Tanks, Drones and Missiles: How the Ukraine war changed post-soviet warfare globally | Superpowers

Tanks, Drones and Missiles: How the Ukraine war changed post-soviet warfare globally | Superpowers

Russian tactical nuclear weapons for instance their conops are really based in the 70s and ‘ 80s as it is now means that the Russians can barely you know light up a launcher with uh its tactical nuclear weapons without us knowing about it the NATO generals Admirals Air Marshals all say with enormous confidence no no no no NATO would fight this war in an entirely different way drones don’t allow you to have fewer people on the battlefield because somebody’s got to control the drones but this is where I think we are on the Ed of a real military [Music] Revolution hello I’m James heppe welcome to superpowers the future of Global Security on times radio since Putin’s fullscale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 we’ve seen the Resurgence of the tank and Russian battle strategy mirroring that of World War I but we’ve also seen this war play out very much in the 21st century with Ukraine deploying the use of drones artificial intelligence and robots to launch their counter offensives against Russian forces when Iran attacked Israel early this year the Royal Air Force shot down a number of drones and there’s new evidence to suggest that Iranian and emirati drones have been used in the war in Sudan but what weapons will we see global superpowers and other smaller players employ in the next conflict and how can we try and regulate these new technologies today I’m joined by defense analyst Michael Clark and former British Colonel army colonel heish to Breton Gordon to try and answer these questions so how have we seen the War uh landscape change in Ukraine uh Michael I’ll come to you first there’s always this danger I think that people rush to learn the lessons of the last war and prepare their Force for the next War based on on that so in your opinion to what degree have we seen a complete transer of the way that Wars are fought through the way that it’s been fought in Ukraine or are we seeing just the consequence of the way the Russians and the ukrainians fight and NATO and others may still choose to do it if differently no I think you’re absolutely right James we’re seeing a bit of everything um in the war in Ukraine we’re seeing the top and bottom of it the top of it in the highest sort of technology and the use of space and space SpaceX satellites which are really important to what’s going on on the ground right down to the the the tanks and the armored vehicles and the trench warfare a lot of Ukrainian soldiers have had to learn the the lessons of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers in avoiding trench foot and keeping your feet clean any infantryman knows as you do um that you’ve got to look after your feet so on so they’ we’ve seen all of that and in a way I mean we are seeing a distinctively Russian Ukrainian conflict but we’re also seeing lots of pointers to What conflict is going to become the the way in which I think this war is most traditional is not so much the Technologies but because this war represents the return of Industrial Age Warfare to Europe we thought we wouldn’t see it again certainly not in our lifetimes although I’ve always thought it would come back eventually but here we are in the earlier part of the 21st century seeing Industrial Age Warfare which means that the side which will prevail in Ukraine is that which can gear up its economy and deploy all of its economic power to the front line in ways that make a strategic difference now the Russians are already doing that the ukrainians are trying to do it but we’ll only succeed if we in the west are prepared to do it as well to a quite considerable extent so in that respect this war is a very 20th century style war Industrial Age Warfare but of course it’s going to be played out with lots of the weapons and the Technologies of the 21st century that you pointed to in your introduction well heish you’re a former tank commander and I have to be honest um in the first few weeks of the war when Russian armored columns were halted by small bands of determined people running out of wood blocks with shoulder launch missiles I was sort of much happier uh in my Heritage as a light infantryman um and wouldn’t have wanted to be in a tank for love nor money but I it feels to me like once we’ve got beyond that initial phase of war and it’s moved out of the urban environment of the outskirts of Kei we have seen um that those Industrial Age technologies that Michael just spoke about are indeed still as relevant now as they would have been in the 80s yes no no absolutely in fact I’m just writing a piece at the moment uh for another publication called the tank is dead long live the tank but I absolutely agree with Michael’s assertion that we now have a balance of mass and Technology I think in the west we’ve been slightly seduced that technology is the answer uh but actually what we’re seeing is that we mustn’t forget about Mass whether it’s mass of Manpower mass of Tanks mass of drones and I’m sure that we will come on to the drones but the tank itself um you know the uh the effectiveness it had in the first great tank battles at combre on the 20th of November 1917 actually we are seeing exactly the same sort of battles happening in the domas and bakut and when we look at the technology side of it it um we’ve uh perhaps you know the Great Tiger tank of the second world war everybody you know the Germans thought it was the answer but actually it was a really good tank it was a bit too over complicated and unreliable um and it was overwhelmed the Germans only managed to make about 1500 tiger ones the Germans produced 49,000 the the Americans produced 49,000 Shermans and we’re sort of seeing the same sort of thing play out on the battlefields in in eastern Ukraine that that yeah sure Challenger 2 and leopard 2 are great tanks very sophisticated but in onesies and two’s against hundreds of of old Soviet tanks you know that it’s getting overwhelmed so I think you know it’s it’s really you know all’s changed and nothing’s new and I think just to finish up here the principles of air power um uh land power and Maritime power are absolutely crucial to this you know it strikes me that he who rules the skies or he who rule or wins the Drone battles is probably going to win the war so that I think is the key Point um you know we the the Russians pressed on with their Invasion without achieving air superiority um and I think that that will ultimately be proven to show to as the reason that they failed in their in their um in their timeline that they had originally set out um what we’ve got now is that both sides have to a degree access to the air drones are everywhere that makes surveillance of the battlefield almost uh entire and therefore it becomes really hard to hide now I want to come to drones later on but as a minister thinking about this stuff that the thing that I found hardest to square is I agree with you both that those Industrial Age Technologies the tank the the armored Fighting Vehicle the the frig the Destroyer the combat fast aircraft um are all part of the modern Force for but the bigger and better the missile technology becomes the more that you have to armor them so the bigger the power pack they need the bigger the tonnage that they are the more that you want them to be able to operate all sorts of modern novel weapon systems and be part of a of an integrated network of systems on the battle space the more power they need the bigger size they are so you end up in a situation where you’re being asked by the Army Navy Air Force to buy Ever more Exquisite ever bigger platforms and that feels completely at odds with the miniaturization and the dispersal of the force that would make sense in an environment that is so heavily surveilled so Michael I’ll come to you first because I know that that that you and your team at Rousy have been thinking a lot about this we how do we square that that requirement for the Industrial Age Technologies making them survivable whilst at the same time taking advantage of all the opportunities of automation Ai and the necessity to disperse yeah and of as I mean as a minister James you’re required to find the sort of philosopher stone you’re you’re required to find this sort of we talk about Exquisite Technologies you’re you’re required to to find an Exquisite balance between what the services want which is of course is more of everything they they’re naturally programmed to want that um and very sophisticated Technologies particularly in air power they say you know there are no prices coming second in air power in particular you can’t recover from a defeat very easily in air power whereas you might be able to recover a bit more quickly in land power and so on they make those arguments and those are sensible arguments but you can’t then just have um airframes or main platforms without all the things that go with it and without exploring the new technologies and so the trick which is what the the services are trying to come up with now is to work out where the significant areas of breakthrough are likely to occur so we all know it’s something to do with robotics we all understand that drones are robotics The Tempest program you know the the the new gcap and so on um new air superiority ideas ideas for the Navy again to have robotic ships we all know that’s the that’s the the the future for sixth generation weapons the question is where would robotics make the biggest difference and is there a way in which robotics actually allow you to concentrate your energies elsewhere at the moment that isn’t true um because you know we talk about drones but I mean drones don’t allow you to have fewer people on the battlefield because somebody’s got to control the drones but this is where I think we are on the edge of a a real military Revolution when drones become linked really linked to AI then um with large areas they they will become effectively autonomous weapon systems and one person may be the human in the loop who who is looking after a th000 drones 10,000 drones you know the area below 5,000 ft could be an autonomous Battlefield area with one or one person or a small team of people responsible for it but the drones working with AI will work out their own strategies they’ll work out their own targets and they will attack them now that hasn’t happened yet but we are not far away from that Revolution and in a sense you know your job as a minister is try is to try to navigate um the areas where would that sort of thing I’m giving you one I think big example Ai and drones where would that make the most difference and where can then you put scarce resources to develop that and be ahead of the game in trying to work that through and Britain is you know has made sincere efforts to do that on the basis of a constrained budget I mean intellectually I’ve always thought Britain is pretty good at making these judgments the problem is can we follow it up with enough investment to actually bring it to fruition um in time the answer to that is not quite but nevertheless we’re pretty good on the scientific side and the technological side of all that so heish like most uh Western militaries we’re in the process of recapitalizing our army here in the UK um and that recapitalization really looks like the army of the 1990s just with with just with more sophisticated platforms but fundamentally it’s the same Force design um is there a danger that by the time Challenger three the British new main battle tank and boxer the the armored Fighting Vehicle are in service mid 2030s that um the nature of the land Warfare will have changed so fundamentally that we’ve recapitalized and bought an entirely obsolete um Force design that that that’s a great question I mean I yes and no I mean you really um put your finger on the big challenge of of military procurement that you’ll know better than than all of us of course that that because it takes so long you know things will be out of date I mean I I look at the port and down have developed this laser for knocking down drones called Dragonfire uh but we understand it’s not going to be in place for sort of another four years if it was in place today absolutely it would be gamechanging so they’re in the challenge I think really at the root of it um of what we’re seeing in Ukraine at the moment so what we call concept of operations you know hat how you actually use the stuff and um that is failing I think to keep up with technology when we yeah look at an area that I’ve expert in and written a lot about is you know Russian tactical nuclear weapons for instance you know they their conops are really based in the 70s and 80s when intelligence surveillance Target acquisition was as it was then uh as it is now means that um you know the Russians can barely you know light up a launch with uh its tactical nuclear weapons without us knowing about it virtually before you know the launcher operators themselves so I think that is a really key element the the other element that um that Mike alluded to what one of the challenges in this sort of techn as technology goes forward um we know that the the key to being successful in in land operations is is combined arms maneuver with the sport of the air and elsewhere but that takes a heck of a lot of training and I think one thing that you and your successors need to think about going back to your original question is are we going to have the right Army in future is you know are we are we going to be able to have the sort of follow on echelons that are trained to conduct the Warfare that we want if we look at Ukraine at the moment we know that the you know the the Russian professional Army was killed or wiped out in the first year of the battle to a degree the same with the ukrainians what we’re seeing now on the front line is very very inexperienced Russian conscripts who can do little more than sort of get out of the trench and charge the enemy um and that might well be the same you know for the ukrainians too and for ourselves you know the size our army is at the moment if we did get involved in a land war in Europe again we must accept that our first Echelon will last weeks maybe months but what about the follow on the the the war that Michael and and you and I are talking about now is not something you can learn off the back of a packet in in half an hour or so so your question you know will Ajax and boxer be right in 10 years time I am sure they will it’ll be the concept of operations and going back to my own area you know tanks tanks are are over a hundred years old now and and still going strong they and they haven’t fundamentally changed they still a metal box with a gun and tracks so it’s I think it’s all about how you use them um and Technology must be balanced about you know people being able to exploit it to its to its degree but but I go back to my original comment at the end of the day you still do need that Mass to be able to Prevail so I think both sides are working with a second nelon forces now aren’t they in Ukraine both sides are fighting with the second nelon forces and it goes back to the old idea that I mean I think Patrick Sanders the president CGS of the AR chief of the army who’s stepping down now um he made he always makes the point he said that you know Wars are started by professional armies and they’re finished by citizen armies whether it’s conscript or or um recruited Army a professional Army who is volunteers eventually you know big Wars are finished by by citizen armies professionals start them citizens finish them because that’s the nature of warfare anything other than than expeditionary operations of which we’ve you know conducted for the last 30 odd years are different but a war where somebody has to Prevail and some sort of national mobilization has to take place have to be finished by second or even Third Echelon forces you’re both entirely right about the requirements of generating follow on forces it leads me to want to ask you two questions actually the first is when you talk to Nato senior generals Admirals Air Marshals they will tell you uh when you say well is the war in Ukraine how a NATO war with Russia would translate does it just come down ultimately to both sides ability to absorb a body count an attritional battle and the NATO generals Admirals Air Marshals all say with enormous confidence no no no no NATO would fight this war in an entirely different way now I can see how a first Echelon force would fight in an entirely different way a force that has trained in peace time over decades and is equipped with the most sophisticated things that you’re able to buy very deliberately when Supply chains are constrained um but once that first Echelon fight is over if not decisive do does even NATO come back to that attritional just who can keep it going longest fight that we’re seeing uh between the ukrainians and the Russians now come Michael first yeah I think that’s exactly right James that um I mean the the answer is that your followon forces your second Echelon have got to be sufficiently trained reservists that they can they can pick up the combined arms um requirements that heish is talking about as were naturally if they can’t do that and at the moment it’s you know NATO forces don’t have the sort of reserves that could really provide ready second echon forces then of course you you’re in a you’re in a problem when your first echon forces are exhausted or can’t do anymore you if you can’t follow on with secondary Shon forces who can take up the the battle on in the same way then you’ve got a problem and of course that’s exactly what happened in the Second World War I mean the first Echelon forces were exhausted and finished by the end of 1940 the second Echelon forces the conscript Army that then came together um was was not very good until 1943 44 it wasn’t ready until then and that’s why I often say 1942 was a was a dreadful year in the second world war and we’re in that 1942 year now in Ukraine that in fact politically the balance of forces moved significantly against the the access powers in 1941 but it wasn’t felt until the end of 1942 and Al so although although it is clear that the Allies would win the war eventually by December 1941 once America came into the war and Russia would changed sides and was fighting Germany that meant that the Germans were always going to lose the Japanese were always going to lose but 1942 was a dreadful year because that was the era in which the follow on for forces were not ready and it wasn’t until 1944 that the follow on forces were able then to behave like a professional Army and even then it was tough going so even if NATO were able to Short Circuit that time between first Echelon Force spent second Echelon Force capable to fight on combined arms NATO maneuver Doctrine um and the re and the way you short circuit that is by NATO members rein invigorating their strategic reserves and the sort of having that capacity to reactivate people like heish and me God help the Army uh in order to sort of get back out there and fight remembering the things we knew previously there’s still the reality of what industry can supply and what’s really interesting when you look at Wars of national survival like the second world war the the sort of technologies that you finished the war with the mass that you finish the war with is as much the St that you can manufacture quickly easily at scale with the raw materials you’ve got access to as it is any reflection in advances of technology and I think heish that’s what’s really interesting about uh the way that the war in Ukraine has evolved because for a combination of reasons we’re now seeing um you dumb bombs being used in in Ukraine now that’s partly because they are the things that Russia has still gotten its stockpiles but it’s also because an incred inedibly electronically denied environment all the all the electronic counter measures in the world still can’t defeat gravity and so you sort of can you can see how a second Echelon fight might be much less technologically uh enabled than the first Echelon fight and if that’s the case does the West surrender its Advantage yeah I mean that’s a really interesting point let let me let me before I I I that let me just go back to your original question about you know how would NATO fight Russia I think it’s really important that the listeners and viewers to this you know understand that actually NATO fighting Russia is a very different Prospect from Ukraine fighting Russia with NATO support um I think you know everybody would would agree and know that NATO’s combined arms capability with the Americans um should be you know an overwhelming Force against the Russians a and you know without going into the concept of operations how we’d fight it um you know the Russians at the moment are running very very hot despite the fact as you say industrially they are producing stuff at a at a really impressive rate but but their their first sessional on Force has gone they are probably you they would probably find it virtually impossible to fight on two fronts but where you look at NATO and the you know all the exercises that I’m sure that you’ve been to see up in in Northern Europe uh with the fins and the swedes also now part of NATO you know the Germans the French ourselves actually the force that we could Mass um for a first ashlon attack on Russia I I I think standfast the whole nuclear issue which I don’t think it’s a big issue um would be overwhelming and and that is you know that is why I have been frustrated that some of our politicians hither to not just in this country and elsewhere have absolutely ruled out NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine because I think you know Putin you know for all his his his idiosyncracies and Ty tyrannic activity knows that NATO um would overwhelm Russia so I think that that is a really important thing for people to understand because I know everybody’s really worried about what what’s happening in Ukraine at the moment but as you say the second L on force is getting less Technical and it sort of goes back to my my opening statement that you know we must not be over seduced by technology because all wars in the end seem to be come back to a attritional type Warfare and he who can get the the most tanks and ampire to keep coming generally Prevail so yeah that it’s it’s it’s you know nothing new just stuff we’ve forgotten but but I think ultimately and I’d be very interested to hear Mike’s view on this I think NATO as a conventional military force is a completely different proposition fighting Russia than Ukraine would be on its own Mike yeah absolutely I I I mean I mean he sure is quite right that I mean NATO you know by by its nature trains in Combined arms operations and of course you know we we know from the inside it always feels a bit scratchy but actually from the outside it looks pretty impressive and I mean take NATO air power I mean that you know NATO Air Force is always operate in a chok you know combined operational Center they always do that NATO Pilots um you know get hundreds of hours a year in their cockpits more than twice as much as Russian Pilots normally get and the Russian Air Force doesn’t fight in anything like or doesn’t train in anything like a combined arms way they don’t operate in Chao they operate as a a very old-fashioned sort of Air Force and I think that’s the point if in any direct clash between NATO and Russian forces NATO forces would be overwhelmingly Superior as long as they don’t run out of ammunition and as long as they they don’t run out of people um in the first few days as long as the forces are big enough and are sustained enough it’s almost no contest but that doesn’t help the the political problem that nobody nobody wants a Russia NATO direct conflict but the Russians are pushing they’re pushing right up to the line and they’re trying to put The Frighteners on us with all of the things that they say and they’re succeeding in some respects I mean Putin has really got The Frighteners on a lot of German politicians talking about nuclear and talking about the the prospect of escalation doesn’t doesn’t frighten Us in Britain for all sorts of reasons but my goodness it frightens the Germans and that’s a worry to be honest a real worry and and that’s that’s really dangerous thing we we speak very confidently about how overwhelmingly Superior the NATO forces on l c and air would be for the Russian army navy Air Force but of course the the the catastrophic defeat of Russia conventionally quickly just brings the nuclear trip wire uh ever nearer and so um you know there’s there’s there’s no there’s no easy answer one of the things I’ve been struck by though over the last few years is a lot of the US Le exercises have evolved from using a a Russian pacing threat uh around the Euro Atlantic geography to being around a Chinese pacing threat and an indopacific geography and I think that that leads to some really interesting challenges for policy makers because we’ve just talked for 10 15 minutes about a continental battle in the Euro Atlantic uh supported by overwhelming air power and with sea lines of communication kept open through an overwhelming Naval presence in the North Atlantic the Pacific is an entirely different geography and even before you get into what the pla the the Chinese Army Navy Air Force have in their inventory the simple challenge of transoceanic theater entry across the Pacific is in itself hugely demanding so do we end up in a situation where European powers within NATO need to focus on the Continental demands of the Euro Atlantic fight but that the US increasingly will equip itself for that transoceanic fight into the second island chain and then onwards towards China or can we afford for there to be that sort of Divergence in forc Divi design and sophistication between the US and its close allies here in Europe well I I think that that that’s a really important dilemma that you point to and I mean just before we leave the Euro Atlantic area I I mean you know you will have seen this at firsthand as a minister but um I think it’s worth repeating for you know people out there NATO does not have any plans and never has had any plans to attack Russia doesn’t have it I mean the Russians always believe there were that they don’t exist they simply do not exist on paper in discussions NATO has never ever planned to attack Russia or Russian territory it’s always been how do we defend ourselves against incursions or challenges somewhere else and that challenge is somewhere else is now much bigger because of the China uh emergence than it ever was before and so you know of course we’re not planning to attack Russia of course we’re not but the issue of having to deploy maybe in the indopacific in support of the United States and of our own interests in the indopacific is now bigger than it ever was before and that’s a real dilemma between let’s call it you know a continental strategy and a global strategy and to be honest I think in Britain the Navy has tended to pursue that Maritime Global strategy and the Army has has has thought about and is now getting back to pursuing the Continental strategy and I suspect that future historians will say that Britain in the first part of the 20th centur 21st century was caught in its old dilemma Continental or global strategy but Europe as a whole has got to think about that Global strategy more seriously than it did before even while it’s worrying about its own defense Michael friends in Congress uh and in the Pentagon um are seized by exactly the same challenge you know the US Marine Corps is attracting significant funding from Congress because it is Pacific focused um you know equipping itself for the island hopping that is needed in a Pacific Campaign um and the US Army is finding that in order to justify its funding it needs to make itself relevant in the Pacific Theater not the Euro Atlantic theater and I just that’s quite a it’s quite an interesting challenge for the United States as as in terms of how it wins funding for its military and how it then designs itself but but I think that the idea that the UK France Germany Poland all just equi themselves to secure the Euro Atlantic and don’t have to have the sorts of capabilities that allow you to operate at enormous range in the Pacific Theater it is for the birds um and so my my every Instinct and heish i’ be interested in in your Reflections is that we have got to accept that the British army needs to have uh an interoperability with the Australians and the Japanese the Americans comes through NATO and therefore would just translate into the paciific we would have an interoperability with those those new partners and a relevance in the Pacific alongside the Navy and the Air Force we can’t just build an army that’s really good on the plains of Northern Poland I I think there are two points here and um and I agree I mean it is a huge dilemma I think first of all you know our conventional defense in the European theater and perhaps our focus elsewhere has has been was one of the um the metrics that Putin looked at you know when he invaded when he invaded on the 24th of February 2022 he he looked West and was not deterred and I think we’ve got to think about that but I also agree um you the the orcus and other uh treaties are absolutely key and one of the great things you know we we might be very small in the British military but we do have that flexibility and I serve with the Australian Army as well so you know I I know our standard operating procedures are all virtually the same and people like the Australians and the KE the new zealanders you know are exstensively fighting on you know NATO concept of operations so I think at the Tactical level it’s relatively straight forward to be able to switch a force that’s been fighting you know Mainland Europe to to exactly that um you know out in the Far East and down in the South I do think that people like the Australians need to take on more of the heavy lifting in this area but we need that flexibility and that’s always been at the heart of the British military we might be small but we’re very flexible and we definitely punch above what our weight so in a perfect world we will do both but at the moment I think the key thing we must focus on on Ukraine prevailing uh but but of course at the same time making sure that we can oppose the next threats that are likely to evolve which may well be as you say in the far east region so I mean it’s clear in the way that the Chinese are developing their uh inventory that their whole War plan is around access denial to the United States at this point of the second island chain so they’re developing incredibly long range Hypersonic Precision systems um that are designed to Halt the US mid-pacific I that incredibly expensive um should the West be matching that and just and accepting that the early phase of the war is an incredibly expensive very long range engagement or is there a uh is it time for the West to let China be the superpower spending huge amounts of money on the most Exquisite Technologies and we should adopt the the mindset of the Insurgent and try and defeat their million dooll challenge with a $10 solution Michael what’s the you is is it is it inescapable that a fight with China is exquisite or is there a way of doing this differently yeah it’s it’s an interesting balance between the political and the and the military because politically I mean nobody can deny that China is going to be a major power for the rest of the century I mean this is the Asian Century it’s not just all all about China it’s all about India you know the big four powers are America China India and Russia and they’re big Powers all for different reasons and they’ve all got their own strengths and weaknesses and China is going to be a major power in the century there’s no point in the Americans trying to prevent that happening but they’ve got to come to some sort of arrangement with China at some point when China has spent a lot more money on the military when it’s feeling the the effect of of its extremely high military expenditure there will come a point in probably in the 2030s when they will look for some sort of plateau they will look for some sort of modus operandi with the United States so there’s a political element to this and in that period let’s say from another 10 or 15 years when the Americans have got to play it long they’ve got to be strategically patient they want to make sure that they can defend their key interests in the Western Pacific which are you know Taiwan the the the Taiwan Straits um the independence and freedom of South Korea and America’s own relationships that come and go with Philippines with um Malaysia with Vietnam um so preserving rather rather than competing with China on every level the Americans got to think I think about their key interests for the next 10 or 15 years and then they will look at another let’s say another Nixon moment another 1972 moment when the Chinese feel that they don’t want to carry on um simply plowing money into military hardware and are looking for some sort of big Arrangement it won’t come yet but I think it will come at sometime so strategic patience would be my advice and that means that the Europeans fighting our own strugg you know struggling with our own issues Europe have got to be prepared to support the United States in whichever way we can in the indopacific so increasingly European Security will be about the Europeans supported by the United States and indopacific Security will be about the United States supported where we can by the Europeans it’s not either all we’ve got to be prepared somehow to do both and there’s another integration of the two theaters because if we if we are not successful in Europe then insecurity in East Asia is far more likely yes whereas if we can defeat Putin’s um Ambitions in Europe then China will think very carefully about how it pursues its own Ambitions in the indopacific and and in East Asia so you know it’s it’s not as if we can ignore Europe and and worry about the Chinese only the fact is how China perceives its security is partly dependent on the outcome of the war in Ukraine we we touched on drones quite a bit upfront they come they surface almost immediately in any discussion of what changed in the fight in Ukraine but there is a danger that already people like us and the conferences that we attend all the time people are already um overstating what the drones are achieving so definitely they are achieving huge amounts of surveillance which makes it easier to reconter and find your your enemy um but I’m sure you’re not the only tank commander former tank commander that feels hugely grieved that the idea that a hand grenade dropped from a drone is somehow destroying main battle tanks everywhere my understanding is that most of the tanks that you see in those pictures and videos on Twitter have been defeated by a land mine or artillery or some other system first and then the hand grenade is dropped through the hatch to dispense of the crew thereafter so you know the I these drones are not defeating main battle tanks routinely when we’ve seen houthis firing drones uh against uh US Navy and Royal Navy destroyers in the southern Red Sea they’ve been dispensed of incredibly easily by these very sophisticated warships orbe it I think the E the economics of that fight the US and the UK have been firing off million doll missiles to defeat $10,000 drones but nonetheless the drones have not been a challenge to those destroyers so how should we inter interpret the importance of drones to the modern fight because they are not the answer to everything are they heish well it’s it’s all about counter measures and I think two really important things don’t forget that that million doll missile that we fired at a 2000 or $20,000 drone is preventing it destroying a $500 million ship so it’s it’s it’s not a sort of binary metric as it were but you know James when you and I served um I find it rather aming is probably the wrong word but uh but air defense was the sort of Cinderella arm whereas now my my cloud punching friends my air Defenders are are the sort of the champions of the battlefield so when I say counter measures that’s what it what it is all about um when we say drones dropping a hand grenade into a tank I mean it is quite complex you’re right that it might be a mine but of course you know in in Western tanks we have armor charge bins so if you drop a grenade into a challenger you might injure the crew but you’re not getting blow it up whereas a grenade into a into a Russian tank CU their their ammunition is not guarded that’s that’s where it blows up but I think the the the Drone thing is fascinating and I just you know I just wonder whether we are I hope people your successes in White Hall are really looking at this you know when I was um in doing intelligence in Afghanistan you know we were using a couple of very expensive very capable drones you lose A5 million pound drone and it’s a big issue but what we’re seeing in Ukraine is is Thousands if not millions of $500 drones swamping the battlefield you know Stand Fast what Mike’s saying about AI That’s the sort of next bit to it but this is the current thing that is giving people a a tactical Advantage but if you can you know if your counter measures uh will Denude it which which surely they will that’s that’s where you you have got to go I mean interestingly you know I’m currently writing a book on the development of tank warfare you know combre there was somebody like me with a with a ash plant going out the front checking the ground and there was somebody in a balloon looking at Targets now virtually every Ukraine tank that I’ve spoken to has a drone tracking checking the ground in front of it and a drone at Target end helping the indicate Target so it’s it’s just a different way of doing things I think we we do need to look at the Drone piece incredibly seriously I mean the ukrainians now developed drones that you know now that they can attack 400 kmers into Russia you know taking out an Su 57 the other day you know you a $500 million Russian stealth fighter taken out by a couple of thousand dollar drones now that that’s a different story you know what what’s happened to the Russian air defense which is why again I say you know air defense is is become such a absolutely key thing but it’s all about the evolution of warfare and and James you’ll know no doubt people like like me were briefing you every other day on what was happening what was changing and what what we needed um and this is just part of the evolution of warfare and and and Michael will probably have a better view than me that you know during a war like Ukraine things move much more quickly than they do in peace time so I I want to finish um because we’re very nearly out of time on I’m afraid a rather Grim note um heish you commanded the British Army’s chemical biological radiological and nuclear regiment um all the way through uh the wars in Iraq uh the the tensions in Syria and now in Ukraine the West has been very clear that the use of such weapons will bring with it very serious repercussions um and those threats have kept the taboo largely in place um but I’d be very interested very quickly um in your thoughts Michael first on whether in reality NATO uh and Western Partners need to expect a cbrn threat in any fight that we might have with a peer adversary in the near future Michael first yeah my sense is that it’s a it’s a nearer threat than we used to think of it the tou has broken down and it broke down you know significantly in 2013 in Syria after which there were over 200 chemical attacks in Syria um and so that that taboo is is not as strong as it was and I think we have to expect that the greater weaponization of biological and chemical elements is likely to if not take place at least be a a danger that we’ve got to take more seriously even than when heish was dealing with it heish I I know you will want to uh evangelize over the need for it but you have the experience to tell our viewers that this is an incredibly specialized skill set you you can’t just operate in a in a chemical environment uh without any prior training so you what level of effort is required from NATO to recover the skills that the Army had uh during your day well I think you know there are a couple of things here the thing about chemical weapons in particular is the psychological impact I was the pesh murgers chemical weapons adviser for two years in the fight with Isis and they threw chlorine at us on a regular basis and the pesur are the bravest men and women in the world and they they were terrified until they were trained and got the right kit to deal with it um so actually deal it’s a psychological impact that’s massive but if you know what to do and you have the right kit actually it’s relatively easy to make make it you know much lesser threat at the moment um some people might be aware and if they’re not uh they might want to read my columns in the telegraph over the last couple of weeks because we’ve been doing an in investigation into Ukraine people will be astounded to hear that we’ve recorded over a thousand uses chemical weapons on the front line in Ukraine since Christmas it is a huge issue now the chemical they’re using is CS gas right control agent most people and Putin is saying it’s not a chemical weapon you use it all the time to quell riots in Europe well actually as far as the chemical weapons convention it is I I was only speaking to somebody yesterday who who both in the morning and afternoon their unit got hit with cs gas now the issue with cs gas if you don’t have a gas mask it’s really unpleasant in fact you’ve got to get out of the way so in First World War fashion thinking back to April 1915 when the Germans first used chlorine and our troops had no gas masks everybody got out of the trench and the Germans shot them that’s happening exactly the same on the front line in Ukraine heish thank you one is left with um a sense of um fear really just how complex the operating environment is because all of the Technologies of a century ago are still there still relevant still deadly still having an effect and then all of these new technologies emerging on top and in the course of our conversation we’ve not even spoken about The Challenge from cyberspace or space or disinformation or whatever else heyh um Michael thank you so so much for joining us it’s all we’ve got time for this is superpowers the future of Global Security on times radio for the latest in geopolitics and future episodes of superpowers subscribe to our YouTube channel thanks for watching [Music]

“What we’re seeing in Ukraine at the moment, the concept of operations, that is failing, to keep up with technology. the Russians can barely light up a launcher with tactical nuclear weapons without us knowing about it.”

The defeat of Russia’s soviet tactics and equipment in Ukraine are becoming a key moment in the development of warfare, Defence Analyst Michael Clarke and Col. Hamish De Bretton-Gordon (Retd.) discuss how China and the West will adapt to the impact of drones surveillance and autonomous warfare on Superpowers with James Heappey

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