04-07-2022, 06:36 PM
There is really nothing that can be done to prevent a Ukrainian from transferring a Switchblade drone to a third party who will pay very well for it. It is just a risk that we take when we hand out such things. The training manuals are also valuable. There may be (I have no idea, I am conjecturing here) some kind of crypto update that has to be performed periodically or they quit working. That might mean that in six months they don't work any more, but the real danger is the knowledge to be gained by reverse engineering them.
Things like the Javelin have been in Russian hands for so long it is old news. We have to consider anything we deploy in the field as probably compromised. It is just real life. Obviously, it flows the other way too. The "interesting" Russian gear ends up in US labs quite quickly as well. The control unit for their battlefield ESM/EA system controller probably has been at NSA for several weeks by now, unless we already had one. Certainly that hypersonic missile that supposedly failed and crashed in Ukraine is by now being exploited for all it's worth.
Things like the Javelin have been in Russian hands for so long it is old news. We have to consider anything we deploy in the field as probably compromised. It is just real life. Obviously, it flows the other way too. The "interesting" Russian gear ends up in US labs quite quickly as well. The control unit for their battlefield ESM/EA system controller probably has been at NSA for several weeks by now, unless we already had one. Certainly that hypersonic missile that supposedly failed and crashed in Ukraine is by now being exploited for all it's worth.