Ukraine Conflict
Uncrewed, Ubiquitous, Unprecedented Technology Applied to Modern War
Jason Eckberg
Colonel, USAF
Chief of the Penetrating, Persistent, Multi-role Remotely Crewed Air Vehicles Operations Division
Operations Directorate, HQ, USAF
Sponsored by a PSW Science Member who wishes to remain anonymous
About the Lecture
Ukraine’s defense against Russia in the Ukraine-Russia war provides clear examples for evaluating the effectiveness of old and new technology in modern conflict. In almost every category of capability, Ukraine was outclassed in capacity and resources, and its rapid fall in Winter of 2022 seemed inevitable. However, this did not happen. To the contrary, Ukraine in many ways has prevailed against the Russian invasion.
Approaching the third year of the conflict, the combatants have increasingly developed and deployed technological innovations, prevalently in the form of unmanned systems. Omnipresent employment of “drones” is now a routine feature of the battlefield, integral to the operational designs the combatants have chosen to implement their strategies. Ukraine is engaged in an active defense operational construct, attempting to maximize attrition on opposing forces. Russia is employing a continuous pressure campaign across all domains. Both combatants are employing unmanned systems to amplify and enable success in those chosen operational strategies.
The trends seen in this conflict, and in conflicts elsewhere, are harbingers of the developments in technology that will transform conflicts in all other theaters.
Note that the speaker’s observations and conclusions are his own and are not necessarily supported as an official position of the USAF, DoD, or USG.
– Website: https://www.understandingwar.org/ Institute for the Study of War, Ukraine Conflict Daily Summaries.
– https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-and-problem-restoring-maneuver-contemporary-war; Aug 12, 2024.
– IEEE publication: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10705385
– “Swarms over the Strait” CNAS Paper; Pettyjohn, Dennis, Campbell. June 2024.
– Book: “Winning the Next War” Stephen P Rosen
About the Speaker
Jason Eckberg is a Colonel in the United State Air Force, and is the Division Chief of the Persistent, Penetrating, Multi-Role (P2RM) Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) Division of the Operations Directorate at USAF Headquarters. The Division oversees policy and operations for all RPA operations, training, and manpower for the USAF, such as the MQ-9 REAPER, RQ-4 GLOBAL HAWK, and the RQ-170. Jason recently also served with the Security Assistance Group-Ukraine as the Officer in Charge of the Advisory contingent in Kyiv.
In addition to these deployments, Jason is a Master Navigator with over 2,000 flying hours in over 20 unique aircraft.
Jason received his commission from the Reserve Officer Training Corps detachment at Carnegie Mellon University. He served as a RC-135 electronic warfare officer, instructor/evaluator electronic warfare officer and combat crew commander. And has had commanded at Squadron, Group, and Vice Wing levels.
Jason earned a BS in Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University, an MS in Administration at Central Michigan University, an MS in Cyber Warfare at the Air Force Institute of Technology, and he was a Military Fellow in Security Studies at MIT. In addition, he is a graduate of the Squadron Officer School, Maxwell Air Force Base, and the Air Force Test Pilot School, Experimental Flight Test Navigator, and Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell Air Force Base.
Minutes
On November 1, 2024, Members of the Society and guests joined the speaker for a reception and dinner at 5:45 PM in the Members’ Dining Room at the Cosmos Club. Thereafter they joined other attendees in the Powell Auditorium for the lecture proceedings. In the Powell Auditorium of the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., President Larry Millstein called the lecture portion of the 2,504th meeting of the Society to order at 8:02 p.m. ET. He began by welcoming attendees, thanking sponsors for their support and announcing new members. Scott Mathews then read the minutes of the previous meeting which included the lecture by Alexandra Gade, titled “The Science of Rare Isotopes”. The minutes were approved, pending a minor correction, suggested by President Millstein.
President Millstein then introduced the speaker for the evening, Jason Eckberg, of the United States Air Force. His lecture was titled “Ukraine Conflict: Uncrewed, Ubiquitous, Unprecedented Technology Applied to Modern War”.
The speaker began by stating that although his talk would focus on the ways in which the Ukraine conflict constitutes a natural experiment which can serve to inform and improve tactics and strategies, it was important for him to acknowledge the human cost of the conflict: physical, emotional, and moral. Eckberg then discussed the ways in which social media and the information age have been leveraged by combatants to sway world opinion, constituting a greater influence than in any previous conflict. He argued that uncrewed aerial systems (or UAS’s) have provided images of the battlefield, exploited by both sides, to amplify successes and failures as a tool to influence the international community. The speaker claimed that the ubiquity of uncrewed air technology results in constant battlefield surveillance.
Eckberg then discussed the roll of UAS’s in asymmetric conflicts, indicating that the Ukrainian forces are outnumbered 3 to 1 across all the battle fronts, are out-gunned by about 10 to 1 in terms of artillery and heavy weapons fire, and have a near complete lack of air superiority. He said that these asymmetric conditions lead to battlefield innovation, which has been well-demonstrated by Ukraine’s use of uncrewed vehicles. The speaker gave examples of specific battlefield situations where information and supplies, obtained or delivered by uncrewed vehicles, allowed Ukrainian forces to hold-off superior Russian forces. However, he also presented specific examples of Russian advances enabled by uncrewed reconnaissance.
Eckberg then listed some of the specific battlefield techniques associated with UAS’s: first person viewer reconnaissance, fire control and targeting of artillery, fire-and-maneuver support, and “select loitering munitions”. He indicated that thousands of UAS’s were launched each day at the height of the conflict on the northern front, and that this number was at least an order of magnitude larger than in any previous conflict. He discussed the fact that the low cost of UAS’s enabled their ubiquity.
The speaker then presented what he called the “framework for uncrewed systems”, for air, land, and sea. The roles and missions in this framework included: individual kinetic strike, ISR operations (or intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), and delivery of lethal and non-lethal payloads. The systems requirements of this framework included: cost, range, endurance, survivability, payload, and command and control. He discussed the trade-offs between the various system requirements, in light of specific roles and missions. Eckberg gave examples of these trade-offs for UAS’s used in this conflict, including: UMPK glide bombs, Shahed 136 loitering munitions, FPV quadcopter drones, and “Baba Yagas” heavy bomber drones. He described the advantages of using a $10,000 drone to take out a $1 million missile. He mentioned the dependence of UAS’s on GNSS (the Global Navigation Satellite System), and the limitations associated with electromagnetic interference and jamming. Eckberg discussed launch and recovery systems, which range from a warfighter throwing a drone into the air, to a catapult system, to a fixed runway.
The speaker concluded his talk by saying that uncrewed technology represents both a revolution and an evolution of modern warfare. He expressed the opinion that US military organizations would benefit from reform, particularly in the area of defense acquisition.
The lecture was followed by a Question and Answer session:
A guest asked about the use of artificial intelligence in drone warfare. Eckberg responded that uncrewed systems are ideal for situations that are dangerous to human beings, in particular with respect to chemical and radiological hazards. He said that AI will be crucial in terms of identifying and fingerprinting these hazards. He said that these “automated intelligence” hazard identification systems raise no moral or ethical questions.
A member asked about “drone on drone predation”. Eckberg indicated that there are many examples of drones attacking other drones, even on YouTube. He said that all of these examples involve remotely piloted drones, but that automated or AI-based drone-on-drone warfare is a “ripe place for innovation”.
A guest on the live stream asked about “mutual jamming reciprocity”. Eckberg said that the action-reaction cycle of electromagnetic jamming in the Ukraine conflict is faster than we have ever seen in the past. He said that there is a tremendous amount of electromagnetic energy, flooding significant portions of the EM-spectrum, and that this presents significant limitations to the use of commercial technology, as it is generally not designed to handle jamming.
After the question and answer period, President Millstein thanked the speaker and presented him with a PSW rosette, a signed copy of the announcement of his talk, and a signed copy of Volume 1 of the PSW Bulletin. He then announced speakers of up-coming lectures, made a number of housekeeping announcements, and invited guests to join the Society. He adjourned the 2,504th meeting of the society at 10:01 pm ET.
Temperature in Washington, DC: 18.3° Celsius
Weather: Fair
Audience in the Powell auditorium: 52
Viewers on the live stream: 37
For a total of 89 viewers
Views of the video in the first two weeks: 355
Respectfully submitted, Scott Mathews: Recording Secretary