Border wars from above: 70% of cross-border incidents involve drones - opinion

Israel's borders along their entire length face a new threat from various types of drones. Starting with fiber optic-guided drones (which are available for purchase on AliExpress for less than $200), through "regular" drones from DJI or other commercial companies to which weaponized delivery mechanisms or cameras for intelligence gathering are attached, and up to large drones in regular use in the south of the country, smuggling dozens of kilograms of drugs, weapons, and explosives.

On the eastern front of Europe, the Russia-Ukraine war is no longer about movement. It's about survival. And drones are the reason.

Ukrainian and Russian forces are trapped in a frozen battlefield where every movement is visible, and nearly every strike is guided by aerial eyes. Experts estimate that drones are responsible for up to 70% of casualties in some regions of the conflict. Whether through first-person-view (FPV) attack drones, loitering munitions like Russia's Lancet, or GPS-guided artillery strikes informed by drone ISR feeds, unmanned systems dominate the field.

It's a WWI-style trench deadlock, but with 21st-century technology hovering overhead.

The drone has become more than a tool; it is now a central actor in combat, and mainly at the borders. It paralyzes the frontline. Every soldier knows that a movement in daylight might be their last. When the sky is full of eyes, there is nowhere to hide

Along the US-Mexican border, another technological war is being fought – this time against drug cartels. Drones are used daily for smuggling narcotics, tracking law enforcement, and increasingly, for delivering weapons. Cartels have adapted quickly, using small, inexpensive drones to bypass physical barriers and overwhelm traditional surveillance.

Texas and New Mexico have begun deploying AI-based detection systems, radar-linked jammers, and autonomous counter-UAS technologies. But the challenge is asymmetrical: a $300 drone can defeat a $3 million defense system if it finds the right vulnerability.

This is not merely a policing issue – it's a war of innovation. The cartels are tech-savvy, decentralized, and ruthless. America is responding, but it's a race against an adversary that doesn't play by the same rules

Last week, a Russian Gerbera drone launched from Belarus flew unimpeded through Lithuanian airspace, eventually crashing at the Gaižiūnai military training ground that hosts NATO forces. Lithuanian authorities took nearly a week to locate the wreckage—despite local residents tracking and documenting the entire flight path on social media using open-source intelligence.

This incident exposes a dangerous new reality for NATO's eastern flank. The Baltic states face an evolving threat that transcends traditional warfare: small, often unmarked drones that collect intelligence, map vulnerabilities, and test response capabilities. These craft operate in a gray zone where attribution is deniable and responses are uncertain.

For Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, the era of clear territorial boundaries is ending. Airspaces have become porous, and traditional concepts of sovereignty no longer guarantee security. While these nations rush to invest in radar systems, electronic warfare capabilities, and counter-drone interceptors, they're playing catch-up in a domain where the advantage increasingly belongs to whoever can deploy the most small, cheap, and expendable aircraft.

Modern drones have evolved beyond simple flying cameras into sophisticated mobile cyber platforms. Equipped with advanced communications modules, signals intelligence packages, and network penetration tools, today's unmanned systems can intercept, disrupt, and infiltrate digital networks without ever physically breaching territorial boundaries.

Nations including Israel and the United States are rapidly developing comprehensive border cyber defense architectures. These integrated systems combine radio frequency detection arrays, behavioral anomaly analysis, and advanced machine learning algorithms to identify and counter both airborne and digital threats simultaneously. In contemporary warfare, compromising critical networks often proves more strategically damaging than breaching physical barriers.

We are witnessing the emergence of an era where espionage operations, infrastructure sabotage, and information warfare campaigns can be executed using devices weighing under two kilograms and costing less than a smartphone.

Israel remains on the frontlines - both geographically and conceptually. Its southern border with Gaza witnesses daily drone activity, from surveillance drones to weaponized quadcopters. The northern frontier has become a testing ground for Iranian technology deployed through Hezbollah.

To counter these threats, Israel has deployed multiple interception systems - kinetic solutions, electronic warfare, takeover capabilities, and more - integrating radar networks, optical sensors, AI processing, and both kinetic and electronic countermeasures. Yet this isn't merely about hardware. The fundamental shift is conceptual: recognizing that borders are now defined by capabilities rather than coordinates.

Future defense will depend on layered systems: airborne surveillance platforms, cyber countermeasures, and real-time AI data fusion. A soldier on the ground must remain connected to a drone overhead and an analyst in a remote data center. Decision cycles must compress from minutes to seconds. The traditional border has vanished. In its place stands a digital membrane, gossamer-thin, invisible, and under constant assault.

Borders are no longer just lines on a map. They are three-dimensional spaces where sovereignty is tested every day - not just by foot soldiers and armored vehicles, but by swarms of unmanned aircraft that slip through airspace like digital ghosts. From the trenches of Ukraine to the deserts of Arizona, from the forests of the Baltics to the skies over northern Israel, the message is clear: the very concept of a border is being redefined.

Modern border security means more than patrols and checkpoints. It requires algorithmic awareness, rapid-response systems, and preemptive intelligence that can track threats across multiple domains simultaneously. But it also demands international cooperation-shared detection protocols, coordinated response mechanisms, and unified standards for securing the invisible boundaries above our heads.

Drones that penetrate a nation’s sovereign airspace may not merely be a tactical probe - they are a direct challenge to the fundamental principle of territorial sovereignty. It demonstrates that traditional border defenses, built to stop ground incursions, must evolve to counter asymmetric threats that operate in the gray zones between peace and war.

As nations race to secure their expanded border zones, the question is no longer whether these boundaries will be tested, but how quickly we can detect, classify, and neutralize threats that ignore traditional crossing points.

In the 21st century, a border is only as strong as its weakest dimension. And today, that dimension is increasingly vertical. The age of impermeable borders may be ending, but the fight to defend them has only just begun.