The Drone Paradox in Extended Deterrence: How Loitering Munitions Alter Patron Credibility

Haynes (2024) shows that arms transfers can either entrap a patron or make deterrent threats less credible by diminishing the patron’s marginal contribution to a joint fight. Meanwhile, suicide drones/loitering munitions are transforming battlefield dynamics (Nabangala & Gesora, 2025), and Aria (2024) argues that emerging technologies complicate strategic stability. This project formalizes the “drone paradox”: when clients receive cheap precision strike capabilities, they become more self-reliant operationally, but the patron’s incremental value in combat declines, making its threats to intervene (or escalate) less credible to the adversary. We build a new formal model incorporating (a) client autonomous strike capacity, (b) attribution/accident risks in proxy use, and (c) the patron’s audience costs. Then we compile a dataset of loitering-munition transfers, training programs, and operational use (e.g., Ukraine, Israel–Hezbollah/Hamas incidents) and estimate hazard models of deterrence breakdown and crisis escalation. Novelty lies in merging technology-specific capability diffusion with the credibility logic of extended deterrence. Results would refine guidance on which combinations of autonomous capabilities, training, and signaling maintain deterrent credibility without entrapment—critical for current policy on equipping partners under nuclear backstops.

References:

1. Reassessing Nuclear Deterrence: Impacts on Global Security and International Relations. Nawid Aria (2024). Kunduz University International Journal of Islamic Studies and Social Sciences.
2. Arms Transfers and Extended Deterrence. Kyle Haynes (2024). Journal of Politics.
3. The Influence of Suicide Drones on the Nature of Modern Warfare. Luke Nandasava Nabangala Nabangala, Daglous Ogwaya Gesora Gesora (2025). National Security.