How Drones Make Civil Wars Worse

Editor’s Note: Observers of Ukraine and other wars all point out how drones have transformed the conflict. They may have an even bigger impact, however, in other parts of the world. Joshua Schwartz, John Chin, and Haleigh Bartos argue that drones are transforming conflicts around the world, making them longer, more deadly, harder to resolve, and more likely to involve outside intervention.

Daniel Byman

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The proliferation of drones in the developing world began as a trickle, but now it is a flood. From 2009 to 2018, the vast majority of people killed in drone strikes died in drone operations carried out by the U.S. government. However, in 2021, only 16 percent of fatalities from drone strikes were the result of U.S. military action, and drone attacks occurred in 46 conflicts across 26 different countries. By 2023, 40 states used drones (up from 16 in 2018) and 91 non-state actors launched a drone attack (up from six in 2018), according to data from ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data) analyzed by the Institute for Economics and Peace. Much like the diffusion of AK-47s drove a global wave of non-state violence in the second half of the 20th century, the proliferation of armed drones today is prolonging and increasing the carnage of civil wars from the Congo and Myanmar to Sudan and Yemen.

Drones can create three perverse dynamics in the context of civil wars. First, drones may make civil wars more likely to break out in the first place because their commercial availability and low cost increase access to airpower and thus make it easier for weaker actors to rebel against the state. Second, drones make it cheaper and lower risk for foreign states to intervene in and thus fuel civil wars. Third, the precision and surveillance capabilities of drones combined with the large quantity that can be deployed make it more difficult to maneuver and advance on the battlefield. This makes civil wars less likely to end in quick government victories, increasing the likelihood of stalemates and bloody, drawn-out conflicts.

Although these dynamics will not hold in every case, drones have the potential to create a toxic combination of more civil wars and longer, deadlier civil wars. If the international community wants to reverse these trends, greater diplomatic efforts will be needed in the coming years to regulate the international drone trade in countries affected by and at risk of civil war.

The Onset Effect

A necessary condition for civil wars to occur is a would-be rebel group having the capacity (manpower and firepower) and motive to rebel against the government. The decision to rebel (or to revive a dormant conflict or escalate a low-intensity insurgency) involves consideration of whether doing so is feasible and has a chance of success against a typically stronger and better-resourced government.

The rebels making these assessments, and the governments they fight, have increasing access to relatively cheap and commercially accessible drones, fueling the onset of civil wars. The average cost of commercial drones ranges from just a few hundred dollars to a few thousand, a bargain compared to the several million dollars to purchase a military helicopter like the Mi-17 or to the tens of millions of dollars for fixed-wing aircraft like the MiG-29. Many rebel groups can bear the financial cost of drones. Moreover, drones can be acquired on the open market, unlike technologies such as nuclear weapons or high-performance standoff systems like the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). Actors ranging from the Ukrainian military to the Islamic State have acquired and weaponized cheap commercial drones from companies like DJI in China.

Some non-state rebel actors can even produce their own drones. In Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) began drone production and staged its first drone attack in 2019. Even just one of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force’s engineers can build drones for Myanmar rebels from a cave using 3-D printing, parts scavenged from Chinese commercial drones, and knowledge gained from online chat rooms. This “ragtag” drone team has helped offset the military balance of power against better-equipped junta forces armed with Russian fighter jets and Chinese missiles.

The impact of drones can go both ways, however. Stronger actors can also potentially leverage the surveillance capabilities of drones to gain better early warning of rebellions and nip them in the bud. For example, the Chinese government has used drones (along with more brutal techniques, such as large-scale internment) to closely monitor the Uyghur population in the region of Xinjiang, which has some history of separatism. Not all such efforts are as successful. For example, the Congolese army (FARDC) tried to use a drone strike in January 2024 to end the March 23 Movement’s (M23’s) efforts to revive an insurgency. The decapitation strike killed many M23 rebels, including M23’s intelligence chief, but did not thwart escalation of the rebellion, in part thanks to foreign backing and external drone support for M23 from Rwanda.

The Internationalization Effect

Drones make it easier for outside powers to intervene in civil wars. External support for rebels is already increasing over time due to globalization and great power competition, but drones may accelerate this trend. Drones lower costs to foreign governments intervening in civil wars in two reinforcing ways: First, they are cheaper to give or use than many other weapons systems. Second, and more important, drones, by their very nature, reduce the risk of an intervening state suffering casualties, making it politically easier for it to intervene.

Drones have thus become a relatively cheap and “safe” way to intervene. Iran, for example, has armed its “axis of resistance” with drones, from Hezbollah and Hamas to the Houthis and beyond. Turkey, too, has become a key proliferator of military drones since 2018, fueling conflicts from the central Sahel to the Armenia-Azerbaijan war over Nagorno-Karabakh. China, hesitant to commit troops amid Myanmar’s civil war, has not hesitated to provide the junta with drones.

This low-cost, low-risk approach has led to interventions on both sides of conflicts. Despite a UN arms embargo, several countries have intervened in the ongoing Sudanese civil war by providing drones or flying their own. Iran supplied the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) with its own Mohajer-6 and Zajil-3 drones, and Egypt has sent over Turkish Bayraktar TB-2s. The United Arab Emirates, meanwhile, has supplied the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF) with Chinese Wing Loong II and FH-95 drones. Before switching allegiances in 2024, a Russian company also sold drones to the RSF.

By gaining foreign patronage, including drone support, rebel groups increase their chances of victory. Today, drones are tipping the scales in favor of M23 rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) due to the supportive intervention of Rwanda. In contrast to an abortive M23 insurgency in 2012-2013, in which rebels mainly ambushed Congolese forces with no air support, the most recent M23 offensive has been aided by Rwandan drone strikes on Kibati and Goma (likely using a Turkish-made Bayraktar). As a result, M23 has won stunning victories in the DRC in recent weeks, capturing the strategic towns of Goma (the largest city in eastern DRC) and Bukavu (the provincial capital of North Kivu).

The Prolongation Effect

Drones may also drag out civil wars—and thus increase the carnage—for several reasons. First, third-party interventions tend to increase the duration of civil wars. Second, when rebel forces are stronger, it is more difficult for governments to steamroll their opponents.

Drones’ low cost, precision, and surveillance capabilities empower the forces that employ them—be they rebels or government forces. Persistent drone surveillance limits the ability to use the element of surprise and more generally maneuver on the battlefield, which increases the risk of drawn-out stalemates. Because drones are relatively cheap, belligerents can deploy hundreds if not thousands of drones to provide “precise mass” and “eyes in the sky” on the battlefield. Attempted surprise attacks and breakthroughs are more likely to be identified by defenders, who can then throw a large quantity of precise drones at exposed enemy soldiers trying to advance. This makes taking territory by maneuvering and advancing more difficult, even if not impossible by any stretch.

Of course, this effect won’t hold in all cases. If one side does not have many drones, lacks effective air defense systems, or fails to adopt proper modern-system defensive tactics, then drones can enable rapid offensive victories. Consider Azerbaijan’s devastating use of drones in their recent war over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, in which they used Turkish-made Bayraktars to destroy $1 billion worth of Armenian military equipment. Azerbaijan also converted Soviet-era crop dusters into drones that it then used to bait Armenia into turning on its air defense systems so that they could be identified and destroyed.

The Russia-Ukraine war shows the prolongation effect in action. Ukraine has been able to fight Russia to a draw despite a large manpower disadvantage, in part by attracting third-party support and deploying drones on a staggering scale. Ukraine is reportedly losing 10,000 drones per month and claims it will produce up to 4 million drones this year. By contrast, the U.S. produced only 300,000 military aircraft during all of World War II, and it currently has less than 5,000 military aircraft in its inventory. Ukraine’s use of drones has drawn out the war and promoted a return to grinding World War I-style trench warfare.

Drones have also, arguably, elongated the Sudanese civil war. The SAF initially had a monopoly on airstrikes and fighter aircraft, while the RSF lacked an air force. Drones have helped level the playing field, making the war more competitive and deadly. In Ethiopia, government access to cheap drones has arguably not only increased the number of civilian casualties by thousands but also made the government less willing to negotiate a peace deal.

Toward Regulating the Drone Trade

Is there any route for limiting this deadly and increasingly common practice? Though some argue the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) implicitly applies to drones, more explicit and effective multilateral treaty language—and not just an informal drone accountability regime—with buy-in from all the major drone exporters is needed to limit drone transfers to actors in civil war-torn countries. But negotiating a drone deal will not be easy, especially because drones are a dual-use technology.

One place to start would be to regulate the sale of commercial drones, which are frequently weaponized by terrorist groups and others. Last summer, China revised and strengthened its drone export controls, which may signal a willingness to come to an agreement with the Trump administration and others in this space, even as challenges still remain. Given that the United States is restricted by agreements like the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) whereas other countries, such as China, are not, an international drone arms trade agreement would serve U.S. interests by creating a fair and uniform standard applicable to all countries.

The difficulty of drone arms control negotiations is matched only by its importance. Negotiating the ATT required many years of advocacy by civil society actors and sympathetic governments before reaching a breakthrough in 2013. Even if agreement is years away, there is no better time to start than now.