STRATEGIC BRIEF
Strategic Intelligence
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Defence & Security
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Africa
Nicolas Franchinard
September 24, 2026
Drones: Force Multiplier or Strategic Illusion?
Why unmanned systems cannot become a substitute for doctrine
Drones are transforming warfare by lowering the cost of surveillance, precision and mass. But the same conflicts demonstrating their power also reveal their limits. For emerging air forces, the strategic question is not whether to adopt drones, but how to integrate them without mistaking a technology for a doctrine.
Unmanned systems create their greatest effect when integrated with people, sensors, command structures and conventional capabilities.
Illustrative image generated for C&P.
Few military technologies have changed perceptions of warfare as quickly as drones.
From tactical reconnaissance to precision strike, long-range attack, maritime operations and infrastructure targeting, unmanned systems have demonstrated an ability to produce military effects at a fraction of the cost traditionally associated with advanced air power.
For emerging militaries, the attraction is particularly strong. A technology that appears to provide surveillance, precision, range and mass without the financial burden of a conventional combat-aircraft fleet can look like an opportunity to bypass decades of costly force development.
Part of that perception is justified. Part of it is dangerous.
The same conflicts that demonstrate the transformational value of drones also demonstrate that drones do not abolish the fundamental requirements of military power. They change how some effects are produced. They do not eliminate the need for doctrine, command, training, electronic warfare, intelligence, logistics, air defence or conventional firepower.
The strategic question is therefore not whether drones matter. They clearly do. The question is:
“What can drones genuinely replace, what can they only complement, and what new vulnerabilities do they create?”
The economics of warfare have changed
The first revolution is economic. Advanced military aviation historically required expensive platforms, extensive pilot training, sophisticated infrastructure and large sustainment systems.
Small unmanned systems have dramatically lowered the entry cost for some air-power functions.
Ukraine illustrates the scale of that change. CSIS argues that small and relatively affordable drones have democratised elements of air power by allowing forces to conduct surveillance, strike and other missions that were previously accessible primarily to militaries with sophisticated aviation capabilities.
At the other end of the spectrum, one-way attack drones have changed the economics of long-range strike. Russia has increasingly used comparatively inexpensive Shahed-type systems in large salvos, forcing Ukraine to devote substantial defensive resources to intercepting them.
This creates a fundamental military problem:
“the cost of destroying a threat can become strategically important alongside the ability to destroy it.”
An expensive interceptor may successfully destroy a cheap drone. Tactically, the engagement is successful. Economically, repeated thousands of times, the equation may be far less favourable.
The drone revolution is therefore also a revolution in cost-per-effect. For emerging states facing constrained defence budgets, this is impossible to ignore.
Mass has returned
For decades, technological superiority often pushed advanced militaries toward increasingly capable — and increasingly expensive — platforms.
Drones have reintroduced another variable: mass.
A force may be willing to lose a system worth a few thousand dollars in circumstances where it would never risk a manned aircraft costing tens of millions.
This creates a new continuum between traditional ammunition and high-value platforms. Modern unmanned systems increasingly enable a broader force architecture encompassing expendable, attritable, risk-tolerant and survivable assets. That distinction matters.
A military commander no longer has to choose exclusively between: risking an expensive asset, or not conducting the mission. An attritable drone may offer a third option.
For African militaries operating over large territories with limited resources, that flexibility can be highly valuable. Persistent ISR, border monitoring, tactical targeting and selected strike missions can potentially be conducted at a scale that conventional aviation alone would make difficult to sustain.
But mass has its own requirements. Thousands of inexpensive systems require:
operators;
communications;
batteries;
spare parts;
data links;
software;
training;
production or procurement pipelines;
and command structures capable of coordinating them.
Cheap platforms do not automatically create cheap forces.
Attritable does not mean invulnerable
The second misunderstanding concerns survivability. The affordability of drones makes their loss more tolerable. It does not make them inherently difficult to defeat.
Electronic warfare can disrupt communications and navigation.
Air defences can destroy them.
Counter-UAS systems are rapidly proliferating.
Operators can themselves become targets.
Software and frequency changes can render equipment obsolete surprisingly quickly.
RUSI notes that Russia has progressively improved its counter-UAS capabilities and argues that Ukraine’s growing dependence on drones is partly the consequence of shortages in personnel and conventional firepower — not proof that unmanned systems are always militarily preferable.
This is a crucial distinction. The extraordinary use of drones in Ukraine reflects both their military utility and the specific conditions of that war.
Those conditions should not automatically become a universal model of force design. A technology can be extraordinarily effective in one operational environment and much less decisive in another.
Electronic warfare changes the equation
One of the defining characteristics of contemporary drone warfare is the interaction between unmanned systems and electronic warfare.
Many lower-cost drones still depend heavily on communications links and satellite navigation. Disrupt either and performance can deteriorate rapidly.
This vulnerability is driving increasing autonomy. Research on Ukraine shows how autonomous navigation and onboard processing can significantly improve the ability of unmanned systems to continue operating when communications are degraded or denied.
The implication is important for emerging militaries. The relevant capability is no longer simply: the drone. It is increasingly: the drone + software + communications + EW resilience + data processing + operator + command system.
The airframe may become one of the least strategically important components of the overall system.
This creates another danger for procurement. A state may acquire large numbers of unmanned platforms while remaining dependent on foreign:
software;
navigation services;
communications systems;
cloud infrastructure;
data processing;
or proprietary updates.
What appears to be sovereign capability can therefore conceal significant external dependencies.
The counter-drone problem
Every major drone investment also creates its opposite requirement: counter-drone capability.
This is already visible at alliance level.
In July 2026, NATO announced more than $40 billion in planned counter-drone investment over five years and an objective of training five times more drone operators by the end of 2027. NATO explicitly describes drones and counter-drone systems as increasingly important elements of the overall force mix.
The significance is doctrinal. The drone revolution does not simply add a new offensive capability. It forces militaries to rethink:
air surveillance;
base protection;
electronic warfare;
short-range air defence;
communications;
camouflage;
dispersion;
and force protection.
The proliferation of UAS among non-state armed groups makes this especially relevant to Africa. UNIDIR documented UAS use by non-state armed actors across the continent between 2018 and 2023 and highlighted the implications for national and regional security.
For some African armed forces, therefore, counter-UAS may ultimately become more operationally urgent than strike-UAS. That depends entirely on the threat environment.
Again: doctrine must precede acquisition.
The danger of the “drone miracle”
The current enthusiasm around drones risks repeating a familiar defence-planning error.
A successful technology is observed on one battlefield. Its most visible effects are identified. It is then elevated into a universal answer.
But technologies rarely eliminate the rest of warfare. They redistribute advantages and vulnerabilities.
Ukraine is perhaps the clearest example. Despite enormous innovation and very large-scale drone use, conventional systems remain essential.
Artillery continues to matter.
Air defence matters.
Electronic warfare matters.
Long-range missiles matter.
Manned aircraft matter.
Ground forces matter.
RUSI’s conclusion is therefore deliberately cautionary: heavy reliance on drones should not lead forces to neglect conventional firepower that can provide greater responsiveness, concentration of effect and resilience in certain missions.
The lesson for emerging forces should not be:
“replace expensive conventional capabilities with drones.”
It should be:
“identify where unmanned systems can provide the same or a better effect at lower cost, and retain other capabilities where they cannot.”
That is a much more demanding exercise. It is also much more useful.
Drones are strongest when they are part of a system
The most effective applications increasingly combine drones with other capabilities.
ISR drones identify targets.
Command systems process information.
Electronic warfare shapes the electromagnetic environment.
Artillery, aircraft, missiles or other drones deliver effects.
Counter-UAS protects the force.
Software connects the system.
This means that the greatest advantage may not belong to the military that owns the largest number of drones. It may belong to the military that can connect them most effectively to the rest of the force.
Recent NATO experimentation reflects precisely this emphasis on integration and interoperability. Counter-UAS trials in 2026 have focused not only on individual technologies but on whether command-and-control systems, sensors and effectors can exchange information and support real operational decision-making.
This is particularly relevant for states operating under constrained budgets.
A fragmented collection of equipment can be expensive without being powerful. A smaller but integrated architecture can produce much greater operational value.
The innovation cycle is now a capability
There is another feature of drone warfare that traditional procurement systems are poorly designed to handle: speed of change.
Conventional military platforms may remain in service for several decades. Drone technology can evolve in months.
Frequencies change.
Countermeasures emerge.
Software evolves.
Navigation changes.
New sensors become commercially available.
The battlefield adaptation cycle can therefore become faster than the procurement cycle. This creates a doctrinal requirement for continuous adaptation.
Military capability increasingly depends not only on what a force owns today, but on whether it possesses:
technical personnel;
testing structures;
flexible procurement;
industry relationships;
software expertise;
and mechanisms for rapid experimentation.
For emerging states, this may favour investment in an ecosystem rather than simply a fleet.
A hundred drones purchased today may become technologically marginal. The ability to modify, integrate and replace them may be more valuable than the original acquisition.
What should emerging air forces actually ask?
The starting questions should therefore be operational rather than technological.
Which missions could unmanned systems perform more economically than current alternatives?
Which missions still require speed, payload, range, survivability or human judgement that manned platforms provide more effectively?
What level of electronic warfare should be assumed?
How rapidly can the system be adapted when the adversary changes tactics?
Who controls the software, data and communications architecture?
Can the force sustain the required number of trained operators?
How will the state defend itself against the same technologies it is acquiring?
Only after answering these questions does the number and type of drones become strategically meaningful.
Force multiplier — under conditions
Drones are therefore undeniably force multipliers.
They extend observation.
They increase available mass.
They reduce risk to personnel.
They lower the cost of some precision effects.
They enable new forms of asymmetric action.
They allow forces with fewer resources to contest domains previously dominated by expensive platforms.
But a multiplier requires something to multiply.
Without intelligence, command structures, training, logistics and doctrine, the effect can be far less dramatic than the platform’s advertised performance suggests.
This distinction may prove particularly important for emerging militaries. The strategic advantage of drones is not that they allow a state to avoid building an effective military system. It is that they can allow that system to produce more effect for the resources available.
02
KEY TAKEAWAYS
01 — Drones change the economics of air power.
They lower the cost of surveillance, precision and mass, creating capabilities that were previously difficult for smaller militaries to field.
02 — Low cost does not mean low complexity.
Large drone forces still require operators, software, communications, logistics, EW resilience and command structures.
03 — Drones are increasingly part of an arms-counterarms cycle.
Investment in UAS inevitably creates requirements for counter-UAS, electronic warfare and force protection.
04 — Ukraine is a source of lessons, not a universal template.
Its intensive reliance on drones reflects both their effectiveness and specific conditions of a high-intensity attritional war.
05 — Integration matters more than inventory.
The decisive capability is increasingly the network connecting sensors, decision-makers and effectors rather than the airframe alone.
06 — Doctrine must define where drones substitute, complement or create new capability.
Treating unmanned systems as a universal replacement for traditional air power risks producing new vulnerabilities rather than strategic advantage.
Conclusion
The drone revolution is real. But revolutions in military technology rarely eliminate the need for strategic choices. They make those choices more complex.
For African and other emerging air forces, unmanned systems offer an extraordinary opportunity to increase surveillance, operational mass and precision while controlling certain costs.
The mistake would be to confuse that opportunity with a replacement doctrine.
The useful question is not:
“How many drones should we buy?”
It is:
“Which military effects should become unmanned, which should remain manned, and how should both be integrated into a sustainable force?”
The difference between a force multiplier and a strategic illusion lies largely in the answer.
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RESEARCH TRAIL
01
RUSI
NATO Should Not Replace Traditional Firepower with ‘Drones’
August 2025.
Analysis of the limits of drawing universal force-design conclusions from Ukraine’s dependence on massed UAS.
02
CSIS
Lessons from the Ukraine Conflict: Modern Warfare in the Age of Autonomy, Information, and Resilience
2025.
Examines the democratisation of air-power effects, attritable systems and the changing economics of warfare.
03
CSIS
Ukraine’s Future Vision and Current Capabilities for Waging AI-Enabled Autonomous Warfare
March 2025.
Relevant to the interaction between autonomy, electronic warfare, navigation and drone effectiveness.
04
UNIDIR
The Use of Uncrewed Aerial Systems by Non-State Armed Groups: Exploring Trends in Africa
2024.
Documents the growing use of UAS by non-state armed groups on the continent.
05
NATO
Drone Edge
July 2026.
NATO identifies drone and counter-drone systems as increasingly important components of the wider force mix and announced major investments in counter-UAS and training.
06
NCIA
Exercise Baltic Trust 26
August 2026.
Illustrates the current emphasis on integrating counter-UAS, sensors and command-and-control systems rather than treating them as standalone technologies.