Non-Kinetic Counter-UAS with High Power Microwave: Technology, Actors and European Strategic Autonomy

This source-linked analytical note situates Non-Kinetic Counter-UAS with High Power Microwave within the European pursuit of strategic autonomy, where relevance follows from alignment with recognised priorities rather than the technology alone. The accelerating proliferation of unmanned aerial systems, from inexpensive quadcopters to increasingly coordinated autonomous swarms, has reshaped the economics and the operational demands of air defence. Conflicts in multiple theatres have demonstrated how saturation attacks by large numbers of low-cost drones can overwhelm traditional kinetic interceptors, creating an unsustainable disparity between the price of the threat and the price required to neutralise it. As defenders confront thousands of UAS sorties within compressed time horizons, the limitations of one-to-one, magazine-dependent systems become more acute, prompting a shift toward solutions that can address both volume and cost asymmetry. Why this capability becomes strategically and financially relevant is developed in full in the original DFM publication on DFM Analysis.