Military drones will upend the world The age of hyper-power is here

Political power arises from the barrel of a gun. Such, at any rate, is Mao Zedong’s most famous dictum. Accomplished poet, keen historian, and a master strategist, he was in this instance only half-right — for political power arises not only from the barrel of the gun, but from the capacity to make that gun, and to motivate those who would hold it. As a Marxist, he would have appreciated an additional observation: a gun is not only a gun. It is also a tool, a lens through which to observe the economy, society, and political implications of a moment in history. For those who care to look, today’s weapons are pointing to the future. 

On the killing fields of Ukraine, an estimated 70% of casualties are now caused by drones. Tactics, techniques, and equipment are evolving at breakneck speed. At high and low altitude, cameras mounted on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) provide constant surveillance, channelling data to human operators and to other drones. In battle, and in the slow attritional grind of the stable front lines, UAVs are used to hunt and bomb the enemy — pursuing individual soldiers and recording footage of their final moments. Close-range combat is disappearing, and artillery is on the way out, too. 

Laden with explosives, kamikaze drones are increasingly used in place of long-distance barrages. Drones, meanwhile, are begetting drones; “mothership” UAVs can now be used to launch drone “swarms”. Jet-powered drones have been developed to bomb cities and airbases at long range. Used at sea, drones have devastated the ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet; used on land, fighting drones have attacked villages, and act in logistical complement to ground forces. In this highly digital war, the majority of combat is carried out neither through the lens of a gunsight, nor the point of a bayonet, but instead via the videogame-like visual streams of a drone operator’s first-person-view goggles

The greatest innovation of the Russo-Ukrainian war may yet be a battlefield devoid of warriors. Drone power has transformed army tactics, hampering troop concentrations and creating largely stable front lines. Yet drones and drone operators are also vulnerable. UAVs are susceptible to jamming and the vagaries of changing weather; close to the front, their pilots are open to attack. Faced with this reality, militaries are now investing in autonomous weapons — drones able to select, pursue, and attack targets independent of human control. 

The drone era is dawning, and with it has come a great boom in defence spending. As the Defence Secretary, John Healey, recently disclosed, Britain is to mass-produce the drones that will defend Nato’s eastern flank from the incursion of Russian jets: a “drone wall”. And these drones are not just drones. Each of them is an industrial process, a social form, and an economic system condensed into a single item. Each is an artefact of global supply chains, multiple production facilities, cheap robotics, and abundant microchips. Each straddles the physical and digital realm; think of the cameras required to scan the battlefields, the satellites and tooling to transmit the video feeds, the software required to interpret them — and the people, companies, and processes that made each of these in turn. When made for battle, drones represent a fusion of military priorities with dual-use consumer technologies in gaming, AI, and robotics. Through drones, we can examine the digitised, networked, and increasingly automated nature of war. Through drones, we can perhaps see the rise of a new kind of power, and a new kind of politics. Ever since the French Revolution, the force-potential of an organised citizenry has been the central fact of political life, but this age is now passing. It is passing where Napoleon and his generals first birthed it — the field of war.

If anything, Healey is late. Global growth rates in defence spending more than doubled between 2022 and 2024, and in Europe the sector grew by 11.7% in 2024. Trump’s Big Beautiful Act will boost defence spending by $150 billion; billions of this are dedicated to drones and AI. As technology changes, a new generation of defence giants is forming. Helsing, the German provider of autonomous software systems, recently received €600 million in investment, valuing the firm at €12 billion — a mere four years after it was founded. It has just unveiled the “Europa” fighting drone. Another German defence giant, Rheinmetall, is now partnering with US-based weapons manufacturer Anduril to develop and mass-produce autonomous weapons systems.

The winds of change are blowing, and titans of consumer technology are responding. Daniel Ek, the Swedish founder of Spotify, first made his money through providing people with music recommendations; as chairman of Helsing he has now become a key figure in European defence. OpenAI boasts that its mission is to “ensure artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity”; as of June, that noble aspiration will encompass supplying $200 million’s-worth of AI services to the US armed forces. Meta, which aims to “build the future of human connection”, will now be doing so by supporting weapons systems; it has offered a major AI model to military developers, and as it partners with Anduril, it will be creating virtual and mixed reality devices for US military use. Changes at the level of corporate strategy are reflected in personnel; alongside Palantir executives, senior staff from Meta and OpenAI have been sworn in as reserve officers of the US military.

One may well wonder why these companies are making these choices — how Facebook friendships, song-streams, and chatbot use each connect to defence investments. To understand this, one must consider what lies behind them — the vast social and technological infrastructure of data and AI, an infrastructure now being converted to military ends. AI is a dual-use technology, trained with and used upon vast pools of data. Tools used to analyse social media users can be used to assess giant streams of intercepted communications. Systems developed for autonomous cars can be used to animate autonomous military vehicles. Voice recognition software can be converted to acoustic detection tooling, and thus into air raid warning systems. Software and hardware developed for games can be used to direct drones. AI-enabled tools thus can be used in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, to recognise targets, and in navigating unmanned weapons systems. 

In this respect, AI is the culmination of a long-running union. Intelligence and information have always been crucial to war; AI deepens this. Turing laid the theoretical foundations for AI while cracking Nazi cryptography; at today’s GCHQ, his successors use it to provide insights to Britain and its allies. Grizelda, a Ukrainian equivalent to Palantir, is developing a data fusion platform to improve battlefield making & awareness. In Gaza, Israel’s “Lavender” system aggregates and analyses data to select targets for assasination; using AI, it identified as many as 37,000 targets in Hamas and other terrorist groups. Such programs sit at the highest levels of state policy. At the centre of China’s drive to modernise its military are the goals of “informatisation” and “intelligencisation” — an emphasis on the collecting and pooling of data, combined with the increasing use of intelligent weapons and systems.

As AI advances, so too does the machinery that houses it. Physical hardware created for peaceful ends can easily be repurposed for war. Drones used by hobbyists and farmers have already become weapons; so too could the next wave of consumer hardware. Elon Musk claims Tesla will be producing one million Optimus robots per year by 2030, and Chinese manufacturers are already moving humanoid robots into mass production. With bi- and quadripedal robots advertised for use in elder care, disaster recovery, and manufacturing, we can expect to see them also being used in warfare; indeed, more primitive robots already are. UAVs gain much of their military utility from their role as delivery platforms for interchangeable tools, equipment, and weaponry; conjured into existence for commercial use across every sector of the economy, the robot fleets of the future may similarly be platforms for the creation of drone armies.

These machines will enter a world increasingly focused on the creation of autonomous systems. AI agents — algorithms empowered with decision making abilities — are infiltrating our daily lives, playing a deepening role in everything from financial trading to corporate sales to the booking of holidays. This is further reflected in military priorities, where purchasing decisions, technology trials, and the stated aims of policymakers now evoke the replacement of the human soldier. Faced with high casualties and a smaller population than their enemy, the Ukrainian military aims to remove warfighters from direct combat. In 2024, Ukraine ordered 10,000 fully autonomous UAVs; although only a fraction of their overall drone production, it illustrates the trends ahead. Britain too seeks to reduce the role of humans — its last strategic defence review expected a 20%-40%-40% lineup between human, manned, and autonomous systems.

The competitive logic of warfare will lead to a continued reduction in human control. Mass production of cheap, high-attrition drones drives human warfighters away from the battlefield; their slower reaction times, and their emotional and physical needs, put them at an increasing disadvantage. As autonomous tools develop further, this dynamic can only deepen; in only six months, Helsing moved between conceptualising, designing, producing, and testing an AI-powered fighter jet. Military theorists conceptualise an increasingly autonomous progress of targets through the kill chain. In some scenarios, humans may not be involved at all. In digital warfare, milliseconds can matter — and thus the pressure of military competition could even drive us away from command itself. We will become ghosts in our own machines. 

The more we remove humans, the more we remove the capacity of human actors to hinder, moderate, and alter the systems that surround them. If we lose control over the guns, we may not be able to stop them from firing. If we no longer even make guns, then we will lose the capacity to stop their production, and to influence those who want them produced. Strikes, walkouts, and shutdowns have all enabled humans and human organisations to exercise control over industrial capital, and with it the priorities of owners and policymakers. Things may soon look rather different. China is now building “dark factories” — places of production so fully automated, so entirely without the need for human supervision, that they do not even bother to keep the lights on. To return to Chairman Mao — we could soon lose not just power over the gun, but also the power to make the gun.

Guns and industrial systems matter, for warfare is the engine of history. The rise of the West was largely driven by the competitive effects of warfare in Europe. Princes needed to defend territory against their neighbours, and to do so they needed ever-better armies. To feed, fund, and organise these armies, states looked for ways to deepen their tax bases, raise capital, and to mobilise their resources. Tax reforms, capital markets, and modern bureaucracies were created as a result. Spurred by and shaping these innovations came new ideologies; it is no accident that nationalism, socialism, communism, and fascism accompanied evolutions in mass warfare. The need to sustain the social, economic and technological base for war drove the modern world into being; herding conscripts into battle birthed mass politics.

Automated production, data aggregation, and the rise of autonomous systems brings a new era into focus. If humans no longer fight wars, more power will accrue to the owners of these autonomous systems — the owners of capital, the owners of hardware, and those who control or can own the data infrastructures that power them. If humans no longer make weapons, or control the factories that make weapons, or generate the economic activity that provides the revenues with which to make these weapons, then we are in a new reality: disempowerment for the many, hyper-power for the few. If this technical capacity is not decentralised, then economic and civil life will be decided neither by the will of the people, nor of their chosen representatives. It will be dictated instead by the systemic power and fabulous wealth of hyper oligarchs and a smattering of dictatorships, the wielders of an algorithmic power untrammelled by the need for human collaborators. Historians write of the fiscal-military state; soon we may see the agentic-military state. Time will tell what that means. 

At home and abroad, the struggle for power will be won by those who control the robots. Nations must consider their choices. Britain is prepared neither for the drone age, nor the changing nature of power. Lacking a strong industrial base and sufficient local tech champions, we buy our weapons and our software from others, mainly in the United States. This creates vulnerability, for digitisation and AI impose new layers of influence and control, layers that may one day circumscribe the independence and freedom of British policymakers. Sellers of hardware can refuse to provide new models; sellers of software can refuse to provide new licenses and upgrades. Indeed, the integration of digital and physical systems means software providers could use kill switches to render hardware platforms inoperable from afar. One day, our weapons may be turned against us: for there are no permanent friends in international affairs, only interests. It is in Britain’s interest that it acquire functional sovereignty over its military strength. 

If we wish to remain an independent country, British leaders, British companies, and British citizens must understand and control the autonomous systems that will wage its wars and grow its economy. A robust tech sector and technically competent population helped Ukraine maintain her freedom, and it is this that Britain must build. If we develop a population that can understand and control the technologies around them, we can resist disempowerment. For national defence, and to build the tech giants of tomorrow, Britain must embrace its geeks. History can guide us; ARM’s success was born in the BBC Micro, a computer distributed to schools to accompany a BBC computer literacy program. The BBC should now launch a drone literacy program, focused on how physical robots will change our world, and selecting British consumer drone companies to be marketed alongside it. Hacker houses, tech foundries, and maker spaces should be geared to help people understand and innovate with robots. In the era of AI, the best defence to liberty will lie not in bearing arms, but in maintaining the power to shape them. France birthed the levée en masse; Britain must prepare for the levée en drone.

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