Following recent sightings of drones operating illegally near airports and military installations, both politics and security authorities are seeking ways to regain control of the situation. One such measure is the draft of the „Second Law to Amend the Aviation Security Act“ presented by Federal Minister of the Interior Alexander Dobrindt, which was approved today by the Federal Cabinet. However, this only addresses a symptom at best. The fundamental problem will not be resolved even with the deployment of the Bundeswehr on the domestic front.

The good news first: It has reached the highest levels of government that immediate action is necessary when illegal drones are sighted, particularly when measures must be taken to protect critical infrastructure or the public.

Previously, both the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of the Interior had to agree to a domestic deployment of the Bundeswehr as part of official assistance; in the case of drone defense, only Boris Pistorius’s ministry will need to give its consent. So far, so reasonable.

However, this pragmatism cannot hide the fact that politics is still only scratching the surface. While it may be sensible and appropriate for the Bundeswehr to use weapons or other means against unmanned aerial vehicles in acute threat situations to prevent a particularly severe accident, the practicality of this approach remains questionable. Even the shortest decision-making processes can hardly prevent significant delays between the sighting of a drone, the issuance of deployment orders, and the commencement of technical or even physical countermeasures by the Bundeswehr. Time that simply may not be available in a real emergency.

With executive measures such as amending the Bavarian Police Act, revising the Federal Police Act, or the …