THINK TANK – Russian Incursions and Nato Drone Wall Escalation – De-escalation

The recent news that British-made drones will create some sort of “drone wall” to protect Nato countries in Europe begs the question about escalation in the current conflict with Russia from a semi-proxy Ukraine war to a much larger theatre of war.

Hybrid Warfare

The new low-cost drones, developed in collaboration with Ukraine, are part of a new strategy to supposedly deter Russian jet and drone incursions into Nato airspace.

Recently there have been threatening incursions into Polish, Estonian, Danish, Norwegian, Romanian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Swedish airspace, prompting European leaders to sound the alarm.

Drone Wall

Codenamed Project Octopus, interceptor drones built in the UK will now be deployed in the frontline as a possible deterrence against the dangerous and reckless invasions by Russian aggression.

Will this action be enough to counteract Vladimir Putin’s reckless behaviour, or could things escalate even further? There are major risks, not only in escalation but in preserving civilian life.

Defending against hostile drones requires choices that carefully balance effectiveness, civilian safety and the risk of escalation. Each tool in the modern counter-UAS toolkit carries a distinct profile when judged by civilian impact, technical feasibility and how controllable it is in practice.

Electronic Warfare

Alternatives to the simple deployment of drones should include Electronic warfare (EW) which offers reversible, non-kinetic disruption of adversary links and navigation. Because EW works by contesting the electromagnetic spectrum rather than destroying hardware, its civilian footprint can be relatively low when narrowly applied; the main danger is unintended interference with nearby commercial or emergency communications if safeguards and coordination are lacking. Technically, EW is a mature and widely used approach: many armed forces routinely deploy jamming, spoofing and signal denial in contested environments. Its controllability is high in the sense that effects are generally temporary and can be tuned or withdrawn, but that very adjustment depends on accurate targeting and disciplined rules of employment to avoid spill-over into civilian systems.

High-power lasers now being trialled, like Britain’s Dragonfire, as a viable option are attractive because they can physically disable small unmanned aircraft at short to medium ranges without producing explosive debris. Risks remain if strikes occur over populated zones or near aviation routes.

The technical feasibility of laser systems has improved significantly, but practical deployment requires reliable tracking, power and eye-safety measures; they perform best as site-defence tools rather than wide-area solutions. Handling is good at the tactical level. Operators can choose when and where to engage, but the technology’s dependence on line-of-sight and environmental conditions constrains predictable performance.

Non-nuclear EMP Weapons

Non-nuclear electromagnetic options, conceptually distinct from conventional EW, are often proposed as a way to neutralise electronics without kinetic force. In reality, these approaches face practical and ethical limits. Their civilian impact can be large if they affect nearby infrastructure or networked devices; even a local electromagnetic effect can cascade across communications, transport and medical systems.

Technically, achieving selective, reliable, theatre-scale electromagnetic disabling remains difficult and power-intensive; shielding and redundancy blunt effectiveness and raise the prospect of an expensive countermeasure spiral.

Weighing these options, most analysts and practitioners suggest a layered approach: invest heavily in detection and attribution, employ EW, lasers and interceptors where they can be used safely and legally, and prioritise hardening to reduce systemic vulnerability.

Non-nuclear electromagnetic measures could be deployed, but because of their lower selectivity, higher potential for civilian cascading harm and limited control capacity, they are generally a last resort.

The best defence is not a single silver bullet, but a multi-tiered combination of precise, proportionate defeat mechanisms backed by robust protections for the civilian systems that modern life depends on.

Much of this of course depends on how far events escalate, and to what level of escalation a correct response would be validated.

Vladimir Putin smells blood, but he may essentially be underestimating the level of force that is available to counteract his aggressive YOLO actions.