Unmanned systems have reshaped modern combat, and the rapid rise of cheap, capable drones presents a serious challenge the U.S. military cannot ignore. Marine veteran William McNulty, whose venture fund has backed Ukrainian drone developers, warns that failing to adapt could erode American military advantage. Some estimates now attribute roughly 80 percent of battlefield casualties to drones on both sides in the Ukraine war. The recent killing of U.S. personnel by Iranian-made drones underscored how quickly lessons from one theater can arrive at American forces’ doorstep.
On the ground in Ukraine, drone activity has made front lines far more lethal and precise. Combat has contracted into a roughly 10-mile-wide kill zone where anyone detected by sensors or drones can be targeted. Units have improvised physical countermeasures: tanks fitted with cages and mesh to defeat drone munitions, roads strung with nets to catch incoming small attack drones, and the use of fiber-optic tethers to fly drones beyond the range of electronic jamming.
Drones operate across sea, land, and air. Ukrainian engineers produced sea drones such as the Sea Baby, reportedly capable of carrying around 4,400 pounds of explosives. At an estimated cost of about $300,000 each, these craft have been credited with costing adversaries naval vessels worth many millions, and Ukraine says it has used them to sink or disable multiple Russian ships. On land, ground robots have been armed with heavy weapons, and in several instances they have held positions or forced enemy surrenders. One account describes a ground robot deterring an attack for more than a month, while another reports three opposing soldiers surrendering to an unmanned vehicle.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, a key organizer of Ukraine’s drone effort, says production that once numbered in the thousands has surged toward millions annually during the war. The low unit cost and mass-production model have helped offset numerical disadvantages. He describes the conflict as a data-driven, numbers game in which careful accounting of drone inventories, effectiveness, and cost per target matters.
Ukraine has built an ecosystem around this hardware, creating drone training academies and relying heavily on domestic manufacturing. Officials claim more than 95 percent of the country’s military drones are produced locally. Innovation has come from unexpected corners: a former brewery engineer, Roman Tkachenko, founded Tencore to build remote-controlled armored evacuation robots to retrieve the wounded. His guiding principle is ‘send the robot’ to minimize human risk. Those platforms can be reconfigured for offensive roles, for example by mounting a 40-mm grenade launcher that can be controlled from miles away. Kamyshin adds that frontline feedback can shorten an innovation cycle to as little as a week from problem to revised prototype.
Russia has also accelerated its drone capabilities, producing an operational parity in many respects. The conflict has forced militaries worldwide to rethink training, doctrine, and force structure. At a recent NATO exercise in Estonia, a small team of drone operators, including personnel with Ukrainian experience, reportedly defeated a much larger conventional force of about 1,000 troops in a simulated engagement.
The U.S. response has included standing up drone innovation labs around the world, such as a hub at Army Garrison Wiesbaden in Germany, to give service members a place to test and develop concepts. Capt. Ronan Sefton, who deployed to Germany after Russia invaded in 2022, says one clear lesson is the urgent need to integrate more unmanned systems into training so forces encounter realistic threats. He helped form the Army’s Ukraine Lessons Learned Task Force to translate battlefield experience into doctrinal and practical changes for U.S. forces.
New unmanned systems do not render traditional firepower obsolete, but they do require rapid adaptation in procurement, tactics, and training to counter adversary capabilities. The bitter lessons from Ukraine show how quickly the character of war can change, and leaders say the U.S. must apply those lessons proactively rather than relearn them through more bloodshed.