There’s a Race for Arctic-Capable Drones Going On, and the United States is Losing
Tucker Chase and Matthew Hanes | 01.19.22
There’s a Race for Arctic-Capable Drones Going On, and the United States is Losing
Right now, the unmanned aerial system is the IED of the next ten to twenty years.
— General James McConville, Chief Staff of the Army, July 31, 2021, on the Irregular Warfare Podcast
America’s drones struggle to compete against Russia in the Arctic. In 2019, Russia’s equivalent of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced a drone capable of remaining airborne for four consecutive days in the Arctic. Russian state sources report their drones can navigate in the Arctic without the use of jammable satellite-based navigation instead employing the alternative GIRSAM system. While the processes behind this system are unknown, supposedly it does not rely on GPS satellites or those of the Russian-developed GLONASS. Not until 2021—two years later—did an American MQ-9A Reaper drone complete a flight navigating with satellites past the seventy-eighth parallel north. Additionally, Russia plans to build an Arctic drone reconnaissance base four hundred and twenty miles off the Alaskan coastline. By 2025, the ability of Russian drones to monitor air, surface, and subsurface activity will far outpace the United States in the Arctic region.
The Arctic security environment is of significant national interest to Russia and the United States. And this interest will only grow as Arctic nations exploit the substantial natural gas reserves and the opening of the Northern Sea Route to intercontinental shipping.
If current trends hold, Russia’s polar drone superiority will continue unless the United States can adequately develop winterized drones. Today, American Arctic-aligned units possess limited options when deploying these technologies. US policymakers have begun to recognize this. The Army’s Regaining Arctic Dominance strategy states that manned aerial systems face limits due to the region’s frigid temperatures, but that employing Arctic-adapted drones will serve as a “combat multiplier” in projecting presence. In the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, the Senate Committee on Armed Services recognized that “in order to support persistent operations in austere environments, additional investment in expeditionary launch and recovery capabilities is warranted.” But much remains to be done. Units operating in the high north will be at a disadvantage until the United States develops drones that can operate in the Arctic’s extreme conditions.
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