Ukraine and the Houthis: what drones let a smaller force actually do
An analysis published by The Conversation Canada argues that the press focus on the United States misses the bigger shift: technology has made it easier for smaller states and sub-states to resist and challenge dominant powers. Drones are the clearest case. Ukraine, short of artillery relative to its opponent, substituted drones for it wherever it could — an approach the piece says has limitations but credits with helping the country hold on to its sovereignty. The other example runs from 2015, when the Houthis, a paramilitary organisation in Yemen, entered a protracted war with Saudi Arabia and its allies; the analysis attributes their ability to resist Saudi-led forces in part to effective drone use. The mechanism is unglamorous rather than exotic: the same cheap, numerous, expendable flying machines let a force without an air force keep striking at things that matter.
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The milestone claim is the part to squint at. Ukrainian officials argued that fighting an enemy with only drones was a first in the history of warfare — a sentence that depends entirely on what you count. The substitution claim is the one with teeth: replacing artillery with drones wherever possible is a supply-chain decision, not a slogan.
And the analysis doesn't promise the advantage holds. Its own conclusion is that technology may set the boundaries of warfare while human choices determine how effective it turns out to be. Read that way, drones don't hand small actors an edge; they hand one to small actors who use them well, which is a much less comfortable thing to design policy around.