MILITARY INTEL: Drone Proliferation and Asymmetric Warfare Evolution Over 130 nations now possess military drones, compared to fewer than 20 in 2005—a 550% increase in two decades. This democratization of aerial capability has fundamentally inverted traditional military advantages; the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict demonstrated how mid-tier operators using Turkish TB2 drones neutralized Soviet-era armor that once dominated battlefields. The shift matters because air superiority—historically the decisive factor requiring massive industrial capacity—is now achievable at 1/100th the cost of fighter jets, enabling smaller powers to challenge larger ones and non-state actors to conduct sustained operations. This reshapes global power dynamics: nations previously unable to project power beyond their borders now conduct effective strikes, while traditional military hierarchies based on industrial capacity become increasingly irrelevant.