In the most recent local conflicts, unmanned combat forces have emerged as a rising power and become deeply integrated into combat systems, with their practical application scenarios continuously expanding. Assertions such as "unmanned platforms winning independently," "unmanned combat rewriting the rules of the battlefield," and "unmanned combat forces catalyzing a new round of military revolution" have arisen one after another, treating unmanned combat forces as a disruptive factor reshaping the landscape of warfare. However, history has repeatedly proven that tactical success does not equal strategic advantage, and battlefield innovation does not equal victory in war. No single weapons system or innovation in operational methods can change the fundamental laws governing the conduct of war, still less directly determine the outcome of a war. Today, in dealing with unmanned combat forces, we must adhere to dialectical thinking (辩证思维), follow the fundamental laws of war, proceed from the overall perspective of system-of-systems construction, and scientifically grasp the functional positioning of unmanned combat forces—so as to avoid falling into the cognitive trap of excessive exaggeration and overgeneralization.
From the perspective of the laws governing the offense-defense contest, every iterative upgrade in operational methods is inevitably accompanied by the synchronous evolution of countermeasure systems. The rapid development of unmanned combat forces has compelled the accelerated iteration of counter-unmanned combat capabilities. At present, while countries around the world are developing and fielding intelligent unmanned equipment, they are simultaneously laying out countermeasure technologies and equipment such as electronic jamming, laser interception, low-altitude air defense, and decoy-and-capture, and are accelerating the construction of multi-layered, three-dimensional, hard-and-soft-integrated counter-unmanned combat systems. The detection accuracy, jamming effectiveness, interception efficiency, and large-scale application levels of various counter-unmanned means are improving in step with the intelligentization level, mobile penetration capability, and covert assault performance of unmanned combat forces, making it difficult for unmanned combat forces to establish a one-dimensional, absolute technological generation gap or combat advantage. The waxing and waning, dynamic balancing, and spiraling escalation between unmanned and counter-unmanned combat forces have already become the new normal of battlefield confrontation.
From the perspective of the logic of combat costs, low-cost unmanned equipment does not equal low-cost warfare; the systemic comprehensive cost of unmanned combat far exceeds surface-level perception. People tend to simplistically regard unmanned combat forces as "low-cost munitions," measuring combat costs solely by the price of a single platform, while ignoring the sustained consumption costs of the combat system upon which unmanned operations depend. On the future battlefield, unmanned combat forces will play an increasingly important role. However, relying purely on unmanned combat forces to accomplish all combat tasks is also unrealistic. The true cost of unmanned combat is decidedly not the procurement and maintenance expense of individual unmanned platforms, but rather the systemic comprehensive expenditure required to sustain large-scale, continuous operations across the entire war cycle. The deeper competition in unmanned combat is a contest of a nation's comprehensive strength in long-term industrial manufacturing and supply chain support. Therefore, although the unit-platform cost is relatively low, when viewed across the full cycle of large-scale employment and long-term war attrition, the comprehensive cost of war remains high—and for the vast majority of countries, it remains an unbearably heavy burden.
From the perspective of the positioning within system-of-systems operations, unmanned combat forces are an important extension of the joint operations system-of-systems, not a replacement for traditional combat forces, and cannot win independently without system-of-systems support. The primary cognitive distortion at present is the stripping of unmanned platforms from the complete system that supports their operational employment, and the one-sided amplification of the tactical value of unmanned equipment. In fact, every precise and efficient unmanned combat action is merely the terminal execution point of the entire operational chain, which encompasses front-end intelligence reconnaissance, target identification, communications relay, and precise control, as well as back-end equipment operation and maintenance, spare parts supply, and technical support—and requires integrated linkage, deep coordination, and coupled application with traditional combat forces on the ground, in the air, and elsewhere. Every link in the entire operational chain is interconnected and tightly coupled; a problem at any single link will directly degrade overall combat effectiveness. This demonstrates that unmanned combat forces cannot replace the joint operations system-of-systems of the various services and arms; they function more as a beneficial supplement and force "multiplier" (倍增器) for the overall combat system, capable of releasing combat power and multiplying effectiveness when supported by the system-of-systems.
In summary, the iterative upgrading of unmanned combat forces has enriched and expanded operational methods and paths to victory, but has not changed the fundamental laws and underlying logic of winning wars. Unmanned intelligent technology can propel a leap in combat capabilities and achieve breakthroughs and innovations at the tactical level, but cannot independently dominate the strategic whole or determine the outcome of war—the outcome of war ultimately depends on the contest of comprehensive national power. Therefore, in dealing with unmanned combat forces, we must avoid one-sided and superficial cognitive distortions, establish system-of-systems thinking (体系思维), and adhere to coordinated construction. While tackling key technologies in unmanned combat and cultivating new-type combat forces, we must persist in consolidating the industrial foundation, improving the all-domain support system, and honing the hard skills of joint operations, so as to drive the deep integration of unmanned combat forces with traditional combat systems.