By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
US Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk drones and other NATO surveillance assets have been circling within surveillance range of the Crimean Peninsula and other parts of Southern Ukraine from the Black Sea as a way to find, transmit or “light up” targets of great significance for Ukrainian forces to attack.
Generally speaking, the Pentagon has been quite open about ongoing US and NATO ISR efforts underway in support of Ukraine’s war effort, yet specifics are often understandably difficult to come by given the importance of security restraints and the need to protect critical US and NATO assets and technologies from Russian attack.
A recent specific incident involving a US Air Force Global Hawk drone near Crimea introduces key points of analysis regarding the continued utility of larger, less-stealthy drones such as the Global Hawk or its maritime variant the Triton. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced that it sent one of its Su-27s to confront and “repel” or turn back a US Air Force Global Hawk over the Black Sea within range of Crimea, a situation discussed in a Warrior essay by Managing Editor Mark Episkopos.
While the Global Hawk is a drone built by Northrop Grumman for the US Air Force, it is also been exported to key US allies such as Japan and other friendly nations in need of surveillance. Therefore, while the Russian Defense Ministry may say suggest or indicate the drone was operated by the US Air Force, that may be less likely as the system can also be operated by a large number of US allies.
In a general sense, advancing high-tech air defenses such as Russian S-500s and S-400s are a key reason why the Air Force and Pentagon have in recent years been engineering smaller, faster and stealthier drones and working on “drone swarms” able to blanket an area with ISR, build in redundancy and test enemy air defenses with less risk to human pilots.
The incident over the Black Sea, however, suggests a number of key things, such as it verifies or reinforces concepts of operation in which larger, less-stealthy ISR platforms such as the Global Hawk can remain relevant and effective in a “near-peer” threat environment. This is something which has been thought to become increasingly less likely, even leading some to raise the question as to whether the Global Hawk would become obsolete in high-threat environments. The answer appears to be no as there are a number of key nuances, upgrades and adaptations impacting this equation. The US Air Force has made moves to retire older Global Hawks, however it appears upgraded variants continue to prove their tactical and operational value moving into the future, a significant development for a large, less-stealthy drone which debuted 20-years ago during Operation Iraqi Freedom. At that time during OIF, former Joint Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Meyers said the Global Hawk was able perform what he called a “fusion” or advanced networking with other surveillance and attack platforms. This early indication would suggest that the large drone has likely evolved considerably since this time in terms of data processing, target specifics transmission and high-fidelity long range sensing.
Global Hawk in Great Power War?
Nevertheless, how can larger drone platforms such as the Global Hawk remain viable and effective in a great-power contested environment using advanced air-defense systems? There are many possible reasons for this, related to a series of upgrades to the Global Hawk itself and efforts to adjust tactics and concepts of operation.
Sensor technology has continued to advance at an extremely rapid pace, enabling longer-range, higher fidelity imaging and much greater resolution from onboard cameras and sensors. In a simple and direct sense, this would enable effective sensing from greater stand-off ranges and higher altitudes, a potential reason why Global Hawks are able to gather images of Crimea from distances over the Black Sea. This contributes greatly to survivability, because while the Global Hawk may not be stealthy and therefore be more vulnerable over well-defended areas, long-range sensors and stand-off ranges vastly improve the operational possibilities for the large drone. Secondly, the drones are engineered for high-altitude surveillance missions, something specifically designed to enable precision-surveillance from ranges less vulnerable to ground-based radars and air defenses. The fact that a Global Hawk was able to successfully “surveil” Russian targets in Crimea from stand-off distances in the Black Sea suggests that indeed the larger, less-stealthy platforms can remain relevant and effective against certain high-threat environments using range, tactics and sensor precision. Certainly Russia is known to operate advanced and highly effective air-defenses such as S-400s and S-500s, so while the Global Hawk’s destination may not be fully known, it appears as though it was operating successfully in an extremely high-threat environment.
Also on the technological front, Northrop Grumman Global Hawk developers have built in new lighter-weight composite and metallic materials to support much longer dwell times and operational flight hours without needing to refuel. Endurance, therefore, and the need to maintain that often-discussed “persistent stare,” can be greatly improved with the use of a lighter airframe. Northrop Grumman developers have also given the MA-4 Global Hawk a new, better networked ground station for paradigm-changing command and control.
The new ground control system is intended to pioneer new methods of reducing latency, speeding up attacks, providing a foundation for software upgrades to improve sensing and image resolution and also enabling artificial-intelligence-empowered man-machine interface. Tactically speaking, part of this pertains to accelerating what Northrop developers describe as ad hoc tasking wherein new, fast-arriving intelligence information might lead to mission adjustments.
New Global Hawk Tactics
There are also tactical adjustments made by the US Air Force to increase survivability as well, given that larger drones such as the Global Hawk are indeed more vulnerable to advanced enemy air defenses. In addition to the integration of technological enhancements, efforts to make tactical adaptations such as changing flight paths to become less predictable have decreased Global Hawk vulnerability. This was something suggested a few years ago by former US Air Force European Commander, Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian.
Also on the tactical front, it is likely that today’s Global Hawk is also increasingly capable of manned-unmanned or even unmanned-unmanned teaming. The drone may be capable of directing smaller, less survivable drones better able to operate in high-threat conditions. Both the US Army and the Air Force have already shown unmanned-unmanned teaming wherein advanced algorithms, computer automation and new levels of autonomy bring new operational possibilities.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization and the Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
