The Influence of UAV on Modern War

With the low-cost UAV as a disposable consumable, it was widely used in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Many people think that this seems to have achieved "the victory of the common people", which can make the weak side rely on UAV to offset the attack of the strong side. Personally, the current application of UAV will lead to an easier escalation of the war, and the world war will be closer to mankind.

The argument that UAV can make the weak side resist the strong is that the low and small characteristics of UAV can break through the strong and carefully constructed air defense network and kill the precise but fragile weapons or weapon operators of the strong side, which changes the imbalance in lethality between the strong side and the weak side.

In fact, the above characteristics of UAV are to build a low-cost and large-scale application borrowed from civil technology. At the same time, it is believed that the powerful side of weapons will consider the pressure of public opinion and civilian casualties and will not escalate the scale of the war. There is obviously a paradox here: if the weak side of the war uses civilian equipment, civilian technology and personnel to participate in the war on a large scale, it offsets the advantages of the strong side of the war in terms of weapons, equipment and personnel; Then how can we restrict the other side of the war from escalating the war object to the other civilian and the war to total war?

In this case, a rational commander may make the following judgment: since the opponent can rely on civilian equipment and technology to offset his superiority in military weapons and technology, his purpose is to attack his opponent's ability to take advantage of this superiority-to escalate the war into a total war. Strike an all-round attack on all opponents, including people's livelihood, including but not limited to destroying their comprehensive power supply, energy, medical care, chemical industry, agricultural production and water resources, reducing their population on a large scale and consuming their war capabilities. Modern industries such as circuit boards and chips need to consume a lot of electricity, but the related power supply network cannot be hidden. Destroyed the enemy's agricultural production capacity, and large-scale grain transportation could not be hidden. The modern water source and water supply system have been destroyed, and large-scale water source transportation cannot be hidden. Such a series of measures will directly lead to the rapid escalation of the scale of the war between the two sides of the war until it is upgraded to a world war including but not limited to the use of nuclear weapons.