To meet the challenges of drone warfare, the Pentagon’s Joint Interagency Task Force–401 (JIATF 401) has published the 89-page Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Quick Reference Guide, a collection of intelligence and tactics surrounding the use of weaponized and military drones that is also applicable to civilian domestic threats, including church security.
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The guide begins with an overview by Matthew Ross, Brigadier General, US Army, director, Joint Interagency Task Force 401: “The proliferation of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) is changing the character of warfare and creating new challenges at home and abroad. Drones are increasingly capable, accessible, and adaptable, giving state and non-state actors the ability to conduct surveillance, disrupt operations, and deliver lethal effects. The threat is evolving rapidly, and our defenses must evolve with it.”
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Ross continues: “Staying ahead of the threat requires that warfighters, law enforcement, and security mission partners understand the capabilities available to them and learn from the latest operational experience. This Quick Reference Guide is intended to help do that.”
Read and download the complete guide here.
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In its article examining the guide, the magazine RECOIL OFFGRID reports, “Small drones can be used by terrorists, criminal organizations, and lone actors inside the homeland. And that is not a forecast for some far-off day in the future. Cartels already fly them across the southern border. Prisons already intercept them dropping contraband over the wire. Airports already log them fouling approach paths. The tool that redefined the fight in Ukraine costs a few hundred dollars and ships to a doorstep. So the question is not whether civilians will ever stand under a hostile drone, it is whether we will know what to do when we are.”
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The article goes on to say, “For most of history, the ability to see a target from above and put a weapon on it belonged to states with air forces. It now belongs to anyone with a credit card and an afternoon of practice.”
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As a civilian, “you cannot legally shoot a drone down. You cannot jam it, spoof it, or take over its controls. Federal law treats a drone as an aircraft, and knocking one out of the sky can be charged the same way as sabotaging a manned plane under 18 U.S.C. 32. Jamming falls under a separate federal prohibition with no private-use exception.”
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What you can do: call 911. “Note your location. Note the drone’s direction and rough distance. Count them. Describe the airframe: quadcopter or fixed wing, the color, the lights and their pattern, whether it carries anything slung underneath, and what it is doing. A drone loitering over a crowd reads very differently than one transiting overhead, and that description is the difference between a report an officer can act on and a shrug on the other end of the line.”
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“If the same aircraft works your neighborhood at the same hour, or circles the same building twice in a week, write it down and photograph it each time. One drone overhead is a curiosity, a schedule is intelligence, and it is the kind of thing that turns a vague complaint into an investigation. Police who now hold defeat authority still need a reason to use it, and a reason is built from good reporting.”
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Read the complete RECOIL OFFGRID article here.
JIATF 401 has also published the 100-page practical handbook, Small Drones, Big Problems: A First Principles Approach to Countering-UAS, designed to aid military and civilian readers in building a shared understanding of the drone threat and the basic principles of protecting against illicit drones.
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This book calls out the Four Ps of Drone Threats: “To accurately assess the drone threat, and begin thinking of a drone protection plan, it’s helpful to think through four factors—the Person (operator), Platform (drone), Process (control), and Payload (purpose).”
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And the Five Ds of Protecting Against Drones: “Detection (it starts with understanding the threat environment), Denial (taking away what the drone is trying to see, reach, or exploit), Disruption (accepting that a drone may still fly and focusing on making that flight risky or difficult), Defeat (neutralizing the drone threat), and Discipline (the mindset that turns principles into action. Protecting against drones almost always involves ambiguity. Identification may be incomplete. Intent may be unclear. Safety concerns and collateral risk are real. Discipline is the ability to act deliberately under uncertainty).
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Read and download the complete handbook here.
Also see the US Department of War’s Drone Dominance Spotlight site.
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