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Tuesday, February 18, 2025

HSToday Threat Forecast 2025: Drone Attacks Against Electrical Infrastructure 

The year 2024 saw the growing use of drones in various capacities. Like any technology, drones have evolved to have a dual-use capability for good and bad.  We have seen disturbing videos of drones targeting soldiers on the battlelines in Ukraine, which is changing warfare for fielded forces. We have seen drones provide civilians with lifesaving aid, which is changing relief response to hurricanes and other large disasters. We also have seen mysterious drones flying over cities and facilities of which nobody is taking ownership or explaining their intentions.  Drones will become more common in 2025 and will be used in more nefarious ways.    

What keeps me up at night is how drones can be used to degrade or destroy our electrical infrastructure. If done at the local or regional level, the outcome could have cascading or escalating impacts on other infrastructure sectors, all of which are dependent on electricity to function. As a modern society, the U.S. is heavily dependent on the functioning of its critical infrastructure, especially electricity, which is something we take for granted until we have an outage. Power plants produce electrical power that is stepped up in voltage by transformers to optimize transmission efficiency. The power is then sent long distances along transmission lines, stepped down in voltage by transformers to a more manageable level at distribution sub-stations, and then distributed to homes and businesses for consumption.  All of these transformers, transmission lines, and distribution sub-stations are open to the air above and, thereby, are exploitable by drones in a precision manner.  

Commercial drones today can carry over 20 pounds, and can be modified with inexpensive three-dimensional-printed mechanisms to drop steel wires across transmission lines that will produce faults and cascading redirections of power; to drop homemade thermite devices on transformers to burn through and set fire to their oil-filled cases; and to degrade and damage key distribution sub-station equipment. The loss of electrical equipment causes consumer outages because, at this point, we do not bank electrical power effectively. In fact, the electricity that is powering your computer screen as you read this was created by a generator moments ago in a distant electrical generating plant.   

Another challenge that amplifies the threat of drones against our electrical infrastructure is that the U.S. is very reactionary, in that we are good at closing the barn door after the horse has bolted and disappeared over the hill. There are things that can be done to further harden our electrical infrastructure from drone attacks, but they are not cheap, the electrical power lobbyist will fight them, and, honestly, gaining political support is hard as it makes for a poor stump speech come re-election time. So, here we are: don’t expect much action to remedy the increasing threat of drones to our electrical infrastructure until something bad happens. Then finger pointing will occur, and Congressional hearings will ensue, and many will ask why the barn door was left wide open, assuming, of course, there is electrical power to arrange and holds hearings. So, be ready for the rise of the machine, the drone, in 2025.  

Mitchell Simmons
Mitchell Simmons
Dr. Mitchell E. Simmons, Lieutenant Colonel, United States Air Force (Retired) is the Associate Dean and Program Director in the Anthony G. Oettinger School of Science and Technology Intelligence at the National Intelligence University in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Simmons oversees three departments consisting of five concentrations—Emerging Technologies and Geostrategic Resources; Information & Influence Intelligence; Counterproliferation; Cyber Intelligence; and Data Science Intelligence. He teaches courses in Intelligence Collection, National Security Policy and Intelligence, and Infrastructure Assessment Vulnerability, the latter course being part of a Homeland Security Intelligence Certificate program popular with students from the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. Dr. Simmons has almost 30 years of experience in acquisition, engineering, program management, intelligence, and infrastructure vulnerability assessment within key agencies to include National Reconnaissance Office, Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and multiple tours with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). His technical expertise includes physical and functional vulnerability of critical infrastructure from conventional explosives, nuclear, ground forces, and asymmetric threats. Dr. Simmons’ niche expertise is the exploitation of hard and deeply buried targets and he has personally collected intelligence in dozens of strategic facilities in overseas locations to include South Korea, Norway, Italy, United States, and Iraq. He participated in targeting and weaponeering recommendations for operations Southern Watch, Northern Watch, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom. Dr. Simmons is widely published in the classified and unclassified realm and his products have seen diverse readership, to include the national command authority and combatant commands. He is the author of the definitive DoD manual, published by DTRA entitled “Hard Target Field and Assessment Reference Manual” used to educate and drive intelligence collection of this important target set. He is also the co-author of DIA’s definitive Battle Damage Assessment Handbook and has participated in a study by the National Academic of Sciences, Engineering, and Math, entitled “Assessing the Operational Suitability of DOD Test and Evaluation Ranges and Infrastructure.” Dr. Simmons holds a B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Ohio University, a M.S. from Central Michigan University which focused on human motivation, and a Ph.D. in Engineering Management from The Union Institute and University which focused on human and organization behavior.

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