ABSTRACT
In recent years, combat drones have been a presence in the skies over conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Libya, and Ukraine. These drones, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), provide real-time data for reconnaissance, surveillance, and deadly aerial weaponry. The use of UAVs has moved from intelligence gathering to counter-terrorism or counter-insurgency warfare into full-scale conventional combat. Today, more than 100 nation-states’ armed forces possess these capabilities. Particularly, the Ukraine conflict provides a pointer to UAVs’ importance in future warfare as the technology becomes ever more sophisticated as it is linked to artificial intelligence (AI) (Marcus, 2022).
