The US Must Stop Underestimating Drone Warfare

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In 2026, we won’t see terrorism incidents similar to 9/11, when hijacked airplanes struck the World Trade Center, or the Oklahoma City bombing, when ammonium nitrate–packed trucks leveled federal buildings. Instead, the next act of terror will begin with the buzzing sound of the drone rotors spinning at 5,000 rpm, audible only seconds before the swarm will reach its target.

In recent years, drones have become an integral part of modern warfare. On the battlefield, we've undeniably entered the age of precise mass in conflict, where low-cost attributable drones, powered by widely available commercial technology, open software, and AI, are now the most effective weapons. They can be hidden in plain sight and then launched to destroy targets thousands of miles away from active battlefields. In June 2025, for instance, they were used by Ukraine to destroy 10 percent of Russia's bombers on the tarmac as part of Operation Spider Web. That same month, Israel also launched clandestine drone attacks from within Iran to destroy military and nuclear sites. In April, Houthi rebels used drones and cruise missiles to attack the USS Harry Truman—a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier—in the Red Sea. The carrier swerved so hard to avoid being struck, it tumbled a $56 million F-18 off its deck.

It is certain that in 2026 we will see a drone attack in the United States, against either civilian or military targets.

Like the attacks of 9/11, the surprise will turn out not to be a surprise. The offensive and defensive power of low-cost commercial drones was known by the US military as early as 2017. In that year, Defense Innovation Unit, the Pentagon’s Silicon Valley Office, established the military’s first commercial drone unit, with the support of the then–secretary of defense James Mattis. Named Rogue Squadron, it conducted mock drone fights in parking lots and created the first mass adoption program within the military for commercial drones, called Blue UAS (unmanned aerial system).

Yet today, because of bureaucratic inertia and the accelerating drone capability by foreign adversaries, the US stands defenseless. Currently, no US military installation can reliably repel a complex drone attack like Ukraine’s assault of Russian nuclear bombers. Our civilian infrastructure is even less protected.

Yet the 2025 DoD budget has just $350M for tactical level UAS systems. With this funding, DoD is only expecting to field about 4,000 UASs, bringing the average cost per system close to $100,000. The larger drone factories in Ukraine can produce thousands of “first person viewer” (FPV) drones per day, at a cost of a few hundred dollars a piece. The Ukrainian military delivers to the battlefield 200,000 FPV drones per month and plans to expand production to 4,500,000 FPV drones per year by the end this year.

Commanders badly want autonomous weapons now. “I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape,” Pacific Commander Admiral Paparo told The Washington Post. New American defense companies, founded mostly in California, like Anduril, Neros, and Skydio, are producing drones approaching the cost and lethality of those made in Ukraine. But the Pentagon is still buying the vast majority of its weapons systems from traditional defense companies who build large, expensive systems slowly. Nimble, venture-backed defense startups account for less than 1 percent of the Defense Department spend.

The Pentagon is emerging from its hibernation. The Replicator initiative, begun in 2023, is now fielding autonomous systems and integrating them into battle plans for Europe and the Pacific. In July, 2025, Secretary of Defense (or Secretary of War) Pete Hegseth directed the department to speed the production of tactical UAVs. Congress increased the Defense Innovation Unit’s budget to nearly $2 billion. The Army, too, is seeking to equip its combat divisions with 1,000 drones each and surging resources into drone defense. "We don't want to continue to buy VCRs just because that's what people are producing," said Army chief of staff Randy George.

Still, we must accelerate this change as the historically slow pivot in strategy and resources toward drones has opened a gaping vulnerability in our defense. The barn door will be open for a year or more as security agencies rush to deploy robust drone defenses. The next year wil be one in which heightened domestic political tensions at home and geopolitical conflicts abroad give many with motives the opportunity to do harm. We will be lucky if a foreign adversary or domestic terrorist doesn’t seek to exploit it.