Russia’s Invasion Shows Indo-Pacific That Information Is A Prelude To Power

Remotely-piloted airborne vehicles are center stage as militaries race to exploit the lessons from Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

The rush of war makes it easy to overlook the months of pre-conflict contributions by American-built airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms. Weeks before the conflict, non-stealthy, long-endurance airborne systems kept the Russian border under almost constant surveillance, monitoring the steady build-up of Russian and Belarusian forces around Ukraine.

It wasn’t perfect, but that ad-hoc network of information-gathering platforms shared data and accelerated decision-making about potential adversary action before it happened. The constant collection and prompt release of classified intelligence detailing activity on the Russian frontiers enabled NATO allies to back Washington’s position more completely, facilitating the rapid response that helped Ukraine stave off a fait accompli.

It is an important lesson. On the other side of the world, America’s Indo-Pacific allies have an unmatched opportunity to recognize the deterrent power of intelligence, wrapping it into operational requirements and use-cases to justify flowing more airborne ISR platforms into their home regions.

While Ukraine is Europe’s second-largest country by land mass, it was not too large for western ISR capabilities to achieve an informational edge. It is an entirely different story in the Indo-Pacific. India alone is more than five times larger than Ukraine by landmass. Its border with China is more than 2,000 miles. Revisit rates of current US satellite architectures aren’t sufficient to provide constant coverage, and the sheer vastness of the theatre makes continuous, manned surveillance impossible.

Time To Reach For A Proven Capability:

In the Pacific, it is time to reach for what works. By building on a proven design, with thousands of hours of operation, and an expeditionary record of success, America can offer users across the globe a robust foundation for a self-sustaining operational surveillance infrastructure.

But only a handful of aerial platforms have been acquired in sufficient numbers to offer users across the globe a robust foundation for a self-sustaining operational surveillance infrastructure. In the unmanned sector, there’s only really one “general purpose” answer—the General Atomics MQ series.

The MQ series of aircraft has a longstanding and solid developmental lineage, reaching back to the first primitive MQ-1 Predator drones of the mid-1990’s. With hundreds of MQ-1 Grey Eagle variants built for the U.S Army, some 351 MQ-9A Reapers currently serving in the U.S. Air Force, and modified MQ-9As now serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, the platform has a robust support infrastructure and will be used for years to come. It’s almost the unmanned equivalent of America’s ubiquitous Blackhawk helicopter—a useful bit of kit that almost American ally operates.

To cement the MQ-9’s position as the global choice for allies looking for a “Medium Altitude Long Endurance” drone, it is time to get the newest models into as many friendly hands as possible. As a “best-of-breed” aircraft, it is time to put obsolete proliferation concerns aside and saturate the Indo-Pacific marketplace.

The opportunity to market a relatively ubiquitous, useful, and cost-effective platform offers a tremendous boon for countries that are just beginning to explore opportunities with unmanned aircraft. Rather than struggle to operate new, indigenously-developed platforms, allies and friends can pool operational knowledge, and start in on the real work of developing the networks to evaluate, disseminate, and act upon UAV-collected information.

Get Friends Into The Big Indo-Pacific Skies:

The latest MQ Series variant is the MQ-9B SeaGuardian or SkyGuardian. With a basic 40-hour, all-weather endurance, and with flights integrated into civilian airspace, these long-range aircraft—some reports suggest 6,000 nautical mile ranges—are solid fits for the Indo-Pacific, ready to go toe-to-toe with China, North Korea and Iran.

In the Indo-Pacific, the MQ-9 has been supporting India for some time, with a General Atomics team providing what some report as a large majority of its ISR, using two aircraft to surveil along India’s border and in its maritime domain.

In October, the Japan Coast Guard began using the SeaGuardian to “perform Maritime Wide Area Search (MWAS) over the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean.” And importantly, the U.S. Air Force has for the first time deployed MQ-9s to Japan, activating the 319^th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron at Kanoya Air Base in the South.

Taiwan recently signed an FMS case for the MQ-9B SeaGuardian and there is growing and renewed interest from a growing number of countries in the Indopacific.

And, on the far end of the Indian Ocean, the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf partners are seeking MQ-9Bs as well.

The challenge, of course, is to start knitting these platforms into an integrated network. Simply using the platforms to collaboratively collect quickly-releasable long-term video tracking of suspect fishing and cargo vessels would be an enormous help in maintaining rules-based order throughout the Indo-Pacific.

And, with India already using the aircraft to monitor the Chinese frontier, sharing survivability “lessons learned” will be critical as these unmanned aircraft transition from monitoring for potential “Grey Zone” activities to start keeping tabs on Chinese naval and other military units.

The challenge – and opportunity – is knitting these platforms into an integrated network, one that can interface with other assets. This is where the MQ-9 grants special advantages.

Maritime domain awareness is a good example: the MQ-9 has the ability to drop ASW buoys and share that information with manned P-8s, aircraft currently being used by both India and Australia to build greater domain awareness in the Indian Ocean. It doesn’t need to be complex. Even just simple task of collecting and distributing raw video feeds of suspect vessels would be an enormous boon for Pacific security.

Forward-thinking decision-makers from New Delhi to Manila should imagine fleets of MQ-9 platforms used collaboratively to meet these and other mission requirements, gaining greater awareness than they could otherwise achieve relying solely on manned platforms that can’t stay up as long. Whether for the Quad, AUKUS, or the Philippines, the use case is clear: real-time information sharing that can deter aggression.

Acceleration Is Essential For Deterrence…Now:

America’s NATO allies have seen the utility of ISR in a real-time conflict scenario, albeit one that was not enough to prevent the catastrophic violence and consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. America’s allies in the Indo-Pacific are poised to deploy these same assets in an integrated way, but they need to accelerate action to get ahead of a potential adversary’s physical movements. They need to accelerate creation of battle networks and data fusion centers to enable rapid decision-making—absolutely essential given the vast geography of the region.

Peace is still possible, but put simply, there is no time to lose. Unless America’s Indo-Pacific allies and partners move swiftly, they will be left wondering what might have been had the U.S. really pushed to distribute basic, proven surveillance assets into the deep Pacific.