Drones Are Game-Changing, But They Are Not the Answer to the Inherent Challenges of Land War
by Amos Fox
08.06.2025 at 06:00am
Introduction
Are drones changing the ways in which wars are fought? And if so, how does that change contribute to, or take away from, how combatants win and lose wars? Those two questions are the central ideas that this article seeks to answer. These questions are challenging to consider because it is often difficult to separate the reporting from the excitement and institutional bias that is enmeshed throughout the open-source information on the subject. Likewise, it is equally challenging to separate general statements about drones, such as that they are game-changers or that they are fueling a new revolution in military affairs, from their contextual relevance. In the case of this article, that contextual relevance is identifying the drone and drone warfare’s contribution to land wars. Why land wars? Because, as scholar Christopher Tuck writes:
The fundamentals of land warfare often vary from those of other environments because of the effects of land itself. Land…exerts a powerful influence over the method required to fight over it. Success in land warfare matters: because humans live on land, occupying it or defending it successfully can have decisive political effects.
Tuck also notes that the techniques and causalities in land wars differ greatly than those in other domains, to include the air, space, and maritime domains. Therefore, attempting to understand the impact of a technology like drones and how it is employed, like drone warfare, in a specific domain requires a domain-specific theory of war. Similarly, theorist Carl von Clausewitz asserts that centers of gravity are the hub of all power from which a combatant’s strength is most concentrated. He qualifies that assertion by stating that centers of gravity often reside in a combatant’s army, their capital, and/or their alliances. Although writing from the position of a theorist enmeshed in 19th century wars and warfare, the validity of Clausewitz’s qualifications remains relevant. This is because of the important link between land war and the decision-spurring outcomes in war that policymakers require. Thus, combatants must apply maximum attention, and pressure, to the element(s) of Clausewitz’s center of gravity which best advances their policymaker down the path of profitable strategic outcomes and advantageous war termination. Yet, a combatant must simultaneously deny that approach to their adversary.
It is easy to get lost in the ink that’s been spilled regarding the drone and drone warfare’s revolutionary, or evolutionary, impact on war. It is quite difficult, however, to find practical assessments that are balanced against the drone’s ability to accomplish the requirements needed to generate win conditions that actively contribute to their respective policy aims in war. Nevertheless, this article attempts to breach those barriers. In doing so, this article provides a useful theory to make that assessment and determine the drone and drone warfare’s game-changing utility in land war.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/08/06/drones-are-game-changing/
