Modern air forces long prioritized sophistication. Since the end of the Cold War, major powers have gradually reduced the size of their fighter fleets while increasing their technological capabilities. Stealth, sensor fusion, advanced targeting systems, and precision-guided weapons became the foundations of Western air superiority. That model is now reaching some of its limits.
Recent conflicts show that modern airspace can quickly become saturated with expendable platforms: long-range drones, loitering munitions, collaborative swarms, and escort drones capable of jamming, detecting, or striking targets. This evolution is gradually transforming air warfare.
The threat no longer comes only from a limited number of highly sophisticated aircraft or advanced surface-to-air missile systems. It increasingly comes from cheaper, simpler platforms that can be produced at scale.
Mass is becoming a central issue again for modern air forces.
After beginning to reshape naval and land operations, this dynamic may now be redefining the balance between quantity and quality in the air domain. The skies are gradually becoming a battlespace of attrition once again.
Mass returns to air combat
For decades, Western air forces built their superiority around a simple principle: fewer aircraft, but technologically superior ones. This approach produced extremely capable fighters integrating stealth, sensor fusion, advanced sensors, and precision strike capabilities. It also drove a continuous increase in development, production, and maintenance costs.
A modern combat aircraft now represents an investment of tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Losing one is both an operational and industrial problem. Replacement capacity remains limited, and production lines often require years to increase output.
Loitering munitions and expendable drones are gradually changing this equation. These systems often cost far less than the platforms they threaten. The Shahed drones employed by Russia illustrate this trend particularly well. Depending on the variant, these platforms can travel more than 1,000 kilometers while carrying warheads weighing several dozen kilograms. Their relatively slow speed, often between 150 and 200 kilometers per hour, does not necessarily make them easy to intercept.
Their primary advantage lies in their low cost and their ability to be deployed in large numbers. Some Western estimates place their unit cost in the tens of thousands of dollars, while the missiles used to intercept them can cost several hundred thousand or even several million dollars each.
This asymmetry is gradually changing the nature of air combat. Even when intercepted, these drones force air defense networks to remain on constant alert. They consume missiles, mobilize radar systems, and require continuous airspace surveillance. Attrition is once again becoming a central dimension of modern air warfare.
Ukraine: air saturation becomes permanent
The war in Ukraine clearly illustrates this transformation. Russian strike campaigns against Ukrainian energy infrastructure demonstrated that large numbers of relatively simple drones can produce lasting strategic effects.
The Shahed drones employed by Russia do not possess the performance of the most advanced cruise missiles. Their speed remains limited and their acoustic signature is significant. Yet their repeated use is enough to impose constant pressure on Ukrainian air defenses.
Air defense systems must detect, identify, and intercept successive waves of expendable platforms capable of striking infrastructure, logistics depots, and energy networks located far from the front line.
Saturation becomes almost as important as precision itself.
Even when intercepted, these drones consume significant resources: surface-to-air missiles, close-in defense ammunition, flight hours, radar capacity, and electronic warfare assets. Repeated attacks also force Ukrainian defenses to disperse air defense systems in order to protect multiple critical sites simultaneously.
The objective is therefore not limited to direct target destruction. It is also about gradually exhausting the adversary’s defensive capacity and imposing a permanent cost on territorial protection.
Ukraine has also demonstrated the ability to use long-range drones to strike infrastructure located hundreds of kilometers behind enemy lines. The distinction between drones, loitering munitions, and cruise missiles is becoming increasingly blurred.
The manned fighter is no longer alone
The most significant transformation may concern the role of the combat aircraft itself.
For decades, the manned fighter represented the central element of offensive airpower. That logic is now evolving rapidly.
Escort drone programs developed in the United States, Europe, and Australia suggest that future combat aircraft may operate alongside multiple collaborative platforms capable of performing different missions.
These drones can act as scouts, jammers, communication relays, or expendable strike platforms. Some concepts envision aircraft capable of accompanying fighters over several hundred kilometers in order to penetrate the most dangerous areas ahead of manned platforms.
The American Collaborative Combat Aircraft program illustrates this evolution particularly well. Its objective is to allow a manned aircraft to coordinate several drones operating forward of the main force package. Future systems are expected to carry sensors, electronic warfare payloads, or light weapons while remaining significantly less expensive than conventional fighter aircraft.
Australia’s Ghost Bat drone, developed by Boeing, also reflects this trend. Approximately 11 meters long and designed to fly alongside manned aircraft, it is intended to conduct reconnaissance, jamming, or offensive support missions while maintaining substantial operational range.
This architecture fundamentally changes the logic of air combat.
The manned fighter is gradually becoming a command platform capable of coordinating multiple cheaper and more expendable systems.
This evolution also reflects economic constraints. Modern combat aircraft have become extremely expensive to build and maintain. Collaborative drones offer an intermediate solution capable of increasing available mass without relying exclusively on additional manned platforms.
The acceptability of attrition is also changing. Losing an expendable drone does not carry the same political, human, or industrial consequences as losing a manned aircraft and its pilot.
China accelerates distributed air warfare
China also appears to be investing heavily in distributed air warfare architectures.
In a Taiwan scenario, the coordinated use of drones, loitering munitions, and collaborative platforms could generate continuous pressure on opposing air defense networks. This approach relies on several principles: saturation, multiplication of vectors, electronic warfare, and the gradual depletion of missile inventories.
The objective is not solely the immediate destruction of enemy aircraft. It is also about complicating air operations, progressively exhausting defensive systems, and imposing an operational tempo that becomes difficult to sustain over time.
China is also investing in collaborative swarms and autonomous systems capable of coordinating multiple drones simultaneously. This approach could significantly increase the number of vectors operating inside an airspace already saturated with missiles, manned aircraft, and electronic warfare systems.
Air warfare is therefore becoming more distributed, denser, and potentially far more difficult to control.
Cost is becoming an airpower problem
Air forces must now deal with a growing economic asymmetry.
An expendable drone may cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Intercepting it may require far more expensive missiles or flight hours from advanced fighter aircraft.
This logic increasingly resembles the problems already observed in the maritime domain. Air defense systems may need to neutralize large numbers of relatively simple targets without exhausting available resources too quickly.
The cost of defense is becoming almost as important as technical performance itself. This evolution is pushing several militaries to explore lower-cost solutions. Laser systems, interceptor drones, jamming capabilities, and automated close-in defense systems are attracting increasing attention.
Industrial sustainability is once again becoming a major strategic factor. The ability to rapidly produce drones, interceptors, and electronic components may become just as important as the individual performance of combat platforms.
Air vulnerability is changing nature
Loitering munitions and collaborative drones are not replacing manned combat aircraft. They are, however, profoundly transforming how air forces think about air superiority.
For decades, air superiority primarily depended on the individual quality of platforms, stealth, and technological performance. Air warfare is now evolving toward a more distributed model in which mass, attrition, saturation, and production capacity are once again becoming essential.
Air forces must learn to operate inside battlespaces saturated with expendable platforms capable of jamming, detecting, deceiving, or striking targets. Technological sophistication does not eliminate vulnerability. It reappears in another form: more diffuse, more permanent, and potentially more economically sustainable for the adversary.
