American military bases remain dangerously vulnerable to swarms of small, inexpensive attack drones, according to one of the senior commanders responsible for defending the homeland.
Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Jarrard warned that domestic installations are currently “ill-equipped” to stop the kind of coordinated drone strikes already being used around the world.
Jarrard serves as deputy commander of U.S. Northern Command and vice commander of the American contingent of North American Aerospace Defense Command.
Speaking Thursday at the annual Space and Missile Defense Symposium, he said the military is developing new tactics but is “not there yet” on reliable base protection.
The most immediate problem is not merely shooting drones down after they arrive.
Military forces must first detect, identify, and track potentially large swarms before those systems reach runways, aircraft, ammunition sites, command facilities, or other critical targets.
“We don’t have the sensors, and depending on where that swarm is going to attack, it depends on whether we have any sensors at all, and also whether we’ve got any effectors to go after that problem,” Jarrard said. That is a blunt admission about a threat that offers commanders little room for error.
A drone warfare guide released this summer by Joint Interagency Task Force 401 delivered an equally stark assessment. It warned that “once a drone is overhead, the most important decisions about protection and countermeasures have already been made or, as it were, missed.”
That reality makes early warning essential because a small drone can approach at low altitude, maneuver around obstacles, and strike with little notice.
A swarm makes the challenge worse by overwhelming sensors and forcing defenders to engage numerous inexpensive targets at once.
The military is testing several approaches to counter the growing danger, including directed energy weapons, specialized ammunition, and compact missile launchers designed to destroy fast moving drones.
American forces are also working to incorporate small unmanned systems into offensive operations, recognizing that drones are now central to modern warfare rather than some battlefield novelty.
The cost problem remains brutal for defenders because launching an expensive interceptor against a cheap drone is not a sustainable formula.
Adversaries can therefore use numbers to exhaust defensive magazines, distract security teams, and punch holes in protection around high value military infrastructure.
Ukraine demonstrated the destructive potential last year during Operation Spider’s Web, which carried dozens of one way attack drones deep into Russian territory aboard commercial trucks.
Once positioned, the drones emerged from containers and inflicted extensive damage on Russian military facilities far from the expected front lines.
That operation offered another warning to American planners: hostile drones do not necessarily need to cross an international border under military control.
They can be concealed, transported near a target, and launched from inside the country, making traditional perimeter defenses look painfully outdated.
Iranian forces also targeted American positions in the Middle East with missiles and drones during this year’s Iran war.
In March, small first person view drones operated by an Iranian backed militia attacked an American air base in Baghdad, with militia video showing one system surveying the installation before slamming into its target.
“We are ill-equipped right now to handle something like that, and obviously we’ve seen it used,” Jarrard told the audience. He added, “We’re seeing it used on a daily basis around the world, and we’ve got to figure out how to mitigate that threat.”
The Army is expected to add laser weapons to its base defense arsenal soon, according to a source familiar with the effort.
The War Department plans to place lasers and other directed energy systems at no fewer than five bases by the end of the year.
Laser systems could give defenders a less expensive way to engage repeated drone attacks without burning through limited missile inventories. However, weather, power requirements, tracking limitations, and the sheer number of possible targets mean no single piece of technology will solve the entire problem.
The warning from Northern Command should light a fire under military planners and congressional appropriators alike.
America cannot afford to protect billion dollar aircraft and vital installations with security arrangements designed for yesterday’s threats while cheap drones circle overhead looking for an opening.
