2020 was a milestone in the history of warfare. Libya, in shambles since Muammar Qadhafi was ousted in 2011, was about to receive a new overlord.

Khalifa Haftar had control of the country’s east and was pushing down hard on Tripoli. But despite his best efforts, his offensive ended in retreat. He couldn’t take the capital. Just as he was about to claim victory in the Libyan civil war, he was defeated by robots.

The Tripoli-based government had invested heavily in drones produced by the Turkish company Baykar. These drones pushed back Haftar’s offensive. Haftar, for his part, used Chinese drones, which had enabled him to make it to Tripoli’s borders. But Baykar’s Bayraktar TR2, equipped with antitank missiles, disrupted Haftar’s supply lines and forced him to stand down.

Both sides used drones so extensively that the United Nations’ special representative to Libya called Libya’s civil war “the largest drone war in the world.”

That same year, Azerbaijan invaded Armenia to take back the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory. Azerbaijan claimed victory in a matter of weeks thanks to its purchases of Turkish and Israeli drones. The drones disabled Armenia’s Soviet-era defense systems, allowing ground forces to move in.

Since 2020, drones have become a standard feature in major conflicts around the world. Some analysts claim drones have become to 21st-century warfare what the Gatling gun was to 19th-century warfare: a game changer. From Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to Iran’s war on Israel to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, drones have made the difference between aggressors conquering their foes and defenders preserving their independence.

Warfare has entered the age of robots. What does this mean going forward? Could this reliance on robots spiral out of control? Is warfare about to get much more destructive?

Battlefield Ukraine

There seems to be hardly a conflict where drones do not make an important contribution. Hamas used drones to attack Israeli positions at the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war. Iran used a drone barrage in its first-ever direct attack on Israel last April. The Houthis use drones to target Western shipping in the Red Sea. But the best example of how essential drones have become in war is in Ukraine.

In February and March of 2022, Russia surrounded Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. Many expected the war would be over in weeks with a Russian victory. But Ukraine pushed back the Russian forces. Unmanned aerial vehicles (uavs) were a big reason why. Like in Libya and Azerbaijan, Baykar played a significant role. The Bayraktar TB2 combat drones were so effective in halting the invasion, that the Ukrainian Army published a song on YouTube glorifying the power of “Bayraktar.”

Baykar’s products are high-tech luxuries in warfare. But very different types of uavs soon became a staple of the conflict, both from Ukraine and Russia. As weeks turned into months and Russia saw it wasn’t going to attain the quick victory it had hoped for, it turned to more efficient munitions to keep the war effort afloat. It purchased uavs from an ally: Iran. Iran’s notorious Shahed-136 uav, or “kamikaze drone,” is a single-use drone meant to explode on impact with a designated target.

What makes the Shahed-136 so desirable is its cost. The Shahed-136 can cost as little as $20,000 to manufacture. Earlier in the year, a hacking group claiming to have access to Iranian government e-mails said that Russia agreed to pay $193,000 per drone if ordered in batches of 6,000. That is still much lower than the millions of dollars it could cost to make a single tank. And Russia has been manufacturing its own versions of the Shahed-136.

Ukraine has learned from the Russian strategy. And its uav program has been cheaper—much cheaper.

Ukraine has resorted to using first-person view (fpv) uavs. fpvs essentially are the same technology in commercial quadcopters available at electronics stores for $100. They are called first-person views because the men remotely controlling them use a small camera attached to the uav for sight. fpvs give their operators similar video feed as if playing a video game.

Military-grade fpvs don’t cost much more to make than their store-bought counterparts. Ukrainian drone company Wave91 states on its website that it costs roughly $350 to make a single-use fpv. A North Atlantic Treaty Organization representative told Foreign Policy in April that over two thirds of Russian tanks destroyed in Ukraine were destroyed by fpvs. One or a handful of drones worth several hundreds of dollars can destroy a tank worth several million.

fpvs have become a mainstay of the Ukrainian Army. In December 2023 alone, Ukraine claimed to have produced 50,000 fpvs. This does not include other types of drones used on the battlefield. Russia has adopted its own use of fpvs against Ukraine. This has led to drone battles in the skies over Ukraine.

fpvs are becoming Ukraine’s weapon of choice. But they’re not the only drone technology Ukraine is using. In September, Ukrainian forces began using “dragon drones” that spray thermite, a liquid incendiary that can burn as hot as 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius). Russian forces soon followed suit with their own model.

Ukraine has also pioneered the use of “sea drones,” or unmanned surface vehicles, in the Black Sea. Ukraine’s sea drones have successfully attacked and even sunk several Russian warships.

One very important way drones have changed war is through artificial intelligence.

Artificially Intelligent

Artificial intelligence and drone technology have worked hand in hand for decades. As far back as 1989, an Israel defense contractor introduced the “Harpy” to the world, a uav that can autonomously hunt down enemy radar installations. The Harpy is still in use today.

The world’s current large-scale conflicts are giving uav manufacturers the ability to test out their new technologies in real-world situations.

The technology for autonomous “swarming”—coordinating flight patterns—has existed for years. But the war in Ukraine has given extra impetus to make the technology optimal and affordable. It’s hard for individuals to remotely control mobs of fpvs without them crashing into each other. Experimental studies of AI swarming technologies on the battlefield are aiming to rectify that.

Swarmer is a company developing software to give uavs large-scale swarming technology. ceo Serhiy Kupriiekno told Reuters, “When you try to scale up [with human pilots], it just doesn’t work. For a swarm of 10 or 20 drones or robots, it’s virtually impossible for humans to manage them.” But according to Kupriienko, AI could manage hundreds at once.

Another issue facing Ukrainian drones is signal jamming. Russia has invested in jamming technology to disconnect drones from their handlers. This has seen the success rate of first-person view uavs drop dramatically. This has led Ukrainian contractors to work on developing fpvs that can lock onto targets through their own sensory equipment. This kind of technology has been around for decades, but mainly for much more expensive and sophisticated uavs. Something as inexpensive and easy to make as fpvs with this kind of technology would transform warfare.

“It already works but it works not so good [as] people,” Oleksii Babenko, ceo of Ukrainian contractor Vyriy Drone, told the Trumpet. “But I think it’s maybe one or two months and it will be similar, and the next-step computer will be better than people.”

It’s not only Ukrainians interested in AI development. Babenko told the Trumpet that many foreign uav companies are using Ukraine as a laboratory to test-run their equipment—some of them without public notice. “In Europe we have some companies that also produce drones, and they want to sell this drone to Ukraine—not only because of money but also because of knowledge. Because if a Ukrainian Army test is drawn and gives them feedback, they can make it better and better,” he said. “If you talk about Chinese developers, they also try to come in Ukraine to study.”

Babenko was speaking about uav technology in general, but AI is definitely a subject of interest. Bild reported that German AI company Helsing was commissioned in December to produce 4,000 uavs for Ukraine.

“Manipulating artificial intelligence is a powerful way to manipulate the minds of the masses,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in our March 2024 Trumpet issue. “It also opens new possibilities in advanced warfare. Whoever understands this technology has a significant advantage in the world. It seems certain that some will exploit the dark side of AI.”

Gift of Prophecy

“I am not stupid, you know,” Linda Hamilton said in the 1984 blockbuster The Terminator. Hamilton’s character was disregarding a warning given by Michael Biehn’s character of a robot hunting her down. “They cannot make things like that yet.” Biehn’s response: “Not yet—not for about 40 years.”

The Terminator is science fiction. But today—about 40 years since the movie came out—some of the film’s plot devices are getting closer and closer to science fact. We don’t have humanoid robot assassins chasing people down, but we do have AI robots staring other robots down in real wars. In a short span of time, it’s almost as if machines have replaced men as the unit of choice in modern warfare.

Where does this leave humanity? Where will technology take warfare in the near future? Will drones become too good at their job?

Technological innovation is speeding along at such an unpredictable rate that it is difficult to be certain. As the Center for International Governance Innovation published on October 3, “Gifts of prophecy are what is required when considering not just the future of drone warfare but the very next phase—tomorrow, next week, next month. Combatants in Ukraine and Gaza and modern militaries around the world, including in Canada, are having the race to acquire the urgent gift of prophecy before the drone undoes them.”

World leaders need this “gift of prophecy” more than they realize. The Trumpet analyzes world events through the lens of Bible prophecy. And the Bible prophesies of a crisis connected to the world’s current conflicts soon to engulf the globe.

Matthew 24:21 prophesies of “great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” Verse 22 continues: “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved …” (“not a soul would be saved alive”—James Moffatt translation). Death of the entire human race wasn’t possible until the invention of modern weapons. Other prophecies, like those in Revelation 13 and 17, show that at the middle of this crisis is a uniting European power. (Request a free copy of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Who or What Is the Prophetic Beast? for more information.)

Revelation 9 details the catastrophic damage this European empire will inflict—and some of the weapons it uses for this purpose. This attack is so horrific the Bible calls it a global “woe.”

“Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth. And to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. … The shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of something like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running into battle. They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails. Their power was to hurt men five months” (verses 3, 7-10; New King James Version).

“In Revelation 9:7-9,” Mr. Flurry wrote in the February 2019 Trumpet issue, “the Apostle John describes some of the weapons of this coming power. John saw these weapons in vision and wasn’t familiar with what he was seeing. He had never seen mechanized vehicles or modern technology. He described what he saw using terms he was familiar with, such as ‘locusts,’ war horses and lions.”

Mr. Flurry has specifically focused on German technological advancement—like what we’re seeing in Ukraine today. Germany is modern Europe’s most powerful country and will be the heart of this “beast.” “Germany’s Luftwaffe is experimenting with drone swarms and investing in artificial intelligence solutions for controlling German drones and destroying enemy drones,” he wrote in March 2024. “Could these locusts [of Revelation] be swarms of various aircraft coordinating their flight patterns through AI?”

John wrote Revelation at the close of the first century a.d. Imagine if somebody from that time saw a vision of a group of these:

This is an MQ-9 Reaper flying over California. Calling it a “locust” like a horse prepared for battle, with a breastplate of iron and a tail of a scorpion, making noise like many chariots could be an apt description.

That doesn’t imply this particular model or any of the models discussed are exactly what John saw. The public likely hasn’t yet glimpsed what these particular weapons are.

But humanity has reached the age when this type of technology exists. Even just a few years back, technology like drones wasn’t as commonplace on the battlefield as it is today. Modern armies are using these kinds of vehicles to the point where they are replacing soldiers. It doesn’t take too much imagination to see vehicles like what John described made with existing technology.

What This Means

The book of Revelation is filled with fantastical symbols. Many over the centuries have speculated about what they represent. Today, we can see the kinds of systems they represent.

That means Revelation’s terrifying prophecies of worldwide calamity are soon to come to pass. “And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them” (Revelation 9:6).

But there is hope. God promises protection for those who faithfully follow and serve Him. “Because you have kept my call to patient endurance, I will keep you safe through the hour of trial which is coming upon the whole world to test the dwellers on earth” (Revelation 3:10; Moffatt). This time of trouble eventually leads to the reality of Revelation 11:15: “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.”

But for those who rebel against Him, God spells out what sore trial awaits them. Revelation 9 specifies the “locusts” will hunt down “those men which have not the seal [‘mark of ownership, protection,’ Amplified Bible] of God …” (verse 4).

In other words, when you see man’s weapons of war start to look like Revelation 9’s locusts, it is time to repent and turn to God.

To learn more, request a free copy of Who or What Is the Prophetic Beast?