Cheap weapons reshape the character of war

The protracted and apparently intractable Ukraine war has given a clear lesson to weapon strategists worldwide – missiles in their present form as offensive and defensive weapons serve as a deterrent only when tipped with nuclear weapons. When these carry conventional warheads, their cost as mere delivery systems is prohibitive and unsustainable in a long-drawn war.

Both Russia and Ukraine have been sustaining the hostilities mainly with drones, while missiles have made only occasional appearances. Ballistic and cruise missiles have been used, but the frequency of use has been falling due to high cost of replacements.

Instead, drones have been rapidly repurposed to meet the needs of air and marine assault. Comically, expensive missiles have been used at times to neutralise these inexpensive drones.

Meanwhile, a trio of new technologies has debuted as an answer to this conundrum.

The latest in this trio is Japan’s railgun, the impact of which on a marine vessel was demonstrated this month. The technology has been used in magnetic levitation trains and aircraft carriers’ electromagnetic catapult to rapidly accelerate heavy objects.

The potential of this technology has long been recognised as an alternative to explosives and gas thrust based jet propulsion, which have been the mainstay of ammunition and delivery systems so far. The first patent for a coilgun was filed in 1904, able to accelerate a 500 gram projectile to 50 metres per second. The railgun followed just over a decade later. As the weight and speed were enhanced, the huge amount of power required prevented application of this technology to weapons. In 2010, the US Navy propelled a 3.2 kilogram projectile at Mach 10 but it used a prohibitive 18.4 MJ of energy, making the device infeasible for field conditions in war.

It appears that Japan’s test of the prototype has brought this weapon closer to field deployment. The projectiles are relatively inexpensive and the fin-stabilized projectiles left a cross-shaped hole in the target-ship’s hull. The device was mounted on a warship and the barrel is said to last 200 firings, making the cost of each shot a fraction of the cost of missiles.

Shortly before Japan’s announcement, Russia announced the successful test of its Burevestnik missile, which uses onboard nuclear power for propulsion. Vladimir Putin claimed that the missile travelled more than 14,000 kilometres in 15 hours while admitting that “substantial work has to be done in order to place this weapon on combat duty.” Yet, over the years, the time gap between prototype test and operationalisation has been steadily decreasing, as seen with hypersonic missiles. Russia had announced the first test of its 3M22 Zircon, a scramjet powered hypersonic (Mach 9) missile in 2017 and these were finally delivered to the frigate Admiral Goroshkov, five and a half years later, in December 2022. By contrast, the Oreshnik (Mach 10) intermediate-range ballistic missile, while still in the testing phase, was used on Dnipro, Ukraine in November 2024.

It does not appear that Burevestnik will be used in the present form even with a conventional warhead. The impact on the target would disintegrate the onboard nuclear reactor, dispersing radioactive material like a dirty bomb – a Chernobyl-like scenario. What is more likely is that a version may be developed with return capability, much like the success of SpaceX and Blue Origin in landing the first-stage orbital rockets on a platform. Given the long endurance of the Burevestnik, it has the potential to be used to deliver multiple cruise missiles across continents and then return to base. That would be considerably more cost-effective than delivering such warheads through intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Will the development of such low-cost munitions make wars more frequent and of longer duration? The answer may lie in the earliest of this trio of new low operational-cost technologies. Jamming the communications systems of incoming objects had been countered with rapid development of anti-jamming techniques. The defensive weapon of choice now seems to be the laser beam. Israel this year claimed that it has become the first country to shoot down incoming drones with a high energy laser weapon system.

The technology had been demonstrated just two years ago by UK scientists. The challenge, like the railgun, of huge power requirements has been overcome in a short period of time and, in addition to Israel, several countries including the US, China, the UK, Russia and India have developed these weapons.

The dilemma of using a missile costing up to a million dollars to destroy a $5,000 drone is on the verge of resolution. Cheaper and more lethal weapons and delivery systems definitely increase the propensity to attack. Widely available defence systems with low operational costs may be the only deterrent.