Expert outlines key insights on the future of air defense

For the fourth year, Ukraine has been withstanding constant attacks by Shahed kamikaze drones — a defining feature of modern warfare. The persistent aerial threat forces the country to rebuild its security system, seek innovations, and rethink how it protects its skies. Ukraine’s experience is both unique and instructive, showing the world how cheap, mass-produced weapons can create strategic challenges even for the most advanced armies.

Israeli Air Force Colonel (Res.) Aviv Bar Zohar, a specialist in counter-UAS and airspace defense, wrote about this in a column for Novyny.LIVE.

Why Ukraine’s wartime experience matters globally

The expert analyzed how the experiences of Ukraine and the Middle East are reshaping approaches to defense. He addressed five key questions currently debated by governments and military analysts worldwide:

• strategic redesign of air defense under unmanned threats;
• what a real multilayer C-UAS architecture looks like;
• how to integrate civilian and military structures;
• how to build a learning defense system;
• priorities for democracies with limited resources.

What strategic redesign of air defense really means

"When a country decides to rebuild its air defense concept, I don’t recommend discarding previous principles," Bar Zohar writes. "But it must integrate elements that simply didn’t exist before."

The Russia–Ukraine war, Middle Eastern conflicts, rapid technological progress, the introduction of AI-based systems, and the prolonged nature of modern confrontations all require a new approach.

Modern air defense must rely on a genuinely multilayered system — early detection far beyond national borders, long-range engagement, interception near frontiers, and a wide spectrum of tools: manned aviation, light platforms for targets like Shaheds, laser systems that lower interception costs, and large numbers of inexpensive missiles or interceptors. Economics is key: contemporary wars are long, and cost-per-target defines defensive sustainability.

Protecting individual sites remains essential, as no state can block every strike. The volume and diversity of threats are too large. Responsibilities must be shared beyond the military — semi-civilian structures, such as defense industry and operators of critical infrastructure, are forced to operate protective systems themselves. Additional layers include passive defenses and local early-warning measures, such as anti-drone nets around facilities.

Finally, autonomous defense systems are becoming one of the main pillars of future airspace protection.

Which layer of C-UAS is most underestimated

The most important layer is detection. Any adversary exploits gaps, so modern defense must combine multiple sensor types: radars, SIGINT/ELINT tools, communication interception, open-source intelligence, acoustic sensors, visual surveillance, and camera networks. Most countries severely underestimate the scale needed for adequate coverage.

A second critical element is integration and a common operational language. Without a unified picture and standardized data exchange, it is nearly impossible to manage large volumes of airborne targets. Many states suffer from this gap, which undermines technological investments.

How to bring civilian and military airspace control together

In countries like Israel, military-civilian cooperation has long been close and continuous due to years of necessity. This model is an essential lesson for other democracies.

A modern state must share its air picture, procedures, and professional terminology. All actors must be able to discuss the same airborne object in real time. This is required to properly warn civilians, distinguish civil aircraft from hostile platforms, and identify targets before engagement. Without a shared operational picture and professional dialogue, managing unmanned threats becomes extremely difficult.

How a learning C-UAS system should work

A learning system requires several fundamentals: full information exchange among all actors, structured after-action reviews for every incident, open access to collected data, and involving local industry in the feedback loop. This is difficult due to security requirements, but without it there is no agility or improvement.

Human involvement remains crucial — algorithms cannot be trusted blindly. Automated systems can still produce unexpected errors or unpredictable outcomes, meaning human judgment must remain part of the decision-making loop.

Priorities for democracies with limited resources

"If choosing an 80-20 approach, I prioritize quantity," Bar Zohar says. Broad coverage of border regions, a high number of inexpensive interceptors, and strong investments in defense against all unmanned platforms matter more than a perfect but narrow system.

This includes aerial drones, loitering munitions, naval drones, and any mass-use platforms that can strike from multiple directions with high adversary tolerance for losses.

Public awareness must also adapt to a constantly threatening environment. Subways, schools, strategic objects, and residential areas must understand that small armed UAVs will appear frequently. It is unpleasant, but essential for resilience.

Finally, the expert stresses that future conflicts will not end cleanly or return societies to a familiar "normal." Recent wars show a pattern of prolonged friction. Defense concepts must be designed for this reality — otherwise the next wave of unmanned threats will catch us off guard again.

Risks of the era of mass UAV warfare

Recent years have shown how cheap loitering munitions and commercial drones have evolved from tactical tools into strategic factors. According to the expert, lessons for every democracy include:

• Mass combined strikes by missiles and UAVs exhaust expensive interceptors, forcing states to seek cheaper countermeasures — including their own interceptor drones and laser systems.
• Cheap platforms like Shaheds let an aggressor launch hundreds of strikes on energy and transport infrastructure, creating long-term crises for the economy and civilians.
• In many countries, airspace information is divided between military, civil aviation, and energy operators — creating blind spots for UAVs and complicating timely warnings.
• Legal frameworks and rules for using AI and autonomous systems lag behind battlefield realities, where engagement decisions happen within seconds and responsibility becomes blurred between humans and algorithms.

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