The Art of Swarming

Launched Effects and the Future of Mass on the Modern Battlefield
Photo: Nico Vacca/Generated using Gemini and ChatGPT/CSIS

Photo: Nico Vacca/Generated using Gemini and ChatGPT/CSIS

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Cheap sensors, drones, electronic warfare, and long-range fires have made it easier to find and destroy forces that concentrate, tilting the modern battlefield toward the defender. This report argues that swarms can restore the offense. Networked formations of low-cost drones and launched effects can sense, deceive, jam, strike, and reattack as the enemy adapts. They converge effects without concentrating forces, forcing a defender to waste interceptors, reveal hidden sensors, and lose confidence in what it sees. The report proposes a three-part framework for employing swarms—set conditions, pulse, and consolidate and transition—and illustrates each phase with Ukraine’s 2024 Kursk offensive.

The report applies this framework to three hypothetical scenarios: breaking Russia’s integrated air defenses in Kaliningrad, contesting Chinese sea control in the South China Sea, and penetrating a Russian defense in depth on NATO’s eastern flank. Across all three, launched effects (drones fired from aircraft, ships, and ground vehicles) emerge as one of the most practical ways to field swarms at scale.

But procuring drones alone will not make swarming effective. Swarms become decisive only when the joint force can generate repeatable, affordable mass, disorient the enemy, and sustain the next pulse before the adversary recovers. To get there, the report offers 14 recommendations for the Pentagon and Congress, from standing joint swarming task forces and dedicated units to common components, modular open systems, distributed sustainment, and allied interoperability. Together, these recommendations would build the operational architecture U.S. and allied militaries need to employ swarming.

This report is made possible by general support to CSIS. No direct sponsorship contributed to this report.

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Russia and Eurasia, Europe, Asia, Defense and Security, Geopolitics and International Security, Defense Budget and Acquisition, Technology, and Ukraine War
Benjamin Jensen

Benjamin Jensen

Director, Futures Lab and Senior Fellow, Defense and Security Department

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