-32 is a destroyer's electronic ears, capable of detecting the transmissions of a foreign jet or identifying the seeker on an incoming missile. Through its electronic attack systems, the SLQ-32 can also blast electronic noise at frequencies used by a missile guidance system to confuse it.

A warship's electronic warfare systems also include the Ship's Signal Exploitation Equipment (SSEE) system, an information warfare/electronic warfare and tactical cryptologic signals intelligence system. This system has documented electronic warfare non-kinetic capabilities.

The documents BI obtained showed that the sailors from the Mason and Gravely who received combat awards for their roles in defeating the Houthi drones during the non-kinetic engagements worked with the SSEE.

Electronic detection and jamming have long been part of the Navy's doctrine, but US warships had never faced as intense a drone threat as the one brought on by the Houthis. American forces have eliminated nearly 500 drones launched by the rebels since they first started their attacks against ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in October 2023.

"This is really the first time we've seen airborne drones used in anti-ship attacks against US and allied navies," Clark said.

Proving the effectiveness of non-kinetic capabilities is significant for the Navy. Not only are these solutions much cheaper than taking out drones with surface-to-air missiles, but they also spare a ship from depleting its magazine, requiring it to leave the battlespace to rearm. This is critical to sustaining warships during a high-tempo operating environment like the Houthi conflict.

Clark said that these non-kinetic engagements underscore how the Navy has developed a better sense of how to match a warship's defensive systems with threats that it's facing — one of many lessons the sea service is taking away from the Houthi conflict.

• Low-cost drones have been used as cheap and effective weapons in conflicts like Ukraine.
• The US military is rapidly developing its own tactics and ways to counter them.
• In January, Marines conducted live-fire training exercises using a new anti-drone system.

In footage released last year, a Ukrainian drone is filmed approaching a Russian tank. But instead of flying into its protective shield, the drone flies under it, exploding and obliterating the vehicle.

It was a vivid example of how off-the-shelf drones, which can cost as little as $1,000, are transforming the battlefield.

Ukraine has used drones to overcome Russia's major advantages in manpower and equipment, and Pentagon military planners have watched closely — drawing their own lessons.

The US military is now testing a range of equipment and tactics to defend against aerial drone attacks.

In January, US Marines conducted live-fire training exercises in Hawaii using a new anti-drone system, the Marine Air Defense Integrated System, or MADIS.

The system allows Marines to detect, identify, and destroy drones using an arsenal of weapons, including canons, jammers, and machine guns, Stars and Stripes reported.

Last year, Defense One reported that the Pentagon was also planning to equip troops with handheld drone detection and jamming devices.

And in December, the Pentagon released a new counter-drone strategy aimed at coordinating how different branches of the military respond to the threat, and making "countering unmanned systems a key element of our thinking."

"Some of the character of warfare is changing right now," Col. John Lehane, commander of the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, told The Honolulu Star-Advertiser this month, of the MADIS test.

"And if we don't change, we're going to find ourselves in a bad spot," he said.

Drone tactics develop rapidly

Clayton Swope, a senior fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Business Insider that anti-drone defenses have two core challenges — to detect drones and to neutralize them.

Systems like MADIS, which can travel with front-line forces and integrate drone detectors and interceptors, are an important development, he said.

"MADIS is a solution that operates at the pointiest end of the spear, providing air protections to marines who might have to storm the beaches in a future conflict," Swope said.

The system is carried by a pair of light, tactical vehicles, Stars and Stripes reported in January, and will next be used in joint exercises in the Philippines, to see how it handles humid conditions.

No 'silver bullet' for tackling drones

Zak Kallenborn, a drone analyst and affiliate of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI that there was no "silver bullet" for tackling drones, and that defenses "need to accommodate that variability."

"Drones vary greatly in capability and present threats across the whole of the military," he said.

"One big problem is we're only really learning about aerial drone tactics," Kallenborn added, "but drones also fly, swim, and swarm. It's tough to develop counter tactics against technologies that are only just beginning to be used."

The relative novelty of using drones in war also means tactics must evolve fast.

Russia has developed a sophisticated electronic warfare capability to counter drones by jamming the signals used to guide them. Meanwhile, Ukraine claims to have tested laser weapons to take out drones used by Russia to attack its cities and infrastructure.

According to The War Zone, multiple branches of the US military are experimenting with laser or microwave weapons to take down drones.

Ukraine, with the help of allies including the US and Germany, is also reportedly seeking to develop new drones to overcome Russia's jamming.

Raising the drone threat, Business Insider reported last year that a new type of attack might involve drones operated as part of a coordinated swarm. China is among the countries believed to be developing this technology.

To counter this, Swope said militaries like the US' might need to use AI as part of drone defenses, to analyze complex data beyond the capability of humans.

"Defensive systems will need to make decisions at a speed and scale that might challenge a human operator," he said.

In the short term, "MADIS and other systems like it will be critical to protecting infantry and artillery units from small drones," Swope said, "which Ukraine has shown are an impossible-to-ignore emerging threat to ground forces."

Much of Ukraine's military drone unit is shrouded in secrecy, but newly released footage is offering a new glimpse into the operation.

• The US Air Force just got its first F-15 fighter aircraft upgraded with new technology.
• The technology is designed to improve the electronic warfare capabilities of the decades-old jets.
• The Air Force hailed the development as a milestone as it looks to modernize its fourth-gen planes.

The US Air Force just received its first F-15 fighter jets upgraded with advanced electronic warfare capabilities, a significant milestone for the decades-old aircraft.

The Air Force's 48th Fighter Wing said on Tuesday that two F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft equipped with the new system arrived last week at RAF Lakenheath, a British base that hosts American forces, including newer F-35A fighters.

One of the upgraded jets was assigned to the 494th fighter squadron, while the other went to the 492nd.

The new upgrade, known as the Eagle Passive/Active Warning and Survivability System, or EPAWSS, is designed to autonomously detect and identify threats to the aircraft and then take measures to disrupt them in self-defense.

The technology is intended to improve the F-15's radar warning and geolocation, among other features, giving the pilot more situational awareness when flying in highly contested environments.

Lt. Col. Timothy Causey, the 494th commander, said that "having EPAWSS operational at RAF Lakenheath significantly enhances our ability to detect and counter threats, ensuring the safety and effectiveness of our crews."

He said that "this advanced electronic warfare system, when combined with the F-35s, acts as a powerful force multiplier, transforming our operations and amplifying the 48th Fighter Wing's impact in the battlespace."

The US Air Force had been looking at ways to improve the capabilities of its F-15s, a fourth-generation fighter first introduced in the late 1980s and made by US defense contractor McDonnell Douglas, now Boeing.

F-15E fighter-bombers play an important role in US air capabilities. Jets from RAF Lakenheath were deployed to the Middle East last year as part of efforts to boost the US military's presence in the region amid tensions between Israel and Iran.

British aerospace company BAE Systems, which makes the technology, said last year after it completed operational testing that EPAWSS would allow aircraft to penetrate deeper into areas that are protected by modern air defenses.

"We're using agile software development to provide iterative upgrades to fielded EW systems — allowing our customers to defeat future electromagnetic threats," Amy Nesbitt, the EPAWSS program manager at BAE, said in April.

EPAWSS is standard equipment on the new F-15EX Eagle II fighters, but not the older aircraft. Around 100 older F-15E variants will receive upgrades. The Air Force earlier this month cleared the system for full-rate production under a contract worth nearly $616 million.

In its Tuesday statement, the 48th Fighter Wing hailed the delivery of the two upgraded F-15s as "a major milestone in the Air Force's ongoing efforts to modernize its fourth-generation fleet."

"By equipping these aircraft with advanced electronic warfare capabilities, the 48th FW is ensuring their readiness for operations in austere environments and supporting NATO's missions across Europe and the Pacific," the fighter wing added.

• A commander in Ukraine's 14th UAV regiment said combat drone tech can change in a month.
• One example is the evolving need for new hardware to counter jamming techniques, he said.
• Military contracts like a three-year agreement wouldn't be able to fulfill those demands in time, he said.

A Ukrainian commander overseeing a drone battalion said the speed at which his decentralized manufacturers can alter their battlefield tech gives them an edge over traditional defense production lines.

"We say to them: 'Here, after three months, this antenna no longer works, this GPS module no longer works.' We tell them: 'This and this needs to be changed,'" said a battalion commander for the 14th Unmanned Aerial Vehicle regiment to the Ukrainian military channel ARMY TV.

"They say: 'No problem.' And in one month, on the dot, they implement it," added the commander, referring to drone producers in Ukraine. He was identified by his call sign, Kasper, in an interview published on Sunday.

"We can plan all according to the rules and try to aim where we are going to be in 5, 10, 15, 20 years," Kasper said.

But he said the "realities of war" mean his unit must continuously give feedback to manufacturers, who in turn roll out changes quickly.

Kasper compared that to production lines for drones like the Iranian-designed Shahed, which Russia has been manufacturing at scale for the war.

"Let us say you are creating a production line and planning to make one Shahed. There is a three-year contract for it planned in advance, it already has pre-written technical specifications, pre-written set of components," Kasper said.

Installing new components or tweaking designs would, therefore, be difficult, he said.

"They already received the money. 'I gave you the Shahed according to the specifications, so what do you want from me? I don't really care!'" Kasper said.

He cited an example of Ukraine's evolving battlefield needs: GPS-jamming countermeasures for larger drones. These require special hardware like receivers or antennae that allow operators to switch between frequencies.

If those measures don't work, the drones need an inertial navigation system so they can fly blindly out of jamming range, or perhaps a camera that lets the pilot navigate the drone through visuals, he added.

"So if the drone sees that it is being jammed, it transitions to the visual navigation and is moving forward, or transitions to the inertial navigation and is moving forward, or it has a multiband antenna that jumps from channel to channel. And it is impossible to jam it," Kasper said.

That's not to say that Russia is limited to traditional military contracts. Both sides have active volunteer organizations that donate thousands of civilian drones for combat, though Ukrainian units believe they're maintaining a lead in innovation over Russian forces.

One way that Russia has brought new tech to the front lines is through fiber-optic drones, which allow them to bypass electronic jamming. Ukrainian developers, meanwhile, are scrambling to adopt the same technology for first-person loitering munitions.

All of this is happening as militaries worldwide watch the war closely for lessons to glean from what's become a yearslong open conflict between two major modern forces.

Seeing how much of the battlefield now hinges on drones, some countries have begun prioritizing uncrewed aerial vehicles or novel anti-drone defenses.

The US, for example, is awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to firms such as Teledyne and Anduril to make loitering munitions. In October, Anduril also announced that it secured a $249 million Defense Department contract to produce 500 Roadrunner drones and an electronic warfare system.

• Russia is believed to be behind dozens of hybrid attacks on NATO going back years.
• These incidents — part of a so-called shadow war — have escalated since the invasion of Ukraine.
• NATO is now surging its efforts to respond to the attacks and monitor threats to infrastructure.

Far beyond the front lines in Ukraine, Russia is waging a different kind of warfare against NATO. It is a covert, low-intensity conflict with serious consequences.

Moscow has long been waging a shadow war against the military alliance, but the war in Ukraine has led to an escalation of hybrid, or gray-zone, attacks on NATO since the conflict began.

"It's definitely escalating from where it started and where we are now," Gabrielius Landsbergis, who recently stepped down after four years as Lithuania's foreign minister, told Business Insider. A longtime critic of Russia's destabilizing hybrid warfare activities, he said that Moscow's ambition has grown, and its approach has become increasingly more aggressive.

The uptick in gray-zone attacks has raised concerns among current and former NATO and European officials that these activities could trigger more catastrophic outcomes, especially if deterrence efforts are insufficient.

"I believe they are accelerating," Philip Breedlove, a retired US Air Force general and a former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told BI. "As long as they are working and there is little or no consequence to the antagonist, why would they not?"

'There's no incentive for them to stop'

Russia's hybrid warfare tactics emerged years ago, but they have become significantly more common occurrences since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022. Since then, European countries have experienced many attacks and sabotage attributed to Moscow. These range from arson and signal jamming to assassination attempts and hacks.

The US Helsinki Commission, an independent government agency, has identified some 150 hybrid operations on NATO territory over the past three years that have been linked to Russia. These acts include critical infrastructure attacks, campaigns of violence, election interference, and weaponized migration.

The commission said in a report released last month that Russia is carrying out a shadow war on NATO in tandem with its war in Ukraine to "destabilize, distress, and deter" the alliance in order to negatively impact support for Kyiv.

But Russian activities are about more than Ukraine. James Appathurai, NATO's deputy assistant secretary general for innovation, hybrid, and cyber, said the Russian hybrid tactics and strategy predate the war and will continue long after it ends because Moscow views the West as an unacceptable obstacle to its great-power ambitions.

"It is an inherent part of Russian strategic thinking. The military is only part of it," Appathurai, the NATO secretary general's primary advisor on hybrid threats, told BI. "Their aim is to achieve political victory using the full spectrum of tools."

Not only are hybrid attacks on the rise, but Russia is also showing an increasing appetite to risk the lives of civilians in NATO countries, Appathurai said. A mass-casualty incident is among his biggest fears.

The most recent high-profile hybrid attack occurred just a few weeks ago, in late December, when several underwater cables were damaged in the Baltic Sea. Authorities suspect an oil tanker dragged its anchor along the seabed to damage a Finnish-Estonian power line and four telecom cables.

Finland seized the Eagle S tanker and prohibited the crew from leaving its territory. The vessel, flying the Cook Islands flag, is believed to be part of Russia's so-called "shadow fleet," a collection of hundreds of ships that Moscow uses to move oil and circumvent sanctions on its energy exports.

Critical undersea infrastructure, like the underwater cables facilitating massive amounts of global data transmission, is especially vulnerable to sabotage. There have been several incidents in recent months, as well as others in the past, and military leaders have long worried about the threats to these lines.

James Foggo, a retired US Navy admiral who previously served as the commander of Allied Joint Force Command Naples, told BI that Finland acted in defense of its sovereignty by detaining the ship accused of damaging the cables. He said responses to future assaults on critical undersea infrastructure "must be bold and have consequences for the perpetrator."

He wasn't alone on that point. Gray-zone tactics below the threshold of armed conflict can be difficult to respond to, but there's an argument that NATO needs to be more aggressive in punishing the Kremlin because it operates under the assumption that the alliance is too passive.

"We already know that Russia is taking these actions on us in hybrid space," Breedlove said, adding that NATO needs to take actions in response and "increase the cost on Russia, or else there's no incentive for them to stop."

'They control the escalation'

Beyond the physical damage some of the hybrid attacks have caused, there's a psychological element at play. Russia's actions have stoked anxiety, particularly among the front-line NATO countries which long warned of Moscow's malign activity, that the alliance could fail to deliver a sufficient response.

In the aftermath of the Eagle S incident, NATO countries have taken various steps to address hybrid attacks and the threats to critical infrastructure.

The British government said earlier this month that it deployed a UK-led reaction system to track potential threats to undersea infrastructure and monitor the shadow fleet. Last week, the White House announced sanctions on more than 180 vessels in the fleet. (The European Union had already blacklisted some 80 ships.)

On Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced the start of a new operation that will see the alliance enhance its military presence in the Baltic Sea with warships, patrol aircraft, and naval drones.

Speaking to reporters, Rutte said, "We are also working with allies to integrate their national surveillance assets with NATO, ensuring comprehensive threat detection."

But these increased patrols may not be enough to eliminate the threat entirely, and they're not cheap. Foggo said bad actors wield a "cost-imposing strategy" on NATO by raising the price of protecting undersea infrastructure.

Still, the sweeping new measures appear to signal a new and more thorough approach from NATO as the Russian threat grows amid the grinding Ukraine war, nearing the start of its fourth year.

Appathurai said "time will tell" whether efforts like increased patrols and sanctions on the shadow fleet will be enough to protect NATO from Russian activities. However, he emphasized that these steps are significantly more robust than what the alliance has done in the past, thanks to political will and new technology. He also said member states would be firmer in their response to attacks, as Finland showed by seizing the Eagle S.

"We're satisfied that these are sufficient steps for now," he said. NATO also has other lines of efforts; for instance, it turned to special operations divers to test new protections just last fall.

NATO has also been strengthening its defenses against more conventional threats, beefing up its military presence throughout the eastern alliance members, specifically the Baltic states, which are considered to be the most vulnerable.

Meanwhile, the hybrid campaign shows no signs of slowing down as Russia looks to exert its influence over the continent. Landsbergis warned that in doing so, Moscow is "recreating the geopolitical environment" in which it operates.

"Now, they control the escalation in Ukraine — in the West — with everything that they do," he said. "As long as we stay silent and quiet and timid, not wanting to react, not wanting to escalate, and talking about de-escalation, this is the perfect environment for the Russians."

• Ukraine has been releasing excerpts of what its forces say is a North Korean soldier's diary.
• They include a stick-figure sketch of using a comrade as "bait" to shoot down a drone.
• Other entries include musings on class struggles and a confession for stealing undisclosed Russian items.

Excerpts from a North Korean soldier's diary released by Ukraine show a glimpse at how Pyongyang's troops in Russia believed they could defend against drones and artillery strikes.

Ukraine's special forces have been releasing excerpts of the diary since Christmas week, saying the entries were written by a now-deceased North Korean private named Gyeong Hong Jong.

The latest of these, published on Thursday, appeared to feature the young soldier confessing that he was stealing items from his Russian allies to sell. He did not specify what the stolen goods were but wrote that he had been caught.

"While working in the barracks, I thought that no one was watching me and put the Russians' things in my pocket," the diary excerpt said, per Ukraine's special forces.

"I will no longer trade in other people's things. I will heroically advance in the forefront and destroy the enemy," the soldier added.

Other entries released by Ukraine included praises of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and musings on class struggle.

"Longing for my homeland, having left the warm embrace of my dear father and mother here on Russian land. I celebrate the birthday of my closest comrade Song Ji Myong," another entry read, per a translation by The Wall Street Journal.

One of the earliest entries, published by Ukraine on December 26, featured a stick-figure drawing of what the soldier described as "How to eliminate a drone."

The simple illustration showed a figure standing upright on open ground while another two stick figures fired at a quadcopter drone.

"If a UAV is spotted, gather in groups of three," the diary read, per The Journal's translation. "One person must act as bait to lure the drone while the other two take aim and neutralize it with precision shooting. The bait must maintain a distance of seven meters from the drone. The other two should prepare to shoot down the drone from a distance of 10 to 12 meters. When the bait stands still, the drone will stop and it can be shot down."

Ukraine's special forces said the North Korean soldier also wrote of how to avoid artillery strikes. An excerpt of his diary said that Pyongyang's troops were supposed to "disperse in small groups" if fired upon by artillery.

The excerpt also said he could hide in the location of "the previous hit" because he believed artillery doesn't repeatedly strike the exact same spot.

Business Insider couldn't independently verify the authenticity of the diary entries. Ukraine posted photos of what it said were the soldier's corpse and passport. The Journal also cited a former North Korean soldier and a former South Korean major general who said the choice of words in the diary aligned with the ideology and vernacular of North Korea's troops.

The soldier's diary could give insight into how North Korean forces are adapting battlefield doctrine for combat in Russia.

The West worries that Pyongyang's involvement will allow its forces to glean valuable lessons from battling Ukraine, especially as they face off against American and European equipment and encounter drone warfare.

Dorothy Camille Shea, the deputy US ambassador to the UN, said on Wednesday that Pyongyang "is significantly benefiting from receiving Russian military equipment, technology, and experience, rendering it more capable of waging war against its neighbors."

Western and South Korean intelligence says that 12,000 North Korean troops are stationed and fighting in Kursk, a Russian border region that Ukraine attacked in the summer of 2024.

Moscow hasn't addressed the presence of Pyongyang's troops on its soil, but Ukraine has increasingly been trying to cast a spotlight on North Korea's direct involvement in the war.

Most recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy published images of who he said were two captured North Korean soldiers. He did not provide evidence that they were North Korean, though Seoul's intelligence service backed up his claim.

"This was not an easy task: Russian forces and other North Korean military personnel usually execute their wounded to erase any evidence of North Korea's involvement in the war against Ukraine," Zelenskyy wrote. He has said that around 3,000 North Korean soldiers were wounded or killed.

Thousands of North Korean troops serve as a valuable source of manpower for Russia, which is relying on mass infantry assaults along the front lines to whittle down Ukraine's defenses.

Still, Pyongyang's reinforcements are still few compared to the over 600,000 people that Ukraine and the West believe Moscow has lost.

Russia is believed to be providing Kim with much-needed finances, economic support, food, and technology in exchange for the latter's troops.

The DIY robot used ChatGPT's Realtime API to respond to commands to aim and fire a rifle.

• US special operations forces are shifting their focus after decades of counterterrorism.
• Competition with China and Russia is reshaping how SOF supports the joint force.
• A senior Pentagon official said that special operations is also returning to its "roots."

A senior Pentagon official said this week that the role of US special operations is changing as the US faces increasing competition and challenges from China and Russia.

With the threat of a conflict against a powerful and advanced adversary looming, special operations forces are returning to their "roots," Christopher Maier, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said.

The direction of special operations forces (SOF) is adapting to the largest challenges facing the US — a rapidly growing Chinese military and Russian state set on expansion by force.

Maier said during a conversation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank on Tuesday that SOF is "still doing counterterrorism, crisis response, those have been the persistent missions," but the priority is shifting towards "increasingly where we can support other elements, largely in a support role, for those strategic competition elements."

That means playing a big role in solving challenges facing the joint force, like more modern adaptations to using artificial intelligence, as well as the traditional functions of SOF, such as "being that sensor out there and providing the necessary input to decision makers to better understand a situation," noted Maier, who previously led the Pentagon's Defeat-ISIS Task Force overseeing the campaign across Iraq and Syria that relied heavily on American special operators.

Special operators are the US military's most highly trained troops, the go-to teams for small raids and secretive missions, but they lack the numbers and firepower to go up against larger conventional forces for long.

Much of the US' special operations presence in over 80 countries around the world is focused on working closely with foreign militaries, law enforcement, and embassies to keep a finger on the pulse. For the past 20 years, the US has relied on these forces for some the most unconventional and difficult missions, like teaming with partner forces to fight enemies or running shadowy helicopter assaults to kill or capture key leaders.

Maier said he views it as both a continuation of the counterterrorism and crisis response that SOF has been doing for decades and also a step back to its origins.

"We're going back to the proverbial roots of supporting the joint force with some of the hardest problems against peer adversaries," Maier said.

With the so-called War on Terror, SOF has spent over 20 years operating in counterterrorism and unconventional warfare roles, fighting quietly in a variety of environments across the world and maintaining relationships that provide the US with information on tactics of specific groups and deeper understandings of regional and security issues.

That role is now changing, albeit just as important. In a 2023 article for the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank, David Ucko, a professor and expert on irregular warfare, argues that leaders in Washington need to examine how to best use SOF for newer challenges against Russia and China. That includes irregular warfare, which is "highly relevant" to strategic competition with China.

But, Ucko notes, special operators fill a particular role in military operations and shouldn't be given missions that other US agencies or groups can also do.

One of the deepest challenges these secretive forces face is the widening surveillance by spy satellites and recon drones.

SOF missions often have multiple objectives like foreign internal defense and unconventional warfare; special operators can, for example, help boost a US ally's defense tactics against a foreign aggressor, such as Taiwan and China.

Allied special forces played critical roles in World War II, shaped by the need for specialization in unconventional missions and innovative tactics, such as sabotage behind enemy lines and disrupting German supply lines. In North Africa, British Special Air Services and Commonwealth Long Range Desert Group commandos aided in disrupting Axis troops deployments and airpower.

During the Cold War, special operators played a role in deterring the Soviet Union's influence, maintaining presence in and relationships with Western Europe and other areas.

All of that historical context is informing SOF's priorities today, as the US faces similar challenges against China and Russia and their activities across the world, Maier said.

"The differences, I think, here are some of the fundamental changes in adversaries' ability to access technology," he added, and their ability to "use different types of techniques than maybe we saw in the Cold War."

Both China and Russia are actively engaged in bolstering their irregular warfare tactics, including reconnaissance, disinformation, electronic warfare, cyberspace and space efforts, and psychological warfare.

In its report on China's military growth over the course of 2023, the Pentagon noted that China is expanding its capabilities towards a vision of future conflict it calls "intelligentized warfare" focused on AI, data, and controlling information spaces.

Other elements, such as China's campaigns in Taiwan to influence domestic politics and opinions on unification, are also notable.

• Ukraine's new attack in Kursk is featuring some impressive drone jamming, Russian military bloggers said.
• The bloggers reported that Ukrainian forces were able to break through because of "powerful electronic warfare."
• it's made it difficult for Russian drone operators to work in the area, they wrote.

Ukraine launched a renewed offensive in Russia's Kursk region on Sunday, where Russian pro-war bloggers say Kyiv's drone jammers have been working exceptionally well.

The "Operation Z" channel, a collection of dispatches from Russian war correspondents, wrote that the attack had focused on the Bolshesoldatsky district, to the northeast of the Ukrainian-held pocket in Kursk.

"In order to break through, the Ukrainian Armed Forces covered the area with powerful electronic warfare systems, making it difficult for our UAVs to operate," wrote the Telegram channel, which has over 1.6 million subscribers.

Razvedos Advanced Gear & Equipment, a Russian military news Telegram channel with over 152,000 subscribers, echoed those comments in a post on Sunday.

"It cannot be said that they were not expected in this direction, but they managed to VERY effectively use electronic warfare," it wrote of the fighting in Bolshesoldatsky.

Roman Alekhine, a military blogger with about 218,000 subscribers, wrote on his channel: "The enemy has covered the attack area with electronic warfare, so many drones are useless."

Alekhine later posted that some Russian drone operators were still able to switch to unjammed frequencies.

Sergei Kolyasnikov, another military blogger with about 498,000 subscribers, reported that about 10 Ukrainian tanks and armored vehicles had entered the Bolshesoldatsky region.

"The area is covered with some powerful electronic warfare, nothing is flying at all," he wrote.

The specifics of Ukraine's new push this week into Russian territory are still unclear. Kyiv initially launched a surprise counteroffensive into Kursk in August, where it took an estimated 480 square miles of Russian land but has been slowly pushed back since.

Ukraine has stayed mostly silent on the matter. But Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation run by Ukraine's national security and defense council, alluded to an assault on Sunday by posting that Russian troops in Kursk "were attacked from several directions and it came as a surprise to them."

Andriy Yermak, chief of staff for Ukraine's president, also hinted at an attack by writing on his Telegram channel that Russia was "getting what it deserves" in Kursk.

Meanwhile, Russia has outright declared that Ukraine had attacked again.

"On January 5, at about 09:00 Moscow time, in order to stop the advance of Russian troops in the Kursk direction, the enemy launched a counterattack with an assault group consisting of two tanks, a barrier vehicle, and 12 combat armored vehicles with troops in the direction of the Berdin farm," its defense ministry told state media.

As reports of Ukraine's jamming efforts emerged, the defense ministry published a video of a Russian drone operator coordinating a tank strike on an unknown target in a forested area, saying he was working in Kursk.

The Ukrainian and Russian Defense Ministries did not respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

Electronic warfare has increasingly been key on the battlefield as both Russia and Ukraine turn to cheap drones for reconnaissance, loitering munitions, and close-range bombing runs.

One development has seen both sides deploy wired drones. These use long fiber optic cables unfurled from a spool as the aerial system takes flight, allowing it to bypass jamming systems.

Should they become mainstream, they may pose yet another challenge for militaries that are already spending big on preparing against drone threats. The US, for example, is paying some $250 million to Anduril, Palmer Luckey's defense startup, for 500 drones and an electronic warfare system called Pulsar.

• Finland accused a Russian ship of dragging its anchor to sever undersea cables in the Baltic.
• Officials said the vessel, Eagle S, is part of a "shadow fleet" transporting sanctioned oil.
• The EU believes Russia is responsible for incidents that have disrupted power and internet service.

Western nations have long suspected that Russia has been deliberately severing vital underseas cables — but without much to prove it.

That may have changed after officials in Finland pointed to an unusually vivid piece of evidence tied to a Russia-linked ship.

Finnish officials on Sunday said they found miles and miles of tracks on the bed of the Baltic Sea that indicate a Russia-linked tanker could be responsible for slicing a cluster of valuable data and power cables.

Sami Paila, the detective chief inspector of Finland's National Bureau of Investigation, said "dragging marks" from an aging tanker's anchor had been found beneath the Baltic Sea near the cables, Reuters reported.

"The track is dozens of kilometers in length," Paila said.

Germany's foreign minister on Friday cited the incident as a "wake-up call," saying it would be naive to consider it an accident.

The minister, Annalena Baerbock, pushed for further European sanctions on the so-called "shadow fleet" of ships tied to Russia.

Finnish officials boarded the Eagle S after the Estlink 2 subsea cable carrying electricity and four other cables carrying data were damaged on Wednesday.

Estlink 2 is one of two cables carrying electricity between Finland and Estonia. Officials have said it might not be functional again until August, Reuters reported.

The Finnish telecommunications firm Cinia said the damage caused disruptions in internet communications between Rostock, Germany, and Helsinki and could take weeks to repair.

This is the latest in a series of similar incidents in the Baltic region.

The Eagle S, registered in the Cook Islands, was carrying about 35,000 tons of unleaded gasoline loaded in Russian ports. It was traveling to Egypt when the Finnish coast guard stopped it.

Finnish officials say it's likely part of a "shadow fleet," a network of vessels registered through complex ownership deals that carry fuel in an effort to circumvent international sanctions on Russia's oil trade.

This is the first time a part of the fleet has been accused of involvement in subsea cable sabotage.

"The suspected vessel is part of Russia's shadow fleet, which threatens security and the environment, while funding Russia's war budget," Kaja Kallas, the chief foreign affairs official for the EU, said.

"We will propose further measures, including sanctions, to target this fleet," Kallas posted on X.

Russia has long denied any role in damaging subsea cables in the Baltic. The Russian embassy in the UK did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Internet cables between Germany and Finland and Sweden and Estonia were damaged in November. A Chinese vessel was detected in the vicinity when the damage occurred.

Estonia on Friday said it would be stepping up efforts to defend the undamaged Estlink 1 cable.

"We've decided to send our navy close to Estlink 1 to defend and secure our energy connection with Finland," Hanno Pevkur, Estonia's defense minister, said.

• China is readying forces that could seize Taiwan in a future attack, analysts and officials say.
• Any military operation is likely to rely partly on China's militarized police.
• The People's Armed Police has been training in a wide range of conditions, including water.

China is preparing its militarized police for kinds of combat that would play a key role in any invasion of Taiwan.

A September report from China Central Television shows what appears to be the People's Armed Police Force, or PAP, simulating attacks from inflatable boats.

Footage and pictures from Chinese state-run outlets show the extent of the combat training and battlefield simulation — blockade breakthroughs, grenade throwing, battlefield rescue, and group tactics in cold, hot, and high-altitude conditions.

This training indicates PAP soldiers "are getting ready" for a takeover of Taiwan, said Lyle Goldstein, director of Asia Engagement at the Defense Priorities think tank in Washington, DC.

Clandestine movement by water would be an essential capability to quell resistance in Taiwan's populated areas near the coast and rivers.

"From my observation, they train hard; they are well equipped and disciplined, and they're given stringent ideological training for the reason that they are probably, in my view, the primary reserve force for section invasion," Goldstein said.

"If they went forward with a full-up invasion, I think an amphibious assault is not just conceivable but is quite a possibility," he added.

Urban training

Since its founding in 1982, China's PAP has been firmly placed under the country's military.

These armed police are a shock force in China's vast state security apparatus. The force plays a key internal security role, mostly in law enforcement, counterterrorism, disaster response, and maritime rights protection.

Beijing also regularly uses them for propaganda. One likely goal of publicizing the recent training was to intimidate Taiwan and its backers.

Alessio Patalano, a professor of war and strategy in East Asia at King's College London, said the PAP's inclusion in any takeover of Taiwan would make sense given their urban training.

He told BI the PAP keeps "highly skilled" special forces at hand who are involved in surgical operations to capture strategic goals where mobility, speed, and familiarity with operating in urban areas are key.

PAP special forces maintained security at Beijing Olympic venues in 2008, conducted drills in Shenzhen near Hong Kong in 2019, and have engaged in multiple counter-terrorism operations in China's Xinjiang region over the years, according to Chinese state-run media.

"To that extent, whether in decapitation scenarios or early stages of operations to seize key port and airport infrastructures, the use of PAP should be regarded as a viable, if not preferable, option," Patalano said.

A supporting role

It's unlikely that the PAP would participate in the first stages of any island landing.

"That is the purview of the PLA," said Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow at the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the National Defense University in DC. The PLA is China's main military — the People's Liberation Army.

He said that the PAP would instead initially participate in operations to firm up internal security in mainland China, including suppressing signs of social unrest, protecting critical infrastructure, and clearing out national highways to facilitate the delivery of supplies to regions near Taiwan.

Any attempt to seize Taiwan, a self-ruled island of 23 million that Beijing views as a breakaway province, would require warships, armored vehicles, and heavy firepower, to answer Taiwan's advanced missiles, tanks, and F-16 fighter jets.

However, if PLA's operations in Taiwan didn't go according to plan, and it faced a protracted campaign, Wuthnow said the PAP's Special Operation Forces could be mobilized to institute military governance through missions in urban areas like Taipei.

Another aspect of the PAP's response could involve China's Coast Guard, which it oversees.

The coast guard is already "very much" on the front lines of China's "coercive" campaign against Taiwan, Wuthnow said, and its role seems to be increasing.

Meanwhile, Taiwan's mountainous terrain, as well as its few major land routes and numerous river crossings, would make it difficult for any invading forces to move.

"If the population of Taiwan were not compliant with a PRC-led occupation authority, the period where the PRC would need to rely on their own police might be quite prolonged," said Philip Shetler-Jones, a senior research fellow in the International Security team at the UK's Royal United Services Institute, using the acronym for the People's Republic of China.

The more PAP forces can take over the "public order" task, the more it frees up combat troops, he added.

An imminent invasion

Military experts and defense officials see signs — like China's rapid modernization of its armed forces over the past two decades and drills around Taiwan — that suggest that China could take action within a few years.

But the form of that action is a matter of debate, from a blockade to a full-scale invasion.

During a 2021 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Adm. Phil Davidson, then the US Indo-Pacific commander, said Taiwan was "clearly" one of China's "ambitions" and that he believed the threat would be "manifest" within the next six years.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping said in October, as part of the country's anniversary celebrations, that reunification with Taiwan was "where the greater national interest lies, and it is what the people desire."

"The wheel of history will not be stopped by any individual or any force," he added.

Goldstein of Defense Priorities, who described himself as a bit of an outlier, said he believes China is ready to take over Taiwan now "if they choose to," and that the PAP's Special Operation Forces would likely play a significant role.

They "will be in very high demand in a Taiwan scenario," he said.

He added that China regards Taiwan as internal security. "So, for them, the use of these forces is entirely legitimate."

The country's defense ministry has said it is able to spot 12,000 Russian pieces of equipment a week using AI identification tools.

• Frank Kendall, the Air Force Secretary, hit back on Elon Musk's comments slamming the F-35.
• While Kendall said he respects the billionaire, he said Musk is "not a warfighter."
• Musk has trashed the F-35 as obsolete compared to drones, but Kendall said that reality is decades away.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said Elon Musk should learn more about air combat tech before publicly slamming crewed fighter jets as obsolete.

"I have a lot of respect for Elon Musk as an engineer," Kendall said on Thursday at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

"He's not a warfighter, and he needs to learn a little bit more about the business, I think, before he makes such grand announcements as he did," Kendall said.

Musk recently drew public attention for posting on X that crewed fighters, such as the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, were inefficient compared to drones and have a "shit design."

Calling the makers of the F-35 "idiots," Musk posted videos of drone swarms and wrote that crewed fighters would be shot down easily by modern surface-to-air missile defenses and enemy drones.

Kendall, who oversees the US Air Force's budget, said Musk's vision of drone superiority is many years away.

"It's provocative, it's interesting," he said of Musk's statements. "I can imagine at some point; I don't think it's centuries, by the way; I think it's more like decades when something like he imagines can occur."

"But we're not there," Kendall added. "And it's going to be a little while before we get there."

Musk did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

Kendall said he pushed the Air Force on a "key decision" to field drones that work in tandem with crewed fighters.

Still, he added the US may eventually reduce its planned purchases of the F-35, a fifth-generation fighter that Lockheed Martin manufactures, depending on how quickly other tech advances.

"Our inventory objective for the F-35 is 1,700 and some. I don't know what we'll end up buying, and nobody can predict that right now," the secretary said.

But he also doesn't think the F-35 will be replaced anytime soon, and said the US is still buying more of the aircraft for now and in the near future.

"It is dominant over fourth-generation aircraft. Period. And in a very, very serious way. It's not even close. And there's no alternative to that in the near term," he said.

The US has been looking into a sixth-generation fighter, also known as the next-generation air dominance program, that will focus on crewed jets that work collaboratively with drones.

Kendall said that if the NGAD program continues, it will still take years to produce that fighter in quantity, and it will be initially "very expensive" to manufacture.

It's unclear how Musk's views on the F-35 and drones may materially affect US defense spending. The billionaire has been made the cohead of a new Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to reduce what it sees as excess federal expenses.

Musk is in President-elect Donald Trump's close orbit and showed this week that he can wield considerable influence in Congress when Republican lawmakers followed his lead on trashing a bipartisan bill that sought to avoid a government shutdown.

Meanwhile, Kendall is expected to step down as Air Force Secretary when President Joe Biden, who appointed him, leaves office in January. The secretary expressed a desire in September to remain in his post as the Trump administration takes over.

David Packouz is a former arms trader. In 2005, he joined the arms dealer Efraim Diveroli at AEY, bidding on contracts for the US military. In 2007, AEY won a $300 million contract to supply munitions to Afghanistan. Packouz was part of a cover-up to disguise the true identity of the ammunition, concealing that it was of Chinese origin.

After an investigation by The New York Times, he was charged with 71 counts of fraud and faced 355 years in prison. He was sentenced to seven months of house arrest and issued with a 15-year arms-dealing ban. His story was the subject of the 2016 movie "War Dogs" and Guy Lawson's book "Arms and the Dudes."

Packouz speaks with Business Insider about corruption in shipping and transport, the influence of middlemen and politicians, and links to organized crime.

After leaving house arrest, Packouz developed Instafloss and founded the music company Singular Sound, which developed the BeatBuddy. He also cofounded War Dogs Academy, a contracting training service.

Arms trafficking involves the illegal trade and smuggling of weapons across borders, bypassing laws and fueling conflicts. Arms dealing is the legal sale of weapons by authorized dealers, conducted under strict regulations like background checks and export licenses and overseen by bodies such as the UN Arms Trade Treaty.

For more, visit:

www.davidpackouz.com/

www.singularsound.com/

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