The war of the future: military “birds” preparing Germany for drone combat

Founded at the end of 2025, the “Pájaros Group” is led by General Staff Colonel Alfred Grethe, who described his unit to EFE as an “advisory cell” for an Army that rearms and adapts to threats like that of Russia.

In his office at the German Armed Forces military base in Strausberg, a city in the federal state of Brandenburg, northeast of Berlin, Grethe said his team, made up of five soldiers, is an “innovation accelerator” dedicated to “collect and analyze the ideas of the troops” and “link them with the future development of the Army.”

For him, drones, both aerial and ground, play a fundamental role. “They are the core of our work,” he explained.

On her table, Grethe pointed to a military document that explains how 21st century battles unfold: own and enemy troops operate in invisible defensive bubbles, created by system layers ranging from classic means of anti-aircraft defense to drones and other electronic warfare equipment.

Ultimately, The objective is to break the enemy bubbletemporarily neutralizing it or destroying it, in order to carry out mobile military operations and prevail.

To protect one’s own forces and attack those of the enemy, Both drones and anti-drone defense and “deep integration” are decisive of these systems “in all units and command levels of the Army,” according to Grethe.

In order to satisfy these needs, Grethe and her team are in contact with the defense industry, with whose actors they cooperate to convey what the German Armed Forces need.

“Germany has many startups that are at the technological forefront and have nothing to envy other products on the market,” he explained, referring to companies with “a great willingness to innovate and cooperate.”

“They listen to us as users, they allow us to put specific requirements to them and they learn from this within the framework of test campaigns of all kinds in which the systems have been used; in addition, their innovation and learning cycles are very fast,” added Grethe.

At a time when, in the defensive war that Ukraine is waging against Russia, Advances in drones occur in a matter of weeksfirms such as the German producer of unmanned aerial systems Dronivo, founded and directed by the Chilean Ivo Simon, gain prominence.

“Germany has done very well in saying: ‘we know that we cannot define and we do not know what we are going to need in the year 2029, but we can use current technology to train our soldiers, train our processes with existing technology and accompany the process,'” Simon told EFE.

“The year 2029 is when we are told we have to be ready for potential conflict. We are accompanying this process,” added Simón, whose company sells thousands of drones for military training use to several NATO member countries, including the United States, Germany and Switzerland.

Despite its push – Dronivo entered in 2025 on the list of the 100 fastest growing firms in Europe prepared by the British newspaper Financial Times – and the innovative intentions of the “Pájaros Group”, Germany blames the delay with which it began to integrate drones into its Army, Emil Archambault, defense expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), told EFE.

In Germany, in terms of drones, “there is an attempt to advance rapidly, both in acquisition and in the development of tactical and strategic concepts,” according to Archambault.

But “the initial delay continues to weigh” and “the country is not yet fully prepared to operate these systems effectively,” this expert argued.

In this sense, Grethe recognized that among the challenges that his team and the German Armed Forces must face are the acceleration of innovation processes, adaptation to rapid technological cycles, reducing dependence on China with regard to drone components, as well as strengthening sovereignty in Europe by manufacturing these systems on European territory.