Why the U.S. Military Needs to Imitate Ukraine’s Drone Force
August 13, 2024
Why the U.S. Military Needs to Imitate Ukraine’s Drone Force
https://time.com/7010426/us-military-drone-force/
Posted by HooverInstitution
5 comments
At *Time*, Lorenz Meier and Niall Ferguson argue that the United States needs to take a page from the Ukrainian military and institutionalize a combat drone force. Ferguson’s historical and geopolitical expertise is complemented by Meier’s experience as Chairman of the DroneCode Foundation, founder and CEO of Auterion, and completion of a PhD in computer vision and drone engineering. The authors frame the problem as one of scale. As they write:
“This year, for the first time in history, Ukraine and Russia are building drones on an industrial scale. The evolution is from one operator directing a single drone to one operator directing whole flocks. By the end of 2024, we shall see for the first time what we call autonomous mass—swarms of drones in the thousands being directed by a handful of operators, relying less and less on ground control.
The shift to unmanned warfare is unstoppable. That is the lesson we have learned from Ukraine. For the United States, however, the Replicator Initiative and hellscape plan are just a start. What we need now is to build the Unmanned Systems of America.
The alternative could be a catastrophic failure of deterrence on the watch of the next President.”
Do you agree that, for the US and its allies, the stakes of building massive quantities of military drones are this high? Why or why not?
I got in a discussion about the value of cheap drones for front line soldiers earlier. I see in the next 10 years or so, FPV piloting will be a core competency of just about any front line solider, on par with shooting a rifle. I bought a quad and learned how to fly with sticks as soon as I saw their value in warfare through the Ukraine/Russian frontier war. The DJI Avata and Avata 2 have extremely intuitive controls which make piloting take seconds to learn.
The Ukrainians were well known for being very good hackers, in terms of taking their engineering skills and using them to create new uses to existing things, and to quickly adapt to changing situations.
The drones have quickly evolved because they went through many iterations of drone warfare and drone counter-measures. Your off-the-self drone would be useless in combat. They need electronic warfare hardening, jamming resistant communications, autonomous capabilities, custom avionics, sensors, optional mortar release systems, etc.
The USV that have been destroying the Russian ships in the black sea are amazing pieces of engineering. Take a jetski and fit it with a 500 lb bomb, a Starlink on the back, a night vision camera and a semi-autonomous navigation system, and you can sink a ship.
It’s happening as the Pentagon isn’t sleeping while these battles rage in real time.
I’m sure they’re onto it. Foolish not to be. Any competent military power will be doing the same.
5 comments
At *Time*, Lorenz Meier and Niall Ferguson argue that the United States needs to take a page from the Ukrainian military and institutionalize a combat drone force. Ferguson’s historical and geopolitical expertise is complemented by Meier’s experience as Chairman of the DroneCode Foundation, founder and CEO of Auterion, and completion of a PhD in computer vision and drone engineering. The authors frame the problem as one of scale. As they write:
“This year, for the first time in history, Ukraine and Russia are building drones on an industrial scale. The evolution is from one operator directing a single drone to one operator directing whole flocks. By the end of 2024, we shall see for the first time what we call autonomous mass—swarms of drones in the thousands being directed by a handful of operators, relying less and less on ground control.
The shift to unmanned warfare is unstoppable. That is the lesson we have learned from Ukraine. For the United States, however, the Replicator Initiative and hellscape plan are just a start. What we need now is to build the Unmanned Systems of America.
The alternative could be a catastrophic failure of deterrence on the watch of the next President.”
Do you agree that, for the US and its allies, the stakes of building massive quantities of military drones are this high? Why or why not?
I got in a discussion about the value of cheap drones for front line soldiers earlier. I see in the next 10 years or so, FPV piloting will be a core competency of just about any front line solider, on par with shooting a rifle. I bought a quad and learned how to fly with sticks as soon as I saw their value in warfare through the Ukraine/Russian frontier war. The DJI Avata and Avata 2 have extremely intuitive controls which make piloting take seconds to learn.
The Ukrainians were well known for being very good hackers, in terms of taking their engineering skills and using them to create new uses to existing things, and to quickly adapt to changing situations.
The drones have quickly evolved because they went through many iterations of drone warfare and drone counter-measures. Your off-the-self drone would be useless in combat. They need electronic warfare hardening, jamming resistant communications, autonomous capabilities, custom avionics, sensors, optional mortar release systems, etc.
The USV that have been destroying the Russian ships in the black sea are amazing pieces of engineering. Take a jetski and fit it with a 500 lb bomb, a Starlink on the back, a night vision camera and a semi-autonomous navigation system, and you can sink a ship.
It’s happening as the Pentagon isn’t sleeping while these battles rage in real time.
I’m sure they’re onto it. Foolish not to be. Any competent military power will be doing the same.