DECODING: Autonomous drones — Turkey, Iran and China are closing the gap on America

Introduction: The autonomous drone revolution is redrawing the global military map

A $55-billion market that is drawing everyone in

The global military drone sector is undergoing an unprecedented structural transformation. The most conservative projections place the market at $55 billion by 2032, with a compound annual growth rate exceeding 30% for fully autonomous systems. More optimistic analyses suggest a market approaching $90 billion by the end of the decade. This technological windfall no longer benefits the United States exclusively. Turkey, Iran, and China have reduced — sometimes dramatically — the American technological lead, and continue to do so at a pace that is alarming Pentagon strategists.

The Pentagon's 2027 budget allocates more than $54 billion to its autonomous warfare group (Defense Autonomous Warfare Group), according to data from BriefGlance. This is America's response to an uncomfortable reality: the United States is no longer the only power that masters combat drones. And in certain segments — low-cost kamikaze drones, coordinated swarms, saturation drones — they may have already lost their primacy.

The Ukrainian lesson that changed everything

The war in Ukraine has served as a global laboratory for military drone technologies. Every producing nation has tested, observed, and adapted. The demonstration that relatively cheap drones could paralyse refineries, close airports, and disrupt major logistical lines at scale accelerated the race for autonomous capabilities everywhere. According to Business Insider (June 25, 2026), the next generations of drones like the Shahed are already choosing their own targets using artificial intelligence — an evolution that Ukrainian engineers and their Russian adversaries have already incorporated into their doctrines.

Turkey: from consumer to global exporter

Baykar and the Turkish drone empire

The trajectory of Baykar Makina is one of the decade's most spectacular industrial success stories. In 2016, Turkish defence exports totalled $1.67 billion. In 2026, they are expected to exceed $11 billion. The engine of this growth? The Bayraktar TB2, made famous in Ukraine, Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh — and now sold in more than 50 countries. Then came the TB3, capable of operating from short-runway carriers: it became the first drone to take off and land from a short-runway ship in November 2024, with more than 100 naval sorties completed by June 2025.

The push into higher-end capabilities continues with the Bayraktar Kizilelma, a stealthy jet-powered combat drone that secured its first export contract with Indonesia in May 2026 — breaking into the high-end combat aviation segment previously dominated by the United States and China. Meanwhile, Turkey is now offering the LHD-230, a versatile amphibious ship capable of serving as a naval drone carrier for the TB3, for export. Italy is reportedly considering the acquisition of TB3s for its aircraft carrier Cavour via the LBA Systems joint venture between Leonardo and Baykar.

Export networks in Africa and the Middle East

Turkey has built an impressive African drone export network: Angola, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Togo, and Tunisia have all acquired Baykar drones. In April 2026, Turkey signed an on-site military training protocol with Niger. In the Middle East, Gulf monarchies are eyeing Turkish offerings with keen interest. Turkey has become a low-cost security exporter, offering an alternative to American platforms — subject to export restrictions tied to human rights — and to Chinese platforms, which raise concerns about data collection.

Iran: from copy to dangerous original

The Shahed as a technological evolution platform

Iran began its military drone programme by copying and adapting foreign technologies. Today, the Shahed-136 — supplied to Russia in the hundreds for its strikes on Ukraine — has become a global benchmark in the category of low-cost saturation kamikaze drones. In June 2026, Army Recognition reported the deployment of the electric Shahed-101, a silent version designed for "silent saturation attacks" against Gulf states. The switch to electric propulsion makes these systems stealthier and harder to detect.

Even more alarming: the growing integration of artificial intelligence into Iranian systems. According to Business Insider, the evolution of Shaheds into systems that "choose their own targets" is now a documented reality on the Ukrainian battlefield. This evolution toward autonomous decision-making raises fundamental ethical and legal questions — and a genuine strategic concern for Gulf states facing this threat at close range.

Iran as a technology supplier to its proxies

One of Iran's most effective strategies is transferring drone technologies to its proxies. Houthis in Yemen use Iranian-origin aerial and maritime drones to target commercial vessels in the Red Sea. This asymmetric technology transfer allows small non-state forces to challenge tier-one navies. The cost to Iran is minimal, the geopolitical impact maximal. This logic — cheap technology, major strategic impact — is precisely what Turkey and China have also understood.

China: the ambition for global drone segment domination

Wing Loong and Caihong: conquering emerging markets

China has adopted an aggressive commercial strategy in the global military drone market. The Wing Loong (翼龙) from CAIG and the Caihong (CH) from CASC are present in more than 15 countries, primarily in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. In March 2026, the China Aviation Industry Corporation signed a $5-billion deal with Saudi Arabia to build a Wing Loong-3 assembly line in Jeddah, with a production capacity of 48 aircraft per year. This industrial offshoring to client countries is a market penetration strategy that goes far deeper than simple equipment sales.

The Wing Loong X, unveiled at the World Defense Show 2026, is positioned as an autonomous anti-submarine warfare naval drone. If this capability is exported, it would shift the balance of maritime surveillance across entire regions. China is no longer content with selling surveillance drones — it is now offering autonomous naval combat systems, a segment where the United States believed it held the lead.

The commercial technology war with the United States

The Sino-American rivalry in the military drone sector is not played out only on battlefields — it is fought across export control lists and sanctions. On June 22, 2026, China added 10 American companies to its dual-use export control list, including drone manufacturers Teal Drones, Jaia Robotics, and rare earth suppliers. Washington hit back by expanding its sector blacklist. This commercial technology war — in which control of rare earths (essential for drone manufacturing) plays a central role — is a battle for industrial dominance in the coming decade.

America's lead: real but diminished

What the United States still has as an advantage

It would be wrong to say the United States has lost its leadership. In the most sophisticated segments — stealthy high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) drones like the RQ-4 Global Hawk, stealthy combat drones like the enhanced MQ-9 Reaper or the forthcoming MQ-X — the American lead remains significant. The $54-billion allocation to the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group in the 2027 budget represents an investment that neither Turkey, nor Iran, nor even China can match in the short term.

The United States also maintains a lead in sensors, secure communications, electronic countermeasures, and autonomous targeting algorithms. But the question is no longer whether America is ahead — it is whether its competitive advantage is shrinking too fast to be maintained against three actors simultaneously converging on the same capabilities.

Proliferation as a systemic threat

The real risk is not that a Chinese or Iranian drone is technically equal to an American one — it is that the proliferation of combat drones across dozens of countries creates a qualitatively different global security environment. When Houthis, Iraqi militias, armed African groups possess long-range precision strike capabilities, conventional security guarantees weaken. The threat is no longer only from powerful states — it is from non-state actors armed with autonomous drones capable of striking anywhere.

Ukraine as the global combat drone laboratory

Innovations redefining military doctrines

Nowhere else in the world are combat drones tested, improved, and deployed at the scale seen in Ukraine. Since 2022, this conflict has become the world's greatest military laboratory for drones. Ukrainian engineers — often young entrepreneurs with no formal military background — designed FPV (First Person View) drones for under $500 a unit capable of destroying tanks worth several million dollars. These innovations emerge in weeks, not years — a development pace incompatible with traditional military acquisition cycles.

Ukraine formalised these innovation networks with the Army of Drones programme, launched by Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. This programme allows direct purchases of drones from Ukrainian start-ups, bypassing the usual bureaucratic military procurement processes. The result: iteration cycles of a few weeks, testing under real combat conditions, and rapid adoption of the best solutions. Countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and France are sending military delegations to observe these practices — and considering how to adapt these accelerated innovation models to their own more rigid acquisition systems.

The emerging counter-drone market: a neglected strategic opportunity

Demand exploding in the face of multiplying threats

Faced with the proliferation of combat drones, a closely related market segment is growing even faster: counter-drone systems (C-UAS). The war in Ukraine demonstrated that the ability to intercept, jam, or destroy adversary drones is as important as offensive capability. Ukraine produced 100,000 interceptor drones in 2025 and doubled that number in four months in 2026, according to minister Fedorov. These interceptors represent an exploding market: dozens of countries are seeking C-UAS capabilities to counter increasingly sophisticated drone threats.

Lithuania is developing its own autonomous interceptor. Turkey exports its KARGU and ALPAGU systems — autonomous loitering munitions — in 15 countries across four continents. South Korea is investing heavily in detection and neutralisation systems to counter the North Korean threat. And the United States and Europe are seeking to develop laser and microwave systems capable of neutralising entire swarms at low cost. This C-UAS segment alone could represent several billion dollars of market by 2030.

Artificial intelligence as the next technological threshold in drones

From remote control to autonomous decision

The next technological threshold in drone warfare is full autonomous decision-making: a drone that identifies its targets, decides to attack them, and executes the strike without human intervention. This capability is already partially deployed in the most recent versions of Iranian Shahed kamikaze drones, according to Business Insider. It is under development in American, Chinese, and Turkish programmes. The integration of AI into weapons systems raises fundamental ethical and legal questions that are unresolved in international humanitarian law.

The question of human control — the ability of a human being to decide to kill or not to kill — is at the heart of debates at the UN on "lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS)." China is developing these capabilities while participating in UN debates — a way of shaping international norms from within to minimise constraints on its own programmes. The United States officially maintains the principle of "meaningful human judgment" in lethal decisions — but the operational requirements of swarm warfare could make this principle difficult to maintain in practice.

Conclusion: The new geography of military power

What this revolution changes in global balances

The democratisation of autonomous military drones is irreversibly redistributing global military power. States like Turkey, which lacked the means for sophisticated combat aviation, can now project power across multiple theatres simultaneously. Non-state actors backed by Iran can threaten global maritime trade. China converts drone sales into lasting geopolitical influence.

The response that is needed

Faced with this reality, the West must accelerate its own development of counter-drone measures, autonomous defence systems, and above all, international regulation of fully autonomous weapons systems. The window of opportunity to establish norms is closing — every month of inaction is an opportunity for irresponsible actors to consolidate a reality that is difficult to undo.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency box

My sources and their limits

This decoding draws on public sources including BriefGlance, Army Recognition, Brookings Institution, Business Insider, AeroTime, Modern Ghana, WION, Anadolu Agency, and analyses from the Lieber Institute at West Point. The market projections cited come from industrial analysis firms whose methodologies are not all externally verifiable — I cite them as indicative orders of magnitude, not absolute truths.

What I don't know

I do not have access to classified data on American, Turkish, Iranian, or Chinese military drone programmes. The autonomous decision-making capabilities of the most recent drones are not fully disclosed publicly. My estimates of the comparative technological state of national programmes carry a significant margin of uncertainty.

Sources

Primary sources

BriefGlance — The New Arms Race: Autonomous Drones Fuel a $55B Defense Revolution — June 22, 2026

Army Recognition — Iran deploys electric Shahed-101 kamikaze drones for silent saturation attacks — June 22, 2026

Business Insider — Next evolution of attack drones like Shaheds will see AI choosing their own targets — June 25, 2026

Brookings Institution — Turkey, Italy, and Europe's defense-industrial future — June 25, 2026

Secondary sources

Modern Diplomacy Briefing — Why the Iran War Made Turkey the Gulf's Most Valuable Defense Partner — June 25, 2026

Army Recognition — China Positions Wing Loong X Drone as Autonomous ASW Platform — 2026