Sooner or later, an adversary will attempt to conduct the same kind of attack on American facilities that Ukraine did to Russian ones. It is not a question of if, but when.
The Ukraine War is currently dominating the news cycle—due in large part to the unique attack Ukraine recently conducted against two key Russian airbases deep inside Russia, utilizing advanced First Person View (FPV) drones launched from disguised civilian container trucks parked outside the bases.
The entire operation—designated “Operation Spiderweb” by the Ukrainian government—rested upon the element of surprise. It was conducted with a set of FPV drones defined by their ability to operate undetected for protracted periods, before swarming unsuspecting enemy targets faster than those enemy targets can stop them.
What every security expert in the West—especially the United States—should now be worrying about is whether any of America’s enemies could carry out a similar attack on sensitive military bases in America. Sadly, the United States is now vulnerable in much the same way that the Russians were.
Poor Border Security Could Lead to a Similar Attack
Let’s just take the first, most obvious example. For the last four years, until President Donald Trump’s return to power in January, the previous Biden administration was notoriously lax on border security. Biden’s policy saw a dramatic rise in illegal immigration into the United States—not only through quasi-legal channels such as asylum claims at ports of entry, but also directly across the border, giving the US government no visibility into who was entering. Concerns abounded that China, for instance, was inserting military operatives into the country. Similar worries arose about various Islamist terrorist groups secreting jihadists into the United States.
Is there any merit to these concerns? We don’t know—and this is alarming. The United States today doesn’t know how many people who crossed illegally were merely economic migrants seeking opportunity, and how many were deployed here by bad actors—foreign governments, criminal drug cartels, or ideological extremists. Any one of these groups, if sufficiently threatened by the Trump administration’s policies, might be able to replicate the Ukrainian drone attack here in the United States.
Pay Attention to China’s Drone Supremacy
The biggest threat, of course, is China. Right now, China is the world leader in drone technology. With their advanced mass production manufacturing capabilities, China is building advanced FPV drones at a rate of 500,000 per month. Defense expert Simone Ledeen recently posted on X (formerly Twitter) that China could potentially scale this production to upwards of 700,000 FPV drones in wartime.
China’s DJI Technology is not only China’s most important dronemaker, it is probably the best drone manufacturer in the world.These systems are sold as civilian systems around the world. As Ukraine has proven ad nauseam, such systems can easily be converted into weapons of war. In fact, DJI itself had reportedly been operating alongside Wagner Group Russian mercenaries in the first half of the Ukraine War. DJI drones were used frequently by Wagner mercenaries to fight Ukraine, and DJI technicians from China were rumored to have been embedded with the Wagner forces.
Just as with the Ukrainian attacks on Russia, Chinese agents could disguise large-scale drone launchers in seemingly civilian container trucks, parked just outside of sensitive US military facilities. Similar tactics could be employed using seemingly civilian container cargo ships in key US ports and launching offensive drone operations against poorly defended though strategically important targets in the United States.
Even if it isn’t China doing the attack on US facilities, Russian, Iranian, North Korean, Venezuelan, ISIS, al Qaeda, or cartel members could easily use DJI drones—which are cheap and readily available—to conduct similar surprise attacks on key US military installations and government facilities.
Basic Security Lapses Routinely Occur on US Bases
Security on these bases could do much to head off such an attack. If a large, suspicious cargo truck were parked nearby, base officials might be able to take measures to protect the base ahead of a potential attack.
Yet despite their nature as sensitive military facilities, some of America’s most important bases have been subject to repeated security breaches. For instance, under the Biden administration, one of America’s most sensitive military facilities, Edwards Air Force Base—home of Lockheed Martin’s legendary Skunk Works experimental division—endured a series of quasi-breaches.
At that facility, the runway from where sensitive US military warplanes and experimental prototypes take off has a dry lakebed at one end. According to base personnel, there were repeated instances in which Chinese tourists “camped out” with high-resolution cameras and other recording equipment. From their vantage point, the Chinese citizens were able to acquire detailed videos. Suppose that, instead of cameras, those “tourists” had come equipped with drones?
Of course, base security intercepted the people in question. However, because those individuals had encamped themselves on property that was not owned by the US government, no significant legal action could be taken.
That particular security gap has, thankfully, been plugged. But the fact remains that lapses and oversights in basic facility security occur with wanton abandon at all American bases—especially in the continental US. Remember the incidents involving three Chinese citizens who simply strolled onto the Naval Air Station Key West and began taking photos five years ago? Now imagine those security lapses, but if those three Chinese nationals had instead let loose more than 100 DJI drones.
Nor are drones the only threats to airfields with exposed planes. At Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, a large number of F-35 Lightning II fifth-generation warplanes sit and wait for action. As one person who previously worked at the base told me in an off-the-record interview, these F-35s are vulnerable to the bullets fired from .50-caliber sniper rifles while they are on the tarmac. Granted, a significant fence surrounds that facility, but there is a nearby mountain range within range of a long-distance sniper rifle. And areas of that mountain range near the base are closed off to the public, but there are still trails there. This individual informed me that there was always a serious concern among base security that the base was not devoting enough resources to ensuring saboteurs were not lurking there.
How much damage could saboteurs lurking in those mountains do by deploying low-flying, fast-moving drones armed with explosives to the planes parked quietly on the tarmac? Ukraine’s strike inside Russia suggests the sort of damage that a motivated adversary could do.
No More “Business as Usual” in the Wake of Ukraine’s Drone Attack
The reason that Russia had their birds parked on the tarmac the way they did was partly because they did not think the Ukrainians could threaten facilities so far removed from the front lines. Another reason has to do with Cold War era practices born out of the age of arms control verification. Both the Soviet Union and the United States would regularly park their aircraft on the tarmac to allow the other side to see them—wisely keeping the element of surprise out of nuclear decision-making.
Clearly, those more stable days of great power competition are gone. Ukraine’s attack on the very essence of Russia’s nuclear weapons deterrent will almost certainly force a fundamental change in those procedures, making them more opaque and negating the effective implementation of arms control agreements.
American military facilities and sensitive government sites are more vulnerable than ever to the kind of attack that the Ukrainians engaged in against Russia. Radical and sweeping—permanent—alterations to US base security across the country must be implemented with due haste.
Sooner or later, an adversary will attempt to conduct the same kind of attack on American facilities that Ukraine did to Russian ones. It is not a question of if, but when.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a contributor at Popular Mechanics, who consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
Image: Shutterstock / ceri breeze.
