Tyler Cowen: belief

Transcript context

…What’s really remarkable about the Ukrainian drone ecosystem is, they’re not just building simple kamikaze drones. They’re building surveillance drones that will automatically go fly, surveil the battlefield, return, upload images that can then be uploaded to killer drones that then go out. On top of this, you have people using open-source software to build fusion systems that take sensor data from EW [electronic warfare] detection systems’ live feed from drones and put them all together on a controller that an operating unit, going forward, actually uses to mount a coordinated attack using multiple drone systems. This is to say, in effect, Ukrainian start-ups have replicated the entire battle management system of the US Air Force. They have, effectively, AWACS drones, attack drones. It’s quite remarkable what they’ve done with open-source software and hardware that is pennies on the dollar compared to any system in the Western arsenal. If we think about Azerbaijan versus Armenia, Turkish drones helped Azerbaijan much more than anything helped Armenia. Is there any generalization looking forward? Oh, drones are good for Israel. Drones are good for countries willing to tolerate a lot of disruption. Drones are good for — fill in the blank. What would you say? I think drones are good for anybody looking to defeat a conventional military operating in conventional ways. I’ll just list off a couple of examples. One, how was it that Hamas fighters bridged the border in Gaza, which is essentially a modern-day Maginot Line with multiple lines of defenses? The key tactical maneuver they pulled off on October 7th was using quadcopters to drop small charges on the generators powering the border tower surveillance systems. Similarly, the Houthis have effectively harassed shipping now with a combination of loitering munitions, cruise missiles, and autonomous drones. Then, in northern Israel, perhaps most strikingly, Hezbollah has depopulated the first 10 miles of northern Israel using loitering munitions and cruise missiles because the IDF can’t effectively defend their northern border, and that has displaced 85,000 Israeli civilians. And the IDF is a very modern military.…

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