A top NATO commander says cheap drones are breaking the West’s old air-defense playbook

• The West can no longer “sit back” with its jets and missiles and face modern air threats with confidence, the NATO commander says.

• Cheap drones are forcing militaries to rethink air defense.

• The West needs more defense and may not be able to protect everything.

The West’s long-standing air defense approach – relying heavily on advanced jets, expensive missiles and the ability to hit anything in its path – is being challenged by a new era of cheap drones and mass air strikes, a senior NATO commander has warned.

Sir John Stringer, NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, told Business Insider that new air threats are rapidly emerging that can challenge traditional approaches and that “the days when you thought you could sit back and react and counter whatever threat came your way using conventional means like fast jets and surface-to-air missiles… those days are over.”

The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East show that: future conflicts may not resemble Forces that Western military powers are used to fighting.

The West has achieved this for a long time gaining complete or near-complete control of the air against weaker enemies; but future conflicts could pit NATO against major militaries such as Russia or China; even smaller actors now having access to cheap drones can be thrown in large numbers to overwhelm the defense.

Instead, “we’re going to have to deal with things in a reactive sense that come to us in a different way,” whether that’s using new types of drones to stop drone attacks. using electronic warfaresaid Stringer.

Western militaries still need advanced missiles and aircraft, Stringer said. They are still important. But now the West needs lots of cheaper defense because there are more threats in the air than ever before.

“The threat now encompasses everything from cheap air systems, uncrewed air systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles at one end of the spectrum to air-launched ballistic missiles and hypersonic weapons at the other end,” he said.

This spread of threats is forcing NATO to rethink not only what it uses to defend its skies, but also how much of it it needs. Stringer called this one of the “biggest changes” Western militaries have ever faced. They now need extensive defence.

Stringer said Western powers need to “catch up” in some areas and the response needs to be “on the right side of what we call the cost curve,” meaning they cannot continue to use multimillion-dollar interceptors against much cheaper threats.

“The most obvious example of getting this wrong,” he said, would be the use of U.S.-made Patriot air defense missiles against Shahed-style drones. Iran and Russia face each other. “This is unsustainable.”

Iran’s Shahed unidirectional attack drones cost an estimated $20,000 to $50,000 each. Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptors are estimated to cost approximately $3.7 million each and are stocks are stretched and it takes a long time to regenerate.

This incompatibility has already set off alarm bells within NATO. Officials and military leaders have warned that although these advanced defenses are still necessary, they can no longer be the only type of defense that Western militaries rely on.

Ukraine has developed some solutionsIncluding the cheap interceptor drones it can make Use against drone attacks Instead of using expensive missiles, partner countries now following this tip. Stringer said the West needs cheaper sensors like the ones Ukraine uses to detect drones, as well as the more powerful systems NATO uses to field.

But Stringer cautioned that defense alone is not enough.

He argued that the West cannot forget what has been key to air power doctrine for nearly 100 years: “your defense needs a good attack.” The West needs to be able to hit the place where these weapons are made and the source of the incoming weapon.

“You’ll hear people talk about going after not just the arrow, but the archer. That’s true to a point,” Stringer said, “but I actually want to go after the places where arrows are made.” He said it can’t just be “hoping to cope with whatever comes your way.”

He said NATO members need to scale their industrial bases not only through defense companies but also through broader industry, noting that Ukraine, which is rapidly developing and introducing new weapons, shows the value of having more companies ready to adapt to war.

If you look at innovative drone companies in the West, Stringer asks, “How many of them existed even five years ago, let alone how many of them had a traditional defense background or a defense industry background?” he said.

But officials and analysts warn that the growing number of threats in the air, despite huge investments in defense, means the West will not be able to cover everything in a serious, large-scale war in the future. Instead, countries may have to make difficult choices about what to protect as enemies can target military sites, cities, and civilian infrastructure.

Stringer also warned that the air threat meant he could no longer rely on Western countries in a large-scale war. their homeland remains safe While their armies were fighting abroad. Missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles can threaten places previously thought to be safe in the rear.

The challenge is forcing Western militaries to rethink air superiority. Officials warned that full control of the weather may not be possible. Gen. David Allvin, while Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, warned: Ukraine’s struggle revealed The United States may not be able to enjoy “ubiquitous air superiority for days and weeks,” he said, and instead this may only be possible in small bursts.

Securing control of the weather should still be a priority, Stringer said, even if the ways to do it are different.

“You still need to secure air superiority,” he said. “The ways to do this may vary, but it basically provides a foundation for the entire joint force to work from. So if you can’t secure the access and maneuver your force needs, then you’re failing.”

Stringer said that even NATO’s approach to monitoring and coordinating the air may need to change in the face of increasing threats. The West has long used large command centers. coordinating air patrols and air warfare, including directing what their aircraft do, seeing what they observe, and deciding how defenses should be used.

But “that will have to change,” Stringer said. Even as it makes air operations more complex, these command centers will need to be more dispersed so they will be harder to target.

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