Nicolai Haugsted
Pentagon tests its latest anti-drone arsenal as cartels increasingly take to the skies.
Cheap commercial drones have changed far more than photography, deliveries and weekend hobbies. Their accessibility has also handed criminal groups a remarkably inexpensive way to watch territory from above.
Along the US-Mexico border, that capability is now attracting serious attention from the Pentagon.
According to Reuters, the US Army is testing a new generation of counter-drone systems in the region as officials report hundreds of unauthorized drone crossings in a matter of weeks. Military planners are simultaneously borrowing ideas from a considerably more dangerous testing ground thousands of miles away: the war in Ukraine.
Radar systems, interceptor drones, automated weapons and other technology were put through their paces during the Falcon Peak military exercise in Arizona in September.
The objective is straightforward. Cartels have drones. The US military wants better ways to find them — and, when necessary, bring them down.
Hundreds of drones detected in just 30 days
Cartel drones operating near the border are generally far removed from the sophisticated systems dominating battlefields in Ukraine and the Middle East.
US officials say criminals are primarily relying on commercially available models equipped with cameras.
Surveillance appears to be their main purpose, allowing criminal organizations to observe activity around the border while conducting smuggling and human-trafficking operations.
Brigadier General Brian Filler, deputy commander for operations at Joint Task Force Southern Border, said military personnel had recorded 378 drone incursions during the previous 30 days alone.
“We are seeing largely commercial off-the-shelf available drones,” Filler told reporters.
According to Filler, the aircraft are frequently spotted in connection with movements across the border.
The numbers suggest the problem is accelerating rather than disappearing.
The Army brings out its anti-drone toolbox
Falcon Peak gave defense companies an opportunity to demonstrate very different answers to the same increasingly irritating question: How do you stop a small aircraft that can be bought commercially and launched almost anywhere?
Soldiers watched systems designed to locate, follow and ultimately disable or destroy drones.
Anduril demonstrated its Ghost drone, while Teledyne FLIR supplied radar and camera technology designed to identify aerial targets.
Allen Control Systems brought something considerably less subtle.
Its Bullfrog system combines artificial intelligence and computer vision with an automated machine gun designed to track and engage drones.
Interceptor drones from Powerus were also among the technology demonstrated.
The US military has already started using another futuristic option at the southern border.
Officials said in September that lasers deployed there in August had destroyed 11 cartel drones.
Ukraine has rewritten the drone playbook
Cartels are not suddenly fielding the equivalent of Ukrainian or Russian drone forces, and US military officials have been careful not to suggest otherwise.
The comparison with Ukraine instead concerns the speed at which technology and tactics are changing.
Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 accelerated a technological contest in which inexpensive drones can be modified, deployed, countered and replaced at remarkable speed.
New defenses can lose their advantage quickly because the opposing side adapts. Successful militaries therefore cannot necessarily spend years perfecting every solution before putting it into service.
American planners want to copy some of that mentality.
“We tend to look at Ukraine and we say, ‘I am so impressed with how quickly they can adapt on a daily or weekly basis,’” Brigadier General Matt Ross told reporters.
“What we should really do is replicate that process.”
The border offers something a laboratory cannot
Arizona provides the military with an operational environment where systems can be tested against real-world conditions without pretending cartel drones represent the same threat as weapons flying over an active battlefield.
Weather, terrain, communications and unpredictable aircraft movements can expose weaknesses that controlled demonstrations may miss.
Soldiers also get experience operating the equipment rather than simply watching manufacturers prove that it works under ideal circumstances.
Such experimentation could matter well beyond the Mexican border.
Lessons gathered from comparatively simple commercial drones can help military planners refine detection networks, command systems and interception techniques that may eventually be needed against more sophisticated threats elsewhere.
Silicon Valley wants a piece of the action
Falcon Peak also illustrated how rapidly the Pentagon’s relationship with the technology industry is changing.
Venture capital has poured billions into defense startups since Russia invaded Ukraine, helping companies challenge the traditional giants that have dominated American military contracting for decades.
Anduril and Shield AI are among the best-known names from that wave, while smaller businesses are competing for contracts involving drones, autonomous systems and counter-drone weapons.
Powerus provides a particularly unusual connection between that new defense industry and American politics.
The drone company recently went public through a merger involving a company backed by sons of President Donald Trump, according to Reuters.
Military officials, however, are primarily interested in shortening the journey from promising prototype to useful equipment.
