Unready and Unarmed: The U.S. Military's Drone Deficiency
by Benjamin Cook
The United States is at risk of losing its most valuable real-world combat laboratory—Ukraine—to European defense manufacturers and ministries of defense. While Ukraine continues to innovate with small, cheap drones (SCDs) on the battlefield, the US is stuck in Counter Insurgency mode. If the U.S. doesn't act with urgency, it risks not only falling behind but also losing critical insights and influence in shaping the future of warfare. Current US foreign policy seems shockingly ignorant to this eventuality.
The U.S. is already lagging in understanding how to manufacture and deploy SCDs. To the U.S., a small cheap drone costs $4,000. To Ukraine, it's $500.
Recently, I watched a panel discussion by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Several participants lamented the U.S.'s lack of urgency and the Department of Defense's (DoD) resistance to change. (Retired USMC Colonel Mark Cancian, Senior Expert at CSIS, Professor at Johns Hopkins University, Lieutenant General David Barno, USA (Ret.), Dr. Ben Connable)
COIN Operations vs. Modern Combat (Start 19:56, End 21:18)
For several decades, the U.S. military was built for Counter Insurgency (COIN) operations. The U.S. enjoyed total air dominance and never had to worry about SCDs. Now, Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO) with near-peer adversaries are a real threat. The inertia of a vast DoD with millions of moving parts is difficult to overcome.
The U.S. is clearly not ready for a war with China, or possibly even a conflict involving both China and Russia. One clear indicator of this is the absence of programs dedicated to building vast numbers of SCDs, as seen in Ukraine. The U.S. has not stockpiled the parts and components necessary for mass production. Nor has it subsidized industries to compete with the Chinese for the consumer drone market. This is a strategic misstep. In wartime, production capabilities will be critical. These production lines could manufacture consumer drones in peacetime and switch to military-grade production when needed.
Currently, there is no established doctrine for fighting with SCDs. The closest effort from the DoD has been a hodge-podge of counter-drone training programs, which is reactive rather than proactive.
Misjudging the Role of Drones (Start 21:18, End 22:57)
U.S. military planners did anticipate drones playing an increasingly important role on the battlefield. However, they did not predict the scale—millions of SCDs fulfilling roles typically reserved for artillery, intelligence, reconnaissance, and precision combat. The American approach has favored "exquisite" weapons in modest quantities, assuming that precision and "shock & awe" would dominate any conflict. The US has no experience in a highly contested Electronic Warfare environment. Air dominance won’t come easy, and might not last the duration of the next war.
Dictators with little regard for human life will absorb the best and most expensive U.S. weapons through sheer numbers. This reality forces even a superpower like the U.S. out of stand-off warfare into maneuver and eventually attritional warfare. There simply aren't enough bombs and bullets stockpiled to guarantee a quick victory—or, possibly, any victory at all.
***
Note by Sarcastosaurus: and then multiply this by 10-100, to get the ‘picture’ about the situation within armed forces of the European members of NATO.
Hate Subscriptions? Me too! You can support me with a one time contribution to my research at Buy Me a Coffee. https://buymeacoffee.com/researchukraine
The Next War Will Be Different (Start 22:57, End 26:20)
It's important to note that the next major conflict will differ from the war in Ukraine. However, one constant will be the race to innovate faster than the enemy. This is a concern. The DoD appears to believe it has ample time to devise strategies to counter millions of UAVs aimed at U.S. forces. In reality, it does not. Again, there are signs the DoD is not taking seriously the advantages that SCDs give a fighting force. They are not taking seriously the difficulty in countering millions of drones. The psychological impact of 24/7 FPV drones hunting individual soldiers. Where is the scalable initiative for SCDs? Where are the national defense subsidies to kickstart consumer level UAV competition with China? (A necessary part of any long term drone strategy.)
Geopolitically, the U.S. has shown its adversaries signs of weakness, inadvertently encouraging aggression. The tepid response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has only emboldened U.S. enemies and accelerated their timelines for conflict.
The U.S. must act now. It needs to develop doctrines, subsidize production, and stockpile components. Otherwise, it risks being outpaced in a future conflict where speed and adaptability will determine the victor.
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 on AI in drones, U.S. military technology, and related topics. 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.
Hate Subscriptions? Me too! You can support me with a one time contribution to my research at Buy Me a Coffee. https://buymeacoffee.com/researchukraine
Mr. Cook’s Substack:
One another thing which comes to my mind when thinking about "gamechanger" cheap FPV drones -> I think this is the first weapon in the history of warfare where lion-share of development was done via voluntary collaborative effort (aka Open-source software development).
Because those drone are not "developed" by Ukrainian companies, American companies, or even Chinese companies.
Of course for example UA companies/orgs do a lot of work but it's a bit like saying your local car performance tuner (who tunes engine ECU maps, adjusts suspension, etc.) "develops" racing cars.
Game changer innovations which enable the concept -> very maneuverable, rugged, reasonable reliable and ultra-cheap way to precisely deliver payload over considerable distance are following:
* FC Firmware -> what started as a toy project experimenting with first affordable gyro/acc board from nintendo game controllers (Wii console) morphed into cutting-edge firmware for racing drones (Betaflight), where big community of contributors is striving to achieve maximum performance for drone racing, basically translating every stick input from controller to solid, exact response of the flying craft.
This piece of puzzle is a key to enabling Multi-rotor control, whether remote or autonomous (AI guided), without working FC firmware, it wouldn't be possible to control multi-copter at all, even in manual mode.
* ESC Control firmware -> piece of code which generates control impulses for brushless electric motors. Those motors are almost comically primitive pieces, essentially couple of coils, magnets and 2 bearings... No valves, no linkages, no delicate parts at all. Without ESC firmware energizing the coils in exactly the right moment, it's a dead-weight not capable of doing anything, you can't just "connect it to power source", you absolutely need ESC running dedicated firmware.
Top ESC firmwares like bluejay or AM32 are again open-source collaborative efforts.
* RC Control link -> this used to be proprietary piece of hw/sw controlled by RC model companies (Futaba, Spektrum...), but amazing piece of open-source software called ExpressLRS changed all that.
Now we have a open-source radio-link which you can customize to operate on almost any frequency you want to, it's much longer ranged, cheaper and more efficient then closed-source proprietary offerings before it.
By the way each of those projects started before dedicated hardware was available (like I wrote, first practical community FC for multirotors used board from the Wii gaming console) and only after their success created community demand and market, (mostly Chinese) companies stepped in and started producing more dedicated hardware (cheaper, smaller, better performing...).
Almost none of the people working on those technologies are doing it for military purposes and they are quite hostile to any feature requests linked to military use (most of those are stupid btw, like demanding inertial navigation capabilities from firmware running on $40 control board...) and I can't blame them to be honest.
Not only that. This emphasis on 'real soldiers' is entirely obsolete. As an army you need gamer boys and girls for your drone teams. The anti diversity mentality is harmful. By the way, this investment in the F-35, was it really necessary? And what if buyers start to pull out of the program because they consider the US as not reliable and trustworthy anymore? The US defence system is in deep trouble.