45/2023: UAVs since Origin to Future

 An unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance. These drones carry aircraft ordnance such as missiles, ATGMs, and/or bombs in hardpoints for drone strikes. These drones are usually under real-time human control, with varying levels of autonomy. Unlike unmanned surveillance and reconnaissance aerial vehicles, UCAVs are used for both drone strikes and battlefield intelligence.

The concept of the combat drone was first explored by Lee De Forest and U. A. Sanabria in a 1940 publication of Popular Mechanics. John Stuart Foster Jr., a nuclear physicist and former head of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, developed the modern military drone, which has been used for real-time surveillance, electronic warfare, and decoys. The first UAV war was the first Persian Gulf War, and global militaries have invested widely in the domestic development of combat UAVs.

The first "kill" by an American UAV was on October 7, 2001, in Kandahar. In recent years, the U.S. has increased its use of drone strikes against targets in foreign countries and elsewhere as part of the War on Terror. In January 2014, it was estimated that 2,400 people had died from U.S. drone strikes in five years. In June 2015, the total death toll of U.S. drone strikes was estimated to exceed 6,000.

In 2020, Turkey became the first country to use UCAVs in a large, coordinated attack on a conventional battlefield when they attacked forces in Syria. Drones were used extensively in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A 2022 study assessed the impact of UCAVs on warfare and found that drones were highly vulnerable to air defenses and electronic warfare systems and that drones could only be put to effective use if they had support from other force structure assets. The South Korean Defence Ministry announced a new series of anti-drone measures, planning to spend 560 billion won over the next five years. The money will go towards four new initiatives: an airborne laser to destroy larger drones, a new counter-drone unit, stealth jets, and anti-rocket artillery systems. The total amount of the spending over the next five years is 331.4 trillion, compared to the previous defense budget of 54.6 trillion won.