Drones: the newest twist in warfare as Ukraines hit on Russia just showed

Ukraine may not have “the cards,” as President Donald Trump put it, but it does have drones. They were used to great effect over the weekend in an audacious attack within Russia that has focused the world’s attention on a revolution in warfare. A badly outmanned and outgunned country just reached far inside its adversary’s territory to destroy or damage hugely expensive, nuclear-capable strategic aircraft with low-cost drones basically indistinguishable from ones available on Amazon. It’s not quite David versus Goliath, because the Russian giant is not going to be felled by the blow, but the diplomatic and psychological impact of the raid could be profound, as Ukraine seeks to demonstrate to the West its staying power. For creativity and outsized effect with widely available devices, the Ukrainian attack is in the same league as Israel’s beeper attack on Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon last year.Both operations also carry a message about new vulnerabilities — to a compromised supply chain and to surprise drone attack — that should make us take notice. We’ve just watched the equivalent of aviation legend Billy Mitchell’s demonstration in 1921 when he had US planes sink a former German battleship, in a display of the emerging potency of air power.Operation Spider Web, as the Ukrainians called it, combined Mission Impossible-style intrigue — the drones were secreted within Russia and some of them launched from containers attached to trucks, unbeknownst to the drivers — with clever technical innovation. The attacks spanned several time zones and hit 41 Russian aircraft, according to the Ukrainians. The operation was the latest iteration of an ever-evolving, cat-and-mouse drone war between Ukraine and Russian.The Ukraine war is essentially a war of attrition, yet it is anything but static, as the means of waging it is changing almost by the week.Offensive innovation is met with defensive counter-move, triggering another change on offense.Dr...