Do I make too much of NATO forces being behind the 8 ball on drone warfare? If so, it's because 'armchair experts' (as one commenter called me) can apparently see what legacy military leaders can't or won't ie the bleeding obvious. So here is an article from a couple of 'real experts' on exactly this topic!
HOW TO LOSE THE DRONE WAR: American Military Doctrine Is Stifling Innovation
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united.../how-lose-drone-war
In case you hit a paywall, here are the main points:
- A decade ago, the U.S. led global drone innovation—Predators, Reapers etc.
- Now it’s **losing its edge**: emerging rivals are mass-producing smaller, cheaper drones at scale that outperform legacy systems
- U.S. military doctrine is stuck in **expensive hardware mind-set**, hindering adaptation to new drone realities
- **Ukraine, Russia, and Israel** are advancing faster, leveraging low-cost swarms and tactical innovations that outperform U.S. platforms
- Rather than investing in high-end drones, the U.S. needs to adopt a **doctrine supporting mass-produced, scalable drone architecture**, and speed decision cycles
- Innovation is being stifled by procurement bureaucracy and service cultures that favor legacy mega‑systems over adaptive drone tactics
- Unless the U.S. reorganizes doctrine, training, and acquisition, it will remain **strategically outpaced** in the emerging drone-centric battlespace
This week I listened to another US Army 'warfare innovation' expert talk about how their goal 'should not be to put a drone in the hands of every soldier.' NO. That is exactly what the goal SHOULD be! It was exactly like listening to a French general pre WW1 saying 'our armies do not need machine guns' or a Polish general pre WW2 'cavalry will outmaneuver tanks every time' or the British RAF wing commander saying 'we won't need fighter planes if we just build faster bombers' or .... (insert your 'hindsight is 20-20' quote in a comment below...)
Yes, I will keep returning to this topic, because the lack of attention to it is not just from military leaders, but also political. Where AI and drones intersect, policy and international law is needed or the end result will be - slaughterbots .
#drone #drones #dronewarfare #dronestagram #dronephotography #dronestrike #modernwarfare #militarydrones #fpv #usarmy