BLUF

Cost-driven threats keep outpacing expensive countermeasures — meaning success depends on practical training, simple defences, and reusable systems that can absorb rapid shifts in technology and tactics without exhausting finite resources. Drones mirror earlier cost-asymmetric roadside bombs.

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand why counter-drone strategies must avoid replicating the unwinnable, cost-imposing dynamics of the counter-IED (Improvised Explosive Device) campaign.
  • Recognise the importance of cheap, scalable, layered defences and rapid tactical adaptation for protecting ADF personnel.
  • Identify training, innovation, and decentralised problem-solving as critical to building a force able to withstand rapidly evolving drone threats.

References