The nature and character of warfare is changing continuously. The first-generation warfare emphasized massed manpower and line-of-column tactics; the second involved machine guns and indirect fire; the third introduced maneuver and combined-arms warfare; and the fourth involved non-state adversaries. The current fifth-generation warfare is characterized by the use of non-kinetic military actions such as disinformation, cyber-attacks, and social engineering and non-contact warfare that comprises the use of long-range vectors such as rockets and missiles, electromagnetic (EM) spectrum, and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) or drones. These days, UAS have been deployed for intelligence and reconnaissance missions by many countries worldwide. The USA extensively used armed drones like the ‘MQ-1 Predator’ in its counter-terror (CT) and counter-insurgency (CI) operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The drone warfare has been further intensified during the Russia-Ukraine conflict when combat drones and drone swarms have been used. Against this backdrop, counter-drone systems are also being developed. The advent of drone and counter-drone systems has radically altered the way future wars will be fought, due to the following characteristics of this warfare:

• Futuristic technology: Drone warfare removes the risk to the soldiers, makes fewer mistakes than other weapon platforms, and with improvements in technology drones will become even more precise, efficient, and infallible in the future, thus rendering less precise, efficient, and fallible human forms of war obsolete.
• Reduced cost: Compared to other battlefield systems, a vast majority of drones are relatively economical. Therefore, countries with modest means can also mount swarm attacks to saturate and overwhelm the conventional defenses of their adversary.
• Ease of access: The ease with which any user can acquire drone technology from the international market makes it immune to international sanctions.
• Better surveillance and attack: Drones are capable of slipping across international borders with relative ease. They can acquire stealth features that can place them beyond the range of defensive missiles or below the horizon of defensive radar.
  • Their ability to loiter over targets allows them to observe “patterns of life” to provide surveillance data 24/7, identify and track potential targets, and determine the best time to strike to avoid civilian casualties. They are also claimed to be highly effective at satisfying the rules of war.
• Difficult to neutralize: It is hard to counter, and the elimination of some of the swarm’s elements does not neutralize the threat as the swarm is still capable of pursuing its collective mission. Drone in swarms can coordinate, communicate, and adjust their behavior with one another in response to real-time information.

Anticipating this change in modern warfare, DRDO has also developed a detect-and-destroy technology for drones, which has capabilities for hard kill (destroying a drone with lasers) and soft kill (jamming a drone’s signal). It is also working on new platforms to detect and disable drones. electromagnetic charge or shoot them down using electronic jamming, lasers, electromagnetic pulse, GPS spoofing, or a mix of all, deployed in a layered manner. However, barring a few exceptions like Israel, most countries lack effective anti-drone systems. While it is wise to focus on acquiring and building a variety of drones and coupling them with disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, it would be equally wise to focus on counter-drone technologies to mitigate the threats emanating from small rogue armed drones, that would require continuous and urgent research, development, and up-gradation