A stunning attack in Russia shows we live in a world where a deadly battlefield technology looks a lot like something you might see flying around at the beach.
The carefully choreographed attack dubbed Russia's "Pearl Harbor" comes as Ukraine has seen incredible success weaponizing cheap drones — ones not all that different from those commonly used in the United States as aerial action cameras or for spectacular light shows.
"We may be at an inflection event," said Mai'a Cross, a professor of international affairs and diplomacy at Northeastern University. "The nature of warfare has transformed."
The attack has been praised by supporters of Ukraine as an innovative, economical and surgical way to conduct warfare. It also highlights a longstanding worry that drones represent an emerging danger — and years of efforts to combat that danger.
The U.S. military has been using expensive attack drones since at least 2001 during the war in Afghanistan. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 launched a new kind of drone warfare. A small nation suddenly found itself facing a much larger, richer and better-equipped country.
