The U.S. Army is keeping a close eye on the battlefields of Ukraine and studying what many officers consider the biggest lesson of the war: how drones are changing the way American soldiers fight.
According to high command, the military has so far been slow to recognize this revolution and mobilize for it. Part of the delay is the result of the breakneck pace of drone technology, which has moved over the past decade from basic flying machines to sophisticated machines with artificial intelligence navigation, long flight times and advanced cameras.
“We're falling behind – I'll just be frank. I think we know we're falling behind,” Lt. Gen. Charles Costanza, who leads U.S. forces deployed on Europe's eastern flank, told an audience at an Army convention in October. “We're not moving fast enough.”
Why did we write this
American military leaders are having to think strategically about how to use drones and prepare soldiers for a new era that will require them to be creative and technologically savvy problem solvers on the battlefield.
Small, inexpensive drones have become incredibly effective at destroying large, expensive military equipment, adding urgency to the war effort. For example, shortly after the Russian invasion in 2022, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky begged for American tanks. He got some. Now they are effectively disabled by drones.
Now the US Army's plan is to catch up by dramatically expanding its drone arsenal and training its forces in the most effective ways to use them. Drone procurement will increase from about 50,000 annually to more than 1 million annually by 2028, Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll said. said last month.
He and the Army's top officer, Gen. Randy George, visited Kyiv on Nov. 19, in part to discuss ways to end the war. But they also sought to test Ukraine's drone program, which Mr. Driscoll called “an incredible treasure trove of information for future wars” and a model for the U.S. military.
Russia and Ukraine each produce about 4 million drones each year, and China likely produces three times as many, defense officials say. Meanwhile, the US produces fewer than 100,000 drones (about half of them for military purposes) from about 500 US manufacturers, including Boeing and Northrop Grumman. The Army also launched a public-private pilot program called SkyFoundry speed up the creation of less expensive flying robots for the military, in part by converting existing Army depots into dedicated manufacturing centers where the service can more closely control cost and scale rather than relying solely on traditional contractors.
Commanders say U.S. soldiers need more small, cheap drones for training because they are often destroyed during training – due to design flaws, human error or in ambushes during military exercises. But many modern drone models cost thousands of dollars.
“Biggest combat innovation” in a generation
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called drones “the biggest combat innovation of a generation.” memo ordering a rethink of how they are used in the US military.
The Pentagon's goal now, he said, will be “unlocking the combined potential of American manufacturing and fighter ingenuity.” By next year, unmanned systems will be part of all combat training, he added, “including drone warfare.”
A few weeks after the July memo, the Army began exercises to begin getting more drones into the hands of soldiers in the field.
In the past, one of the major obstacles to this was the cost of drones, which were highly likely to be destroyed during training. The price of each of them ranged from 2,500 to 11,000 dollars.
This was “inappropriate for what we needed to do – throw a grenade at [the drone]put some C-4 [explosives] train people on it to conduct an ambush,” said Brigadier General Travis McIntosh, deputy commander of the 101st Airborne Division.
With the Defense Secretary's memo, “the game is on,” Gen. McIntosh added at the Association of the United States Army convention in October.
Thanks to a new emphasis on deploying faster, cheaper drones for Army training, the cost has since dropped to about $740 each. These “wearable” systems, as the Army likes to call them, can be made from cheaper materials than high-end reusable drones. They also tend to be more autonomous, reducing the need for complex control systems.
Now, during exercises, defense contractors are willing to make design changes while soldiers disassemble, customize and repair their drones, Col. Donald Neal, commander of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, said at the same Army convention. “That's the goal,” he says.
Teaching soldiers new skills
The Army is still deciding how to delegate its forces to drone operations, as for now it requires “a set of skills that we may not have in our force in a very formal way,” Col. Neal said.
For now, the Army is creating new specialties, courses and exercises in which troops are learning how to integrate drones into military strategy and defense companies are learning how to turn soldiers' advice into quick design changes along the way.
The goal is to better prepare soldiers for a new era that will require them to be creative – and in some cases, technically savvy problem solvers – on the battlefield.
“War does that,” General Costanza said. “It forces you to be innovative.”
The Army also relies on troops who have “passion” and “tenacity for learning,” he added. They watch YouTube videos and build their own drones; Commanders support them by purchasing 3D printers, which create 3D objects from digital files by layering and fusing materials.
To encourage and formalize this troop interest, the Army also created a new military occupational specialty, or “MOS” in Pentagon parlance, specifically for drone operators. That means new training, including an advanced course on drone lethality, a title that contains one of Mr. Hegseth's favorite military words.
This three-week course includes 24 hours of collaborative simulator work for each student, as well as practice with first-person view (FPV) drones now ubiquitous on the front lines in Ukraine.
At the moment, about 30 soldiers are studying at the same time. But the plan is for other departments to create their own drone training programs as well.
One of the Army's biggest challenges remains the intense focus and labor required to operate FPV drones in particular.
Soldiers must be so focused when maneuvering that they “don't talk to that soldier, don't push him, don't ask him to make a radio call – and they probably don't have a weapon,” General McIntosh said.
So while it actually takes one person to fly the drone, another is responsible for security, a third carries the equipment and another installs the antennas – a ratio of four soldiers per drone, he said. “This is bad math.”
At this point, commanders like to emphasize the need for speed, often citing the “cookie test.” Some factories in Ukraine, as the story goes, loaded the drone with fresh cookies from the assembly line. Once the baked goods spoil, “the drone can no longer operate because the technology has changed so quickly,” General Costanza said.
He admitted that the story may be apocryphal. The point, he added, is that drone evolution is “moving very, very quickly”—and the U.S. Army needs to do it too.
Editor's note: This story, originally published Dec. 1, was updated on the day of publication to correct the chronology of the time reference.
