Drones vs democracy

Why does democracy exist? The answer most people give involves Enlightenment philosophers, constitutional conventions, the long march of human rights. But there’s a simpler explanation, one that political economists have been formalizing for decades: democracy exists because the math of violence favored it.

Throughout history, rulers faced one absolute constraint. If enough people wanted them gone, they were gone. No army could stop a determined majority. The weapons were too simple, the numbers too large.

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson won the Nobel Prize in 2024 for formalizing this insight: democracy emerges when the costs of repression exceed the costs of sharing power, and when citizens can credibly threaten revolution. Throughout history, that credibility came from physics.

Mohammed bin Salman has often framed his “Saudi Vision 2030” not just as an economic shift, but as a survival necessity to meet the demands of a young, restless population. He is aware that the social contract in Saudi Arabia is shifting from state handouts to quality of life and economic opportunity.

Then I started thinking about drones.

Ukraine is producing 4 million drones per year. A single $500 FPV drone destroyed a Russian helicopter worth $10 million. The Pentagon recently presented Swarm Forge: a single operator striking three targets simultaneously with three attack drones. L3Harris is developing systems where one human monitors swarms of autonomous weapons. The ratio is shifting. From 1:1 to 1:10 to 1:100.

The math that made democracy possible was straightforward: 1000 armed citizens could overwhelm 100 soldiers. But what happens when 100 operators deploy 10k, 10m, 100m autonomous drones? For the first time in the history of humanity, the majority will eventually loose.

I have no answer to this. I don’t know if it’s preventable. Maybe democracy was always a temporary equilibrium, and we’re experiencing a very specific technology window.