Cheap Drones Versus Billion-Dollar Armies: The Drone Crisis Exposes NATO's Strategic Anachronism as China Learns AI Warfare from Ukraine

Europe is on high alert. The increasing appearance of swarms of unidentified drones is exposing the severe vulnerability of its air defenses, which were designed for traditional warfare. While bureaucracy struggles to keep pace, China is exploiting the lessons of the Ukrainian conflict to build a future war machine based on drones and Artificial Intelligence, rendering the Western security system obsolete.

by Gabriele and Nicola Iuvinale

The New Asymmetry: When Plywood Beats the Missile

European skies are increasingly permeated by mysterious drones. From reports in Poland and sightings over oil platforms in Norway, to interruptions of air traffic at Munich Airport and flights over military installations, these cheap, often rudimentary devices—sometimes assembled with simple components and Chinese microchips—are paralyzing operations and creating a strategic alarm across Brussels and European capitals.

The paradox, highlighted by Kommersant's correspondent in France, Alexey Tarkhanov, is a crisis of cost-effectiveness. NATO armies are trapped in a dilemma: their systems are designed to shoot down high-speed aircraft and cruise missiles, not swarms of mini-targets. As experts point out: "When a cheap drone is shot down by an expensive missile, that is not a success. In fact, it is a cheap drone that has shot down an expensive missile." A single "high-end" missile costs millions of euros, a price point that is unsustainable against hundreds of disposable attack drones.

European Inaction and Failed Precedents

The problem is not new. As early as 2021, a French Senate report warned of the need to prepare for a "drone war." Four years later, NATO's airspace still appears undefended.

The situation is worsened by institutional sluggishness. Despite statements from French President Emmanuel Macron on the imperative to destroy drones violating European airspace, uncertainty reigns. Germany had to debate expanding the military's authority to shoot drones down while unidentified drones paralyzed Munich Airport.

Countries are desperately seeking temporary solutions: Denmark is drafting laws to allow airports and oil platforms to act autonomously; France is experimenting with "drone-on-drone" systems, like the Rapid Eagle, which catches targets with a net. But these solutions appear temporary: the enemy's technology advances faster than European bureaucracy can keep up.

The China Factor: The Ukraine War as a Military Laboratory

While Europe lags in both offensive and defensive drone systems, the true strategic challenge is rapidly consolidating in the East. The fighting in Ukraine has become the fundamental testing ground for warfare evolution, demonstrating the success of smaller, simpler, and cheaper models.

In this scenario, a critical geopolitical element is emerging: the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) is actively acquiring military information from Russia regarding drone tactics, effectiveness, and weaknesses in the Ukrainian conflict.

China is using this real-time data to fuel its ambitious military modernization program, building drones, military IoT (Internet of Things), and attack and defense systems integrated with Artificial Intelligence for future warfare. The PLA is learning to create disposable "cheap armies" capable of overwhelming the West's high-tech forces through sheer mass and AI integration, successfully overcoming the cost dilemma.

The Philosophical Challenge for NATO

The problem is no longer just technological; it is philosophical and doctrinal. The drone threat shifts the balance of power. The world faces a new reality: the "expensive armies," symbols of technological supremacy, risk drowning in a wave of cheap, disposable devices, much like the battleships of World War II perished under swarms of bombers.

The analogy is clear: a bear is helpless to disperse a swarm of bees. France and its allies understand that their costly air defense systems were designed for superpower confrontation, not for this new asymmetric warfare. This necessitates a fundamental rethinking of both NATO's defense doctrine and the diplomatic system of conflict prevention, before the gap becomes unbridgeable.