The Russia-Ukraine war and the US-Israel-Iran war have recently demonstrated the effectiveness of drone warfare. Is the Pakistani military learning lessons from them to prepare for future conflicts? Let's examine the answer to this question based on recent announcements.
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| Pakistan's Long Range Drone D-248 |
Pakistan has revealed a 3,000-kilometer range one-way drone in July this year. The state-owned Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT) displayed two new long-range loitering munitions – the D-248 and the S-369 – at the 2026 Indus Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) Expo on July 22–23, 2026 in Islamabad.
The D-248 drone uses a tailless delta configuration – similar to Iran’s Shahed-136 – and carries a maximum take-off weight (MTOW) of 240 kg, a wingspan of 3.3 m, a payload of 30-50 kg, a maximum speed of 225 kph, a cruise speed of 185 kph, an endurance of 12-14 hours, and a flight ceiling of up to 4,500 m. Iran's Shahed drones have been used in both the Ukraine-Russia war and the US-Iran conflict. Shahed-136 is relatively inexpensive. It has a swarm capability, and a precision-strike capability at extended ranges.
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| Pakistani Military Official in Ukraine. Source: New York Times |
Pakistan is also in talks with Ukraine's Fire Point whose long-range drones have launched spectacular strikes deep inside Russia in recent weeks. Fire Point is promoting its FP-1 Deep Strike, a loitering munition with a range of 2,600 km, as well as FP-2 Front Strike, a loitering munition with a range of up to 200 km.
During a recent exercise, called Combined Resolve, Ukrainian drone units easily spotted and defeated U.S. troops and armored vehicles on rotation from Fort Hood in Texas, according to people familiar with the events, reports the Wall Street Journal. It's not just the Americans who fared badly against Ukrainian drones; the British and the Swedes have also witnessed easy Ukrainian triumphs in military exercises. The U.S. has also struggled to defend against Iran’s long-range Shahed drones, which have killed and injured many American soldiers and destroyed aircraft.
The exercising troops from the United States sent heavy armored vehicles into battle that threw up dust and were easy for Ukrainian reconnaissance drones to spot, according to a participant. Those drones were followed by drones dropping explosives and first-person-view drones, which smash into targets in combat, this person said.
Drones are becoming an important part of modern warfare, as demonstrated by ongoing conflicts in Europe and the Middle East. Gaining military advantage in future conflicts will increasingly depend on how well states conduct technology-driven multi-domain operations by integrating aircraft, drones, electronic warfare, cyber operations, intelligence and AI-assisted analysis.
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3 comments:
In 2006 or so, I met a few friends in a PECHS coffee and sandwich restaurant, where we discussed Musharraf's multiple requests for more F16s. Bush-2 declined. I had claimed then that F16s will soon have far less value, and certainly not begging for. I predicted then that soon, within our lifetimes, on-board pilots will be history and remote-controlled fighter drones will be the norm, I also said that Pakistan was making a mistake sending its then existing F16s to the US for upgrades, as the US is bound to surreptitiously add remote controls on F16s to place checks on PAF abilities.
Both assessments have come to fore now,
Modern warfare, or as historic as sword and shields, have two aspects: attack and defense, the two of which require different equipment. A Punjabi friend of mine from my PIA days had then set up a company called Integrated Dynamics in Karachi. The founder is/was of the opinion that Pakistan could soon be successful producing attack (fly and forget) drones. but defence against drones, both ground-piloted and fly-and-forget, are extremely hard to defend against. This is what we are seeing in the current two wars.
As of right now, the only possible, effective, and cost-efficient solution, on the defense side, is a combination of great radars and manually piloted airplanes. Russia, Israel, and the US have experienced that already.
For Pakistan, the drone threat landscape is mainly two-pronged.
https://irregularwarfarecenter.org/publications/perspectives/drone-warfares-next-frontier-is-pakistan-ready/
First, Pakistan faces the risk of cross-border drone attacks from India. This evidently surfaced during the May 2025 India-Pakistan conflict, when militaries of both countries employed loitering munitions; mainly for suppressing each other’s air defense systems. Nonetheless, the employment of drones to target civilian areas expanded the battlespace. That indeed served as a pressure tool by eroding the perceived sense of security associated with physical distance from frontlines and by generating a sense of uncertainty among civilian populations. At the same time, using drones also causes significant? economic damage by targeting critical infrastructures such as oil refineries and even tech centers.
Another dimension of drone threats from New Delhi pertains to India’s rapid expansion of its indigenous drone ecosystem. New Delhi has been producing a spectrum of systems ranging from micro and mini-UAVs to larger tactical platforms. New Delhi is also integrating drones into network-centric warfighting to enhance battlefield coordination. This increases the risk of saturation and drone strikes against Pakistan. Furthermore, New Delhi’s collaboration with Israel for drone procurements, joint drone production and technology transfers, will further coalesce New Delhi’s drone infrastructure.
However, the implications of India’s expanding drone ecosystem are not merely confined to tactical advantages; and impacts escalation dynamics between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. Mutual employment of drones by both India and Pakistan is more of a double-edged sword. On one hand, it can help both countries in offsetting conventional asymmetries. However, on the other hand, it also lowers the threshold for use of force. At the same time, drone warfare also holds the potential to prolong a conflict, converting a possible limited conflict into a war of attrition.
The second dimension of Pakistan’s drone threat stems from non-state actors, particularly from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a UN-designated terror outfit. The group has increasingly incorporated commercially available quadcopter drones for offensive strikes against Pakistan’s military installations, and lately urban centers as well. In 2025, the TTP and its affiliates conducted around 400 drone attacks using armed quadcopters in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. This is reflective of TTP’s newfound realization that drones could be a better substitute of its prior tactics of suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices. In addition to this, the TTP has also been employing counter-drone technologies to ward off aerial attacks and disrupt the surveillance and monitoring capabilities of police and security force.
It should be noted, that TTP’s employment of drones is currently in its rudimentary stages. Their drone strikes have not yet caused significant damage. This may be due to TTP’s limited technical capacity and operational shortcomings in technological adaptation, but the threat cannot be dismissed altogether. In 2026, Taliban-led drone incidents took place across Pakistani cities including Quetta, Kohat, Rawalpindi, Abbottabad, Swabi, and Nowshera. While earlier phases of TTP’s campaign appeared to focus on inflicting higher casualties on security forces, the emerging pattern signals its aim to generate psychological pressure among the broader civilian population.
The future of drone warfare is shifting rapidly toward total automation, AI-driven swarming, and multi-domain uncrewed operations across air, land, and sea. As mass-produced, low-cost systems reshape the battlefield, militaries are pivoting toward autonomous navigation, electronic hardening, and directed-energy countermeasures to survive saturation attacks.Key Technological ShiftsArtificial Intelligence & Full Autonomy: Drones are moving away from vulnerable radio links and human pilots, utilizing onboard AI for independent target identification, tracking, and strike execution.Swarm Intelligence: Hundreds of networked drones will coordinate split-second tasks—dividing duties between surveillance, electronic jamming, and kinetic attack—to overwhelm traditional air defenses.Anti-Jamming Innovations: To counter heavy electronic warfare (EW), systems are adopting physical workarounds like fiber-optic guidance cables alongside hardened, encrypted mesh networks.Multi-Domain Expansion: Unmanned systems are expanding past the skies into ground logistics/combat robots (UGVs) and autonomous maritime speedboats (USVs) for strike and rescue missions.Emerging CountermeasuresDirected-Energy & Lasers: High-powered lasers and microwaves are becoming critical economic necessities to shoot down cheap, mass-produced drones without depleting expensive conventional missile stockpiles.Decentralized Dispersion: Troops are forced into deeper underground concealment, extreme spatial dispersion, and heavy reliance on decoy hardware to survive transparent, real-time aerial surveillance.Industrial Scale: As outlined in aggressive defense programs like the Pentagon's mass-drone initiatives, the ultimate victor in future conflicts will rely as much on high-volume manufacturing capacity as on raw technology.
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