乌克兰和中东的战争已将无人机推向了新闻头条。如今，“无人机”一词涵盖了从亚马逊上可以买到的爱好者摄影器材，到过去20年里美国依赖于打击恐怖组织的“捕食者”和“收割者”系统等所有产品。
在足够的环境压力下，自然界中的共同祖先可以演化出需要独立分类的不同物种。无人机也经历了类似的快速物种演化：单向攻击无人机、中空长航时无人机、高空长航时无人机以及协作战斗飞机无人机——它们有着共同的血脉和标签，但在成本、航程和用途方面，彼此间的相似之处已越来越少。
这种差异在单向攻击无人机类别中表现得最为显著：这些系统并非像飞机那样设计为返回基地，而是像子弹或导弹一样直接飞向并摧毁目标。自2022年以来，俄罗斯和乌克兰已向对方发射了数百万架此类无人机；2026年，伊朗也向美国军事基地、使馆、以色列及中东其他国家发射了数千架。
世界现在进入了一个我们称之为“精确大众化”的时代。过去，军事实力往往由规模决定——取决于一支军队拥有的骑士、士兵、枪支或坦克的数量。自冷战以来，先进军队强调巡航导弹等精密弹药，通过数量较少但针对性更强的武器获得优势。低廉但技术先进的无人机则将“规模”与“精度”结合在了一起。
商业制造、精密引导以及人工智能和自主技术的进步，使得军队和武装组织准确打击对手的能力实现了民主化。这包括第一视角（FPV）无人机——一种具有类似电子游戏操作界面的单向攻击无人机，与伊朗结盟的组织已经在利用这些技术。
Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have propelled drones into the headlines. The word “drone” now stretches to cover everything from hobbyist camera rigs available on Amazon to the Predator and Reaper systems the United States has relied on to fight terrorist organizations over the past 20 years.
A common ancestor in the animal kingdom can give rise, under sufficient environmental pressure, to distinct species that demand their own classification. Drones have undergone their own rapid speciation: the one-way attack drone, the medium-altitude, long-endurance and high-altitude, long-endurance drones, the collaborative combat aircraft drone – these share a lineage and a label, but in terms of cost, range and use, increasingly little else.
Nowhere is this variation more consequential than in the category of one-way attack drones: systems designed not to return home like an airplane, but to fly directly into a target and destroy it, like a bullet or a missile. Russia and Ukraine have fired millions of these at each other since 2022, and Iran has launched thousands at United States military bases and embassies, Israel and other countries in the Middle East in 2026.
The world is now in an era we call “precise mass.” In the past, military power was often determined by size – the number of knights, soldiers, guns or tanks, depending on the era, that an army had. Since the Cold War, advanced militaries have emphasized precise munitions, such as cruise missiles, gaining advantage with fewer but more accurately targeted weapons. Inexpensive but technologically sophisticated drones bring mass and precision together.
Commercial manufacturing, precision guidance and advances in artificial intelligence and autonomy have democratized the ability of militaries and militant groups to accurately strike their adversaries. This includes first-person-view, or FPV, drones – a type of one-way attack drone with interfaces like video games – that groups aligned with Iran are already using to target American forces in the Middle East.
One-way attack drones
One-way attack drones have featured most prominently in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and in the Middle East today. The first category of one-way attack drones is longer range and can travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to strike targets deep in an adversary’s territory. They are like extremely cheap cruise missiles – Iran’s Shahed-136 one-way attack drone, for instance, has a reported range of up to 1,250 miles (2,000 km) and costs between US$20,000 and $50,000 each. In comparison, America’s Tomahawk cruise missile costs $2 million each.
Russia acquired the Shahed technology almost immediately after Iran debuted it in 2022, creating its own version, the Geran-2, and has since used these drones to pummel Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure. Most recently, the U.S. military has followed Russia’s lead and reverse-engineered its own version, the LUCAS, which debuted in the earliest days of Operation Epic
