| Summary/Abstract |
In “Will the Drone Always Get Through?,” we investigated empirically whether Medium-Altitude and High-Altitude Long-Endurance (MALE and HALE, respectively) drones make attacking comparatively easier or even easy in an absolute sense, as some analysts and scholars assume or claim. To conduct our analysis, we first translated existing arguments into testable hypotheses consistent with the literature on the offense–defense balance (ODB)—that is, whether drones shift the ODB toward the offense or to offensive dominance. Then we explored relevant disciplines such as radar engineering, electromagnetism, signal processing, and air defense operations to assess these competing hypotheses. For our analysis, we focused on current- and next-generation drones. Our findings suggest that current-generation drones neither lower the probability of interception by air defense systems compared to existing aerospace technologies, nor are they in the position to systematically avoid interception. Regarding next-generation drones, it is not possible to derive definitive conclusions, but our analysis suggests that scholars should pay more attention to how technological change affects the defense, not only the offense, as advances in semiconductors, big data, machine learning, and communications, among other fields, are going to significantly enhance air defense capabilities in the future.
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