Drones have transformed warfare, and relatively cheap, rapidly evolving unmanned systems now pose a deadly threat the U.S. military must face, Marine veteran William McNulty warns. His venture-capital fund has invested in Ukrainian drone technology, which has advanced dramatically during the war with Russia. Some estimates say drones now cause roughly 80% of combat casualties on both sides.
“There’s a real risk that the U.S. would lose its military supremacy if it doesn’t adapt to modern conditions on the battlefield,” McNulty said, noting the U.S. could face the same unmanned systems used against Ukraine. Shortly after McNulty spoke, Iranian drones targeted and killed the first Americans in a new conflict, underscoring the urgency of adapting to lessons learned in blood.
In Ukraine, the front line has shifted into a narrow “kill zone” roughly 10 miles wide, where anyone detected by drones can be hunted. Tanks have been fitted with cages and mesh to defeat drone munitions; roads near the front are netted to catch incoming drones. To avoid electronic jamming, forces on both sides sometimes launch drones on miles-long fiber-optic tethers.
Drones operate across domains. Ukraine developed sea drones like the Sea Baby, reportedly capable of carrying around 4,400 pounds of explosives—enough, operators say, to disable or sink a warship. Sea drones costing about $300,000 each have reportedly destroyed vessels worth tens of millions; Ukraine says it has used them to sink or disable 11 Russian ships. Ground robots have mounted heavy weapons and in one case reportedly held off an attack for 45 days; in another, three Russian soldiers surrendered to a ground drone.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, who helped build Ukraine’s drone effort, said production scaled from 2,000 to millions annually during the war. The technology’s low cost has helped even the odds for outnumbered Ukrainians. “It’s a data-driven war, with big numbers. It’s a numbers game,” he said, stressing rigorous accounting of drone numbers, efficiency, and cost per kill.
Ukraine has created drone training academies and relies largely on domestic manufacturing—claiming more than 95% of its military drones are made locally. Innovation has drawn talent from unexpected places: former brewery engineer Roman Tkachenko founded Tencore to build remote-controlled armored evacuation drones to carry wounded soldiers. “Send the robot” is the guiding idea to avoid risking human lives, Tkachenko said. His designs can also be adapted for offensive roles, such as mounting a 40-mm grenade launcher controllable from miles away. Kamyshin noted the drone innovation cycle can be as short as a week from frontline feedback to a revised model.
Russia has also advanced its drone capabilities; Kamyshin believes the conflict has reached a rough equilibrium. The war has forced militaries and allies worldwide to rethink training and doctrine. At a NATO exercise in Estonia, around 1,000 personnel were defeated in a drill by a small group of drone operators, including Ukrainians.
The U.S. has responded by standing up drone innovation labs globally, including at the Army Garrison Wiesbaden in Germany, offering service members a place to develop and test ideas. Capt. Ronan Sefton, deployed to Germany after Russia’s 2022 invasion, said the clearest lesson is the need for more drones integrated into training to reflect battlefield reality. He helped form the Army’s Ukraine Lessons Learned Task Force to translate Ukrainian battlefield experience into changes for the U.S. military.
New unmanned systems do not make traditional U.S. firepower obsolete, Sefton said, but they require urgent adaptation to counter adversary drones. “This is important, it’s changing warfare, and here’s how we can actually implement it now,” he said. Acknowledging Ukraine’s painful experience, he added that lessons learned “through blood” will shape future readiness—and that the U.S. may learn additional lessons the same way.