Weaponized commercial drones are creating new challenges for national security efforts

View All Stories Share this Business & Government Culture & Society Weaponized commercial drones are creating new challenges for national security efforts An expert explains how increasingly accessible and sophisticated technology is creating rapidly evolving potential threats. Nov. 13, 2026 By Emma Lawson , Texas A&M University Division of Marketing and Communications 4 min. read Commercial drones are becoming increasingly accessible and easier to modify, creating new challenges for national security and law enforcement as authorities work to prevent the technology from becoming used as a weapon. Dan DeBree, an associate professor of the practice at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, describes the growing accessibility of drone technology as the “democratization of air power.” Drones that can be purchased commercially and modified using readily available online resources are increasingly being used in warfare and by drug cartels, while advances in artificial intelligence are making some drones more difficult to detect and counter. Federal and local authorities are responding to these evolving threats through new countermeasures and legislation, including the Safer Skies Act passed in December 2025, which expands authorities’ ability to respond to potentially dangerous drones. “Drones have drastically changed the nature of warfare,” DeBree said. “The drone threat has been widely recognized by both the federal government and law enforcement agencies as risks, and they are moving at high speeds to try and address it, particularly with federal agencies giving more autonomy to local law enforcement to handle it, like with the Safer Skies Act.” The widespread availability of commercial drones has made it easier for individuals and groups to turn relatively inexpensive technology into weapons. “For example, the most basic drone we’re seeing in Ukraine is an inexpensive commercial quadcopter that you can put a grenade on to create a relatively precise weapon,” he said. “This ties back to the democratization of air power because it’s not that difficult for an individual to combine their own technical expertise and go on YouTube to find a video on how to modify their drone and make it into a weapon.” Beyond their accessibility, advances in drone autonomy are creating additional challenges for national security agencies. DeBree said drone autonomy is measured on a scale from Level 0, which requires full manual control, to Level 5, which uses AI algorithms to complete its mission and avoid obstacles without human intervention, making it the most difficult for national security agencies to counter, DeBree said. “There are drones that use an AI algorithm, so, if they lose communications, they can still identify a target and attack without human input,” he said. “One of the most prevalent ways that law enforcement detects drones is the electronic emissions, or communication, back and forth between the drone and operator. If you don’t have that, due to a fiber optic cable or AI algorithm, it’s much more difficult to detect. It makes the drones very stealthy until picked up by acoustic sensors or radar, which can be short range.” While fiber optic cable drones are hard to detect, they have a weakness of their own: They leave behind a trail of wire that can stretch up to 15 kilometers long, DeBree said, potentially revealing where the drones were launched. “There’s villages in Ukraine that look like they have spider webs on them because these very fine fiber cables are left there after months and months of drones going over them,” he said. “These fiber optic cables lead back to where they were launched from, so these types of drones aren’t perfect.” While national security agencies are working to stop bad actors from using drones to cause harm, they are also using the technology to support their own operations. “Law enforcement uses their own aerial drones for surveillance. If someone is being held hostage, they could use that drone to see where the hostage is being kept,” DeBree said. “Law enforcement also has ground drones that may be used for inspecting a potential weapon of mass destruction or a potential bomb.” As drone technology continues to evolve, DeBree said security agencies will need to continually develop new ways to counter emerging threats. “There’s typically a six-month cycle of new drone tech being delivered and countermeasures for it that eventually stabilize until new tech comes out,” he said. “It’s a cat-and-mouse game, really. It’s now propagating very quickly to non-state actors like drug cartels and domestic terrorists who want to use this technology. If a farmer can buy an agricultural drone with a range of 100 miles and a hefty payload, it doesn’t stop a lone wolf from doing so.” Tags Bush School of Government and Public Service law enforcement national security Media Contact Emma Lawson Texas A&M University Division of Marketing and Communications [email protected] Share this News