SecWar's Speech
by Benjamin Cook
When Secretary of Defense turned Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stood at Quantico and declared that the U.S. military’s only goal is to prepare for war and to prepare to win, the headline sounded simple. But listen closely to what he actually said. He called for “more drones, more Patriots, more innovation, more AI in everything and be ahead of the curve, more cyber effects, more counter UAS… more speed.”
Strip away the rhetoric and what emerges is a shopping list—drones, counter-drone, AI, cyber, magazine depth, speed of adaptation. And right now, there is only one place on the planet where all of those elements are being tested in live combat, at scale, against a near-peer adversary.
If only there was a battle lab somewhere — somewhere the U.S. could learn the lessons of near-peer battle at the speed of war, not the speed of training. If only the U.S. had an ally that has the training data necessary for AI to be effective. If only this ally had a robust cyber and counter-cyber capability. It would also be nice if this ally had a robust HUMINT network inside one of the two prime U.S. adversaries. If this ally also had skills and experience building out a distributed network of defense production near the front lines and a feedback system that improved warfighting capabilities in days and weeks, not months and years. If only this ally existed….
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The World’s Only True Battle Lab
The U.S. military runs training exercises, wargames, and red-team simulations. They matter. But none of them replicate a war of attrition against a nuclear power employing mass drone attacks, advanced EW, layered air defenses, and hybrid cyber operations. Ukraine faces this every single day.
Ukraine has already built what Hegseth is describing:
● Drone innovation at scale. First-person-view drones, long-range strike UAVs, sea drones, and kamikaze quadcopters are being deployed, tested, lost, redesigned, and redeployed in cycles of weeks—not years. At scale, on budget.
● Counter-UAS measures. Everything from handheld EW generators to AI-driven detection systems are in use. No other military has such practical experience facing 700-plus drone attacks.● AI integration. Target recognition, automated strike coordination, battlefield damage assessment, and ISR are being tied together with AI at the tactical edge. This is exactly what the U.S. claims it needs, but Ukraine already does it.
● Cyber and counter-cyber. Ukrainian and Russian networks have been in an invisible but relentless struggle since 2014. Ukraine has honed cyber resilience under constant assault.
● HUMINT inside Russia. Ukraine maintains networks inside its adversary that feed operational and strategic intelligence. Few allies can offer that. When China turns to Russia for innovation, this network will be invaluable.
● Distributed wartime production. Instead of waiting for giant factories to spool up, Ukraine disperses manufacturing close to the front. Micro-production, rapid iteration, and immediate battlefield feedback have cut development cycles from years to weeks. Building exquisite systems in Tucson Arizona for battle in the Strait of Taiwan isn’t sustainable.
In other words, 90 percent of Hegseth’s wish-list already exists - in Ukraine.
Why Doesn’t the Pentagon Contract With Ukraine?
That raises the obvious question: why don’t we hear more about the Pentagon contracting directly with Ukraine to plug into this ecosystem? Why isn’t the U.S. embedding more engineers, coders, and operators into Ukrainian systems to learn in real time? Why no public apology and an admission that Ukraine has the “cards” that the US needs.
The answer is uncomfortable. The U.S. Department of Defense/War and White House still don’t fully understand the fight it is walking into. American generals talk about magazine depth and high-end interceptors, but they haven’t absorbed the lesson Ukraine has learned the hard way: you cannot shoot down $30,000 drones with $2 million missiles and expect to win. The cost to operate the F-35 makes it too expensive to deploy for every combat need. You can’t shoot down “Shaheds” with F-35s. That’s how you lose a war.
If the U.S. tries to defend the Philippines or Taiwan by launching Patriots and F-35s at every inbound swarm, China will happily fight for 20 years. That is their theory of victory. A long war of attrition where America bleeds money and loses patience, while Beijing sits back and waits for U.S. domestic politics to deliver the surrender note. Also, if you think Putin doesn’t care about more than 1 million Russian dead and wounded, wait till you see Xi. He will spend 10 times that before China admits defeat.
China’s Playbook: Attrition and Politics
Beijing doesn’t need to win a short, decisive war. It just needs to survive one. If Washington fights the wrong fight—matching expensive interceptors to cheap drones—China can afford to wait.
Every “Shahed-style” drone launched is more than a munition. It is a strategy. It forces the defender into an asymmetric exchange rate. Shoot $500,000 here, $2 million there, over and over again, until the balance sheet itself becomes a weapon. Add in cyber pressure, maritime harassment, and disinformation campaigns aimed squarely at U.S. voters, and Beijing can aim to win in Congress and on cable news rather than in the Taiwan Strait.
What the U.S. Needs From Ukraine
This is why Ukraine matters to America’s future wars. Ukraine is the only ally that has the training data to make AI work in real combat. The only ally that has had to adapt faster than its enemy under constant fire. The only ally that has turned innovation into mass at the speed of war.
Instead of treating Ukraine as a charity case, Washington should treat it as the indispensable battle lab for America’s survival in a great-power conflict. Every drone flight, every EW clash, every cyber probe, every Patriot failure is knowledge that the U.S. military will desperately need when the Pacific lights up.
And Ukraine is willing. It has already shown it will iterate, share, and adapt in ways that Western bureaucracies cannot. What is missing is the recognition in Washington that learning at “the speed of training” is too slow. The speed of war is faster, uglier, and far less forgiving.
The Choice Ahead
Hegseth is right to call for more drones, more AI, more counter-UAS, more speed. But the U.S. doesn’t need to reinvent all of it. Much of it is already built, proven, and blood-tested in Ukraine.
If Washington is serious about defeating China, not just deterring it, then it must absorb those lessons now (the opportunity to deter China was killed by Biden, Milley, and Sullivan when they opted not to defeat Russia in the early months of the war). Mass and innovation must cost less, not more, than what China spends. Otherwise, Beijing will simply wait out the American public and win a war in the South China Sea without ever needing to defeat the U.S. Navy head-on.
Ukraine offers a path out of that trap. The only question is whether the Pentagon and White House see it in time.
Benjamin Cook continues to travel to, often lives in, and works in Ukraine, a connection spanning more than 14 years. He holds an MA in International Security and Conflict Studies from Dublin City University and has consulted with journalists and intelligence professionals on AI in drones, U.S. military technology, and open-source intelligence (OSINT) related to the war in Ukraine. He is co-founder of the nonprofit UAO, working in southern Ukraine. You can find Mr. Cook between Odesa, Ukraine; Charleston, South Carolina; and Tucson, Arizona.
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Ryan Mcbeth does a good job addressing other points: https://substack.com/home/post/p-175079518
Channeling Tom a bit ;) Why should the U.S. team up with Ukraine when the enemy fires back with the same weapons you fire at them? That's not for us. Better to team up with Israel where you can test your weapons from the safety of some office in Tel Aviv.
You figure out how to bring down one apartment building in Gaza that's the same building in Ukraine? A building is a building. Why make it more complicated and dangerous?
Also, the Western defense industry has LONG AGO castrated the military's power in getting the weapons it wants. Hegseth is unconsciously (he's not smart) setting up the military to be blamed when it MUST put boots on the ground. "We told them to get more drones." It's the same everywhere, Russia, the U.S. and now even Ukraine is getting into the game with its defense industry export business.
Why would you make and export a single weapon in an existential war? Anyway Ben, my prediction for a long time is the U.S. is going to the pay the price for all you'v explained.
Oh, you aren't understanding the tone of the speech - it's more money for contractors, not for the DoW to improve itself. The shopping list is about the usual suspects like LokMart, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, etc.. who expect loads of money for providing these things (maybe using Ukrainian companies as subcontractors, if they aren't too greedy)
And these contractors are (quite coincidentally, I tell you - honest!) major contributors in election campaigns, as far as I know. Yes, that's a coincidence. Really.