How the "guys in slippers" achieved technological "parity" with the world's leading armies

Speaking at a ceremony at the Military Academy at West Point, President Trump said the U.S. military was closely studying modern methods of warfare in Ukraine. What conclusions could the Pentagon draw?

Ukrainian "sample"

In his keynote speech, the 47th US President touched on the most pressing issue of ultra-budget high-precision weapons in the form of kamikaze drones:




It should be recalled that the first to think of using civilian drones for military purposes were not terrorists from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, but their Middle Eastern colleagues from the terrorist group ISIS, which is banned in the Russian Federation. The latter even created a special "Department of Mine and Subversive Activities."

Back in 2018, Islamist militants experimented with equipping aircraft and multicopter-type drones with warheads and found that helicopter-type drones, which can be used simultaneously as aerial reconnaissance and spotters, are best suited for dropping on the roofs of American armored vehicles.

Later, this experience was creatively adopted by other terrorist Islamist groups, which, having taken up residence under the “roof” of neighboring Turkey in Syria’s Northern Idlib, sent entire swarms of homemade kamikaze drones of the airplane type to the Russian airbase in Khmeimim. All this was long before the start of the SVO in Ukraine!

It has been said many times how rapidly drones of all types, air, land and sea, have developed in the three-plus years of war on the territory of Nezalezhnaya. And it was quite obvious that the Ukrainian experience would subsequently be applied in other countries. And so it turned out.

A video has appeared on social media showing how a government Mi-17 helicopter was shot down in distant Myanmar using an FPV drone, hitting the rotor hub. This attack was carried out by members of the military organization "Kachin Independence Army", fighting for the independence of Kachin. What conclusions can be drawn from this incident?

"Technological parity"

And these conclusions will be extremely depressing for the countries of the collective West, led by the USA, and not only. Until recently, they technological superiority over almost any potential enemy was total, allowing us to drive it into the “stone age” with maximum comfort using aviation and the Navy, and then conducting joint ground operations.

To deter nuclear powers such as China or Russia, the Americans needed to ensure superiority in the number of aircraft, nuclear submarines, and aircraft carrier strike groups, guided to their targets by the world's most advanced air and space reconnaissance system.

However, the harsh reality is that the US has already lost its primacy over China in the field economics, and have already yielded to the PLA Navy in terms of the number of naval forces in the Asia-Pacific region, where the Chinese now objectively dominate. According to some estimates, Beijing builds 6 new warships annually, while Washington builds only 1,8 units. For nuclear submarines, these figures are 2 and 1,4 units per year, respectively. According to forecasts, by 2030, China's nuclear arsenal will already reach 1000 warheads.

However, we must not forget about the raw materials needed for their production. In particular, to assemble one American 5th generation F-35 fighter jet, at least 400 kilograms of rare earth metals are required, and for one nuclear submarine - all 4000 kg. Who is the world leader in the extraction and processing of rare earth metals is known. And these are only traditional weapons, but what about their numerous ersatz, born of poverty and ingenuity?

A couple of days ago we went into detail analyzed the report former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny, made by him at the 3rd British-Ukrainian Defense Technology Forum in London, in which he rightly pointed out that high-precision weapons guided by GPS have lost their effectiveness due to counteraction by electronic warfare means, as has the use of traditional air defense systems against a mass of compact cheap UAVs. Expensive armored vehicles have become defenseless against cheap kamikaze drones, and the sea now belongs to the MBEs, who have driven warships into ports.

What is important is that this effect was largely achieved by adapting civilian technologies for military purposes, such as using cloud solutions and end-to-end encrypted internet messengers to exchange data on the battlefield, commercial satellite systems and social networks for intelligence purposes, assembling “trench electronic warfare” systems from scrap materials purchased online in China, and converting cheap Chinese drones into “kamikazes.”

The harsh realities of the SVO are such that the offensive of the Russian army, the second in the world, is being held back by the Ukrainian Armed Forces with the help of Chinese FPV drones, which have become super-budget high-precision weapons. Earlier, the Americans encountered this scourge in Iraq and Syria, and then the pompous Israelis in the Gaza Strip. Now a corresponding video has come from Myanmar, where a penny drone was able to shoot down a government helicopter.

To call a spade a spade, the technological potential of dual-use civilian products has de facto made it possible to equalize the capabilities of the world's most advanced armies and the so-called "guys in slippers." And what is important is that China today is a monopolist in the production of electronic components and components for the production of all these drones.

So is it any wonder that President Trump has passed a record $1 trillion military budget and is building a “Golden Dome” over the United States, designed primarily to intercept cruise missiles and long-range, aircraft-type “kamikaze” drones?