Filipino-Ukrainian drones?

Filipino-Ukrainian drones? | Daily Tribune

The other week’s geopolitical-themed telephone chat between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hardly registered amid the theatricalities of other local news.

Yet, despite the 28 November chat being diplomatically couched as an exchange of views on food, agriculture, and digitalization, there was a suspicious attempt to derail it with a sensational diversion.

The day before, Russian media aired claims by the Russian Foreign Ministry that former Filipino security personnel were being recruited by an American outfit to fight for the Ukrainian military in its four-year war with Russia.

All those named in the unsubstantiated report swiftly issued blanket official denials, but not before the claim provoked conjecture that it wasn’t coincidental but linked to the Marcos--Zelensky chat.

At the moment, however, Filipino and Ukrainian officials remain coy about the true geopolitical import of the Marcos--Zelensky chat, which pointedly comes after Ukraine revealed last September that negotiations for a defense cooperation agreement with the Philippines were underway.

Should this defense agreement be signed, it would specifically allow Ukraine to share its advances on drone warfare technology as well as co-produce drones here.

In fact, Ukrainian Ambassador to the Philippines Yuliia Fediv earlier revealed that those intentions were incorporated in a draft defense agreement submitted to Philippine defense officials.

Some have also noted that co-producing drones could jumpstart the administration’s serious intent to locally make defense equipment through the recently enacted Self-Reliant Defense Posture Revitalization Act.

Anyway, besides the prospect of the country furthering its “warm” alliance with Ukraine, the tantalizing scenario of joint Filipino-Ukrainian training in drone warfare and the local production of drones invites interesting geopolitical issues.

Cheap drones, for that matter, have become strategic equalizers for outgunned and outmanned countries having territorial conflicts with powerful neighbors like Ukraine with Russia and the Philippines with China.

With many armies worldwide “rapidly preparing to fight wars where unmanned drones are central to nearly every battle,” as a recent Atlantic magazine article put it, countries are now “alert to the lessons of Ukraine’s drone war,” lessons which the US military couldn’t even match.

But while Ukraine has plenty to offer on drone warfare and surviving a brutal war, this isn’t one-sided.

In fact, the Philippines and Ukraine have something to offer each other, which will likely trigger China, currently bristling over any international support to remake Philippine’ territorial defenses with new weaponry.

Take, for instance, the fact that as Ukraine’s secret drone factories churn out thousands of killer drones, these killers have another crucial role — collecting battlefield data.

The data collected “covers everything from the timing of drone strikes to how enemy troops react — and how to maximize their destructive impact.” Data, in short, “tells you very quickly if what you’re doing is working or not working” in a drone war.

With “data is everything,” Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are rapidly changing drone warfare, and data becomes even more crucial.

Which brings us to the caveat that the collected data so far probably pertains only to actual skirmishes on air and land, but not data from actual skirmishes over vast stretches of water like that frequently occurring in the West Philippine Sea or the broader South China Sea.

As such, the Philippines, together with some of its allied Indo-Pacific militaries, sits on a potential treasure trove of very valuable data which could further the tragic, grim realities of modern drone warfare.