Soldiers look at a drone as a team from the Canadian Navy test thermal imaging drone capabilities in Arctic environments in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, in February, 2025.COLE BURSTON/AFP/Getty Images

Christopher Collins is a fellow with the Polycrisis Program at the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University.

Jonathan Berkshire Miller is the co-founder and principal of Pendulum Geopolitical Advisory, based in Ottawa.

Unmanned drones are the new soldiers, scouts and artillery of modern warfare. Yet, Canada is falling behind our allies and adversaries. As a G7 country with vast and vulnerable Arctic territory and rising NATO commitments, we lack a coherent drone strategy integrating national security and civilian applications.

Drones’ transformational impact on war is clearest in Ukraine. In response to the Russian reinvasion, the Ukrainian military developed low-cost, mass-produced attack drones for battlefield use, while also creating long-range strike drones to hit strategic targets in Russia and sea-based drone to target the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Russia has responded in kind, and both sides continue to innovate and adapt. Some have compared the pace of drone warfare innovation in Ukraine to the rapid advances in aviation during First World War.

This is a global trend. The past few months have seen drone attacks in Haiti, Sudan and across the African Sahel region. Military drones are proliferating across the Middle East and are increasingly being used by international organized crime.

Opinion: Canada is starting to take the threat of drones seriously

One especially concerning development is Russia’s use of drones to harass countries across Europe. Germany alone tracked more than 1,000 suspicious drone flights in 2025, many tied to Russia. And, in recent months, drones believed to be of Russian........

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