10 drone swarms reshaping modern air warfare and military strategy

The article discusses how AI-powered drone swarms are transforming modern air warfare by shifting military advantage from costly individual platforms to coordinated, autonomous systems. These swarms consist of large numbers of low-cost drones that operate collectively, allowing them to overwhelm traditional air defenses, adapt dynamically in real time, and sustain missions despite losses. This technological shift is driving a global race among major powers to deploy such swarms, making them one of the most disruptive forces in contemporary military strategy. Several key drone swarm systems exemplify this trend. The Perdix swarm demonstrates a distributed "brain" architecture where drones communicate peer-to-peer to maintain mission effectiveness without centralized control, offering resilience and adaptability. Turkey’s Kargu-2 quadcopter uses AI-based object recognition for autonomous strike capabilities and has seen combat use in Libya and the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. The Pentagon’s Replicator program, backed by substantial funding, focuses on scalable, low-cost autonomous swarms with software frameworks enabling diverse drone types to coordinate under