Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have rapidly evolved in recent decades, becoming central to both civilian and military applications. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) categorizes UAVs into three classes based on weight and operational range. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 offers a critical case for examining UAVs in conventional warfare. In the initial phase of the conflict, Ukraine gained a temporary advantage by the deployment of Turkish-supplied Bayraktar TB2 Class III drones. However, as Russia improved its air defense capabilities, Ukraine shifted toward employing smaller Class I and Class II UAVs, including First-Person View (FPV) drones. Russia, in turn, employed Iran-designed Shahed-136 drones, also a Class II system. These developments illustrate the dynamic nature of warfare, where no single system maintains lasting superiority. Furthermore, from an international relations perspective, UAVs raise significant implications for the security dilemma and offense–defense theory. Offense–defense theory posits that the severity of the security dilemma varies with shifts in the relative advantages of offense and defense. This study examines the Russia–Ukraine war as a case study to investigate how UAV technologies affect the offense–defense balance, asking whether their deployment has shifted the advantage toward offensive or defensive operations.

Authors:
Kai-Yuan Liu, National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan

About the Presenter(s)
My name is Kai-Yuan Liu. I currently study International Relations in Graduate Institute of Internaional Politics (GIOIP), National Chung Hsing University (NCHU), Taiwan.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

Bookmark