Drones pose a massive domestic national security threat — is the US ready? |
Drones pose a massive domestic national security threat — is the US ready?
Unmanned aerial vehicles, or flying drones, are ubiquitous today. Their ability to quickly and stealthily reach difficult-to-access areas has also made them an effective tool to circumvent security detection. The global landscape has demonstrated how drones have become an efficient weapon of warfare.
The Ukraine-Russia conflict has morphed into a war of drones, with both sides using them to monitor targets behind enemy lines and launch kinetic weapons. Given that drones are significantly less expensive than airplanes, they have become a preferred vehicle for inflicting damage.
Israel also used drones in Gaza for surveillance and to deliver kinetic strikes in their efforts to eliminate Hamas.
Iran is using one-way drones to deliver warheads to inflict damage to U.S. military bases in the Gulf region. Much like a David versus Goliath scenario, drones are metaphorically the slingshots delivering stones, hoping to fell the Philistine warrior that is the United States.
Drone defenses are very limited, even when they appear effective. If Iran launches a swarm of 100 drones into an area, and U.S. and Israeli defenses can intercept any one of them with 98 percent probability — which is likely much too high — then there is an 86 percent chance that at least one of the drones will not be intercepted and will inflict damage on its target. These odds give Iran significant advantages to keep U.S. and Israeli forces on edge.
What has become clear is hybrid warfare that includes drones offers significant potential to disrupt and inflict damage, with minimal risk to the aggressor.
This invites the question: Are drones a domestic national security threat, and how should the associated risks be managed?
The national airspace is a complex system, overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration, with security managed by the Transportation Security Administration, mostly at airport security checkpoint operations. Given the size of the national airspace, covering more than 29 million square miles of land, with more than 44,000 flights per day, the risk that drones pose within this system is significant.
With more than 1 million drones registered with the FAA, and around 8,500 drones in flight daily (as of 2024), drone presence in the national airspace is significant — and projected to keep growing. The vast majority are recreational and commercial, with industries like construction, oil and gas, and real estate all active users of the technology. Companies like Amazon are testing drones for rapid delivery of orders. The president has also expressed his commitment to drone dominance, providing a vision for greater drone applications across the economy.
Yet, as we observed on September 11, 2001, safe and regulated technologies can be transformed into weapons of mass destruction if they are harnessed with nefarious intent.
There are some safeguards in place. The FAA issues a Remote Pilot Certificate to commercial drone operators. All such individuals must remain current, which includes completing an online training course every 24 months and visiting an FAA Flight Standards District Office.
Recreational drone operators do not require such certification. Their drones must be smaller (weighing less than 9 ounces) and flown in well-defined areas (under 400 feet in unregulated airspace and not near airports military and government installations or critical infrastructure).
Although the specifics are different, obtaining a Remote Pilot Certificate is akin to getting a driver’s license. However, given the security issues involved, each applicant must also undergo a TSA background check, similar to the vetting process for enrollment in the TSA PreCheck program.
Recall that in December 2024, drones were sighted across the Northeast corridor airspace. Investigations by government agencies concluded that the drones were not a public threat. However, it remains unclear what precipitated the surge in drone sightings, and what eventually led to their disappearance.
If drones can inflict as much damage as they have in the Ukraine-Russia War, the Israel-Gaza War and the conflict between the U.S. and Iran, drones can also be harnessed by bad actors to create disruptions and chaos domestically, including inflicting damage that threatens property and lives. Moreover, bad actors have no reason to adhere to laws that govern the use of drones.
Given the TSA’s mission to protect the nation’s transportation system, it has invested significant resources to detect and deter threats from entering airplanes. But it is more difficult is to detect and deter threats to the national airspace from outside airplanes. Drones pose the most significant threat in this regard.
Even if drones are not equipped with kinetic weapons, their very presence in restricted airspace can lead to airports being shut down, collisions with commercial airplanes, or military interventions. The risk of any such responses to the population and the economy should not be underestimated. This was recently demonstrated when the military shot down a Customs and Border Protection drone near the U.S.-Mexico border, forcing the El Paso airport to be temporarily shut down.
Given what is happening in the Middle East, Iranian sleeper cells on U.S. soil may emerge and use drones to wreak havoc domestically. Moreover, given the leadership vacuum faced by the Department of Homeland Security, it is difficult to imagine that any short-term response by the department would be effective.
Drones are positioned to provide benefits to the economy. The potential to harness them in new ways will create added value. Yet they also pose a significant national security risk. As much as the president’s “Beyond Visible Line of Sight” initiative will spur innovation and expanded uses for drones, these aerial vehicles are primed to be the platform for the next domestic terrorist attack — something to which our nation is ill-equipped to respond.
Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a computer science professor in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. As a data scientist, he uses his expertise in risk-based analytics to address problems in public policy and national security.
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