Dr. Michael J. Boyle and Dr. Wojtek Wolfe, in their article Diplomatic Drones? How States Exploit Drone Exports for Leverage (European Journal of International Security, 2026), examine how states design their drone export strategies to build political and military leverage with buyers. Rather than treating drone sales as standalone commercial events, the authors argue that exporters use calculated combinations of lures and risk-mitigation techniques to deepen dependence and expand influence over recipient states. Their core claim is that states use drone exports as a “linchpin to intensify the relationship that they have with the buyer” through follow-on sales and cooperation agreements.
The article draws on SIPRI’s classification of arms exporters, sorting sellers into three categories: hegemonic, industrial, and restrictive. Hegemonic exporters seek to build or maintain geopolitical influence by bundling drone sales with electronic warfare packages, counter-drone systems, training agreements, and joint ventures, all designed to deepen dependence and raise the costs of switching to alternative suppliers. Industrial exporters are profit-driven, chasing commercial access and sales volume rather than strategic influence. Restrictive exporters sell narrowly to close allies, conditioning exports on preserving regional stability and offering few inducements. Boyle and Wolfe build on this framework by specifying how each category operates, borrowing from marketing literature on oligopolistic markets to identify bundling, lock-ins, and predatory pricing as the core tools of leverage.
The empirical section of the article introduces newly collected data on 275 military drone transactions between 2001 and 2023, covering the five dominant suppliers: the United States, Israel, China, Turkey, and Iran. For each sale, the authors tracked whether follow-on sales of related military technology or cooperative defence arrangements occurred within three years across seven categories: radar, manned aircraft, electronic warfare packages, counter-drone systems, training agreements, joint operations, and joint investment deals.
The findings reveal sharp differences among exporters. Turkey bundled electronic warfare packages with 83 per cent of its drone sales and sold counter-drone systems to every country that purchased its drones. China paired counter-drone systems with over 85 per cent of its sales. Both also offered training, joint production, and related cooperation arrangements to consolidate positions in the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia. Iran, limited by a small buyer pool, pursued joint operations with a notable share of its clients. China and Turkey, and to a lesser extent Iran, behave as hegemonic exporters competing for regional influence. Israel fits the industrial model, leading all exporters in joint investment agreements while offering almost no training or joint operations. The United States, despite its technological superiority, operates as a restrictive exporter, selling overwhelmingly to NATO allies and offering few cooperative arrangements beyond radar and manned aircraft.
To trace mechanisms more closely, the authors present a paired comparison of China and Turkey competing for leverage in Pakistan. China used predatory pricing with deep discounts on Wing Loong drones and set up joint production zones. Turkey countered with Bayraktar TB2 and Akinci drones at competitive prices, paired with training and interoperability requirements that tied Pakistan into its ecosystem. Both managed principal-agent risks differently: China and Turkey are described as managing principal-agent risks through technical and operational controls, including interoperability constraints and system-level safeguards.
The article advances three conclusions. First, drone exporters do not behave uniformly; their strategies align with distinct hegemonic, industrial, or restrictive orientations. Second, hegemonic exporters like China and Turkey use bundling, lock-ins, and predatory pricing to expand military influence while investing in risk-mitigation to avoid entanglement in their buyers’ conflicts. Third, the United States has lost relative market share by maintaining a restrictive posture, reflecting both MTCR compliance and deliberate political caution across administrations.
The article concludes that the future of drone diplomacy hinges on whether the market diversifies. A relaxation of US export controls or the emergence of additional suppliers could reshape competition and erode the leverage that current hegemonic exporters have built.