The Long Arc of the Smart Rock: Drones, Missiles, and the Emperor’s New Clothes

News media reported this morning that two people have been killed in Oman by a drone. This angle on human tragedy misses the point; it’s focused on the use of drone munitions rather than the spread of the Middle East conflict to the civilian population of a neighbouring country.

It seems that headline writers love a drone. In fact, it seems that an ever-growing community of interest loves a drone. A 2022 article published by the BBC by an eminent academic and former journalist stated, “Over time [drones] could have a dramatic effect in transforming warfare”. There’s so much focus on the proliferation of drones that it appears that their widespread use has changed the very nature of conflict. It hasn’t.

Drones: the Ultimate Disrupters

In the high-definition theatre of 2026, drones are portrayed as the ultimate disruptors. We are told they have rendered the tank obsolete, made the trench a grave, and given substance to the ‘Strategic Corporal’ as the arbiter of the battlefield. But beneath this shimmering digital picture lies a more sobering analogue truth: drones are not a new category of weapon. They are the logical, evolutionary development of indirect fire - the latest iteration of the ‘smart rock’.

To put drone munitions in context is to realize that military history is not a series of revolutions, but a continuous but pulsing evolution of three variables: range, precision, and the role of people at the point of impact. Since the first slingshot operator realised they could kill without being within reach of a club, the goal has remained unchanged: strike without being struck. The transition from the trebuchet to the rifled artillery shell simply changed the ‘propensity’ (to borrow François Jullien’s term) of the strike. Artillery allowed a commander to strike an enemy indirectly. This was the birth of ‘Non-Line-of-Sight’ warfare, the true conceptual grandfather of the modern drone.

The most direct ancestor of the drone is not the model aeroplane, but the cruise missile. The V-1 ‘Buzz Bomb’ of 1944 was a pilotless, jet-powered, aerially delivered munition designed to fly to a target and explode. A modern ‘kamikaze’ drone is essentially a V-1 with a better brain that enables it to change its mind. The technological leap between a 1970s Harpoon missile and a 2026 remote-person view drone is one of persistence, not of kind. A missile is a bullet that can steer; a drone is a bullet that can wait.

The ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ of 2026

As we gaze in wonder upon these ‘revolutionary’ swarms, therefore, we must ask if we are falling for the ‘Emperor's New Clothes’. The hype surrounding drones often suggests they have stripped away the old rules of war, leaving the traditional military naked and defenceless. But is the newness of the drone just a shimmering illusion?

The Illusion of Invincibility: Proponents claim drones have ended the age of armour. Yet in the conflict of 2026, we see that they can be countered by some of the older clothes in the wardrobe, such as jamming, overhead protection, and smoke. Not to mention the weather. Even if the ‘digital garment’ of the drone is stripped away by a $10 signal jammer, commanders can be left standing in the mud, with the same challenge of restoring movement that characterised the Somme in 1916.

The Fallacy of Cost: We celebrate the $500 drone that kills a $5 million tank. But this ignores the ‘Systemic Mess’ (as Russell Ackoff might call it) of logistics. Maintaining a fleet of 10,000 dispensable drones hides a massive, vulnerable supply chain of lithium, silicon, and specialised technicians. The drone is only cheap if you ignore the tail that supports it.

The Persistence of Friction: The ‘Emperor's New Clothes’ argument suggests that drones provide perfect clarity - the ‘Glass Battlefield’. But as Clausewitz warned, friction is the only constant. Drones don't eliminate the fog of war; they simply move it to a different frequency. A drone feed can be spoofed, hacked, or simply rendered useless by a low-hanging cloud. And beware the illusion of certainty – of understanding and attrition – that it might provide when fully functioning.

Furthermore, we must recognize that drones remain, at their core, a tactical instrument. In the enthusiasm of the digital age, it is easy to mistake a successful video of a burning tank for a successful campaign. While a drone strike can achieve a localized ‘heroic moment’ - the destruction of a command post or the disabling of a supply truck - these are isolated punctures in the enemy's skin. To achieve operational effect, these individual tactical activities must be fused into a wider system of relationships.

A million drone strikes without a following infantry assault, a coordinated armoured breakthrough, or securing key terrain are merely a component of high-tech attrition, not a decisive strategy. As Jullien might argue, the Shi of the battlefield is not tilted by the weapon itself, but by the orchestration of all activities – in comparison with those of the adversary and other actors.

And here may lie that point that has been missed. The tactical use of drones – their scale, their precision, and their remoteness from human emotion – alters conditions across a wider system. Their psychological impact may be greater than their physical impact. We should avoid exacerbating that effect.

The Democratisation of the Missile

The real change we see in 2026 is not a new weapon, but the democratisation of precision. In the 1990s, a suite of precision-guided munitions the business of superpowers. Today, the drone has made the ‘smart rock’ so inexpensive that it’s now the business of every sub-unit.

We haven't invented a new way of war. We have simply made the missile ubiquitous. By treating the drone as a magical new category of weapon - indeed of warfare - military planners risk the ‘Fallacy of Detachment’ (Mintzberg’s critique), believing they can formulate victory through technology alone while ignoring the necessity for cognitive superiority. We also increase the potential psychological impact of their increasing proliferation.

Conclusion: Dressing the Reality

The drone is a development, not a departure. It is a persistent, loitering missile. It's having significant tactical impact but to view it as the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes - a revolutionary outfit that renders all previous military wisdom obsolete - is a dangerous delusion.

In the end, war remains a clash of wills driven by Thucydides’ triad of Fear, Honour, and Interest. The drone is simply the most efficient tool yet devised to project those motives at scale and range. It is a formidable tool, but it doesn't change the fact that the ‘Emperor’ of war is still standing in the same old mud, facing the same old friction, albeit perhaps using a more sophisticated rock.