May 19, 2026: The war in Ukraine has demonstrated the importance of a civilian population that is familiar with technology and how to improvise new ways to utilize what they have. Ukraine was the source of much of the old Soviet Union’s new technology and weapons during the Cold War. Many Ukrainians were well trained and experienced in technical matters. After the Russians invaded in 2022, these talented Ukrainians were able to improvise and adapt more quickly than their Russian counterparts. The Russians were well educated, but Russia did not encourage individual enterprise or individual endeavors. Money was not as important as what talented individuals could accomplish

Military leaders, when faced with peacetime decisions on how to fight the next war, can never predict what will happen if there was a war. Wartime experience is something few countries seek. Russia was one of the few and deliberately invaded Ukraine in 2022.That decision was “unexpectedly” expensive in terms of Russians killed, economic damage and becoming a pariah state to most of the industrialized nations in the world. Some of these nations were seeking answers from the last war they fought compared to what would happen to them if they were invaded again. For many nations there are important lessons in the Ukraine War and the Russian failure to win against its smaller opponent.

One of the only positive things to come out of the Ukraine war was the emergence of drone warfare. Implementing lessons learned from the Ukraine war, especially the widespread use of drones, forced military leaders worldwide to rethink how their forces are organized, armed and trained. For example, a few thousand dollars’ worth of drones can and have destroyed multi-million dollar M1 tanks.

The Americans are not trying to develop and build cheap air-defense drones like those which are already being used in Ukraine. The Americans could buy them from Ukraine or build them under license in America. There are some other issues. In wartime drone designs evolve rapidly. Stockpiling thousands of drones produced in 2024 and 2025 would create a problem when using them during the rest of the decade. The enemy may have built more advanced drones in anticipation of using them in a surprise attack. The American stockpiled drones would then be less useful because they are older designs. This was especially true with anti-drone drones, a recent development that is still evolving rapidly.

Meanwhile American defense manufacturers resist converting to drone production. There is less profit in cheap drones compared to multi-million dollar aircraft, tanks and air defense systems. It would take a wartime situation to force the defense firms to adapt to producing a lot of cheap drones. American attempts to adopt the new drone tactics and technology developed, and still developing, in Ukraine have encountered problems. First, America is not at war, and the military bureaucracy has a peacetime attitude towards any new technology. This includes the use of drones in Ukraine and the flood of practical experience and solutions passed by Ukraine. Current American Army drones, when used in Ukraine, often encountered problems the Ukrainian drones didn’t. In a wartime situation, Ukrainians have been quick to make changes until they get the results they need. This includes quickly designing and building long range drones that can attack targets deep inside Russia. These attacks have done noticeable damage to Russian military abilities. As impressive as these attacks are, can other nations reproduce the Ukrainian success?

The American military may want to implement the lessons of drone use in Ukraine, but American defense contractors and manufacturers feel compelled to modify and improve what the Ukrainians have done while they adapt Ukrainian drone tech to something new which United States forces can use and Congress will pay for. This process tends to lower the effectiveness of what the Ukrainians have created, while delaying the product and enriching the contractors and manufacturers. The lesser effectiveness was usually revealed the first time American troops use the American version of Ukrainian drone tech. Something was lost in the tech translation. This was nothing new. It’s been happening for over a century.

Adapting and adopting Ukrainian drone technology means there will be new drone modifications and upgrades for as long as the fighting in Ukraine lasts. These changes come quickly in wartime and always have. In Ukraine, drone designs can be changed in less than a week. This was usually because the Russians have gained an edge with one of their recent tweaks.

While Ukraine has been in the lead developing and upgrading drone technology, the Russians have kept up. In war time you either keep up or become an inept underdog that falls farther and farther behind. The Russians have kept most of the time and, when they fail to keep up, suffer heavy losses.

The peacetime American military has no such wartime feedback loop. If someone in the defense procurement establishment says the current American drone tech was good, it was considered officially adequate. Sending some American drone adaptations to Ukraine for testing did take place, often over the objections of American manufacturers. When tested in combat, some of the American drones failed to deliver. When the Ukraine war ends, there will be no way to adequately test American drones. There may be other wars where American troops are involved and able to test the new drones. But it won’t be in the intensely competitive atmosphere the Ukrainians and Russians created.

Ukraine has been writing the book on drone technology since 2022, with Russia contributing edits in real time. When that atmosphere was not present, the speed of developing new tech or maintaining current drones slows down a lot. This process is at work now as the American Army orders drones based on Ukrainian designs. The American military procurement bureaucracy is infamously slow and costly in adopting and manufacturing new weapons. This is especially true if a weapon was not invented by an American weapons manufacturer, and that has been a feature of American military production for over a hundred years. The Ukrainian drone revolution has been equally slow in actually reaching Americans soldiers and marines. Many military and Defense Department civilians are aware of this problem and see the drone development and procurement program as an opportunity to show that the United States can do it right and quickly. It was said that the Ukrainians suggested that the Americans have a toy company manufacture their drones because they are more efficient than the usual defense firms. Also, the toy companies have spare capacity for months before they have to start making toys for the holidays. Early in the war Ukraine relied on civilians in home workshops to design and build drones. Now that Ukraine was building millions of drones a year, most are built in underground factories. Ukrainian drone manufacturing is a prime target for Russian drones and ballistic missiles.

In early 2024 Ukraine created a new branch of their military, the USF/Unmanned Systems Force. This was in addition to the army, navy and air force. The USF does not control the drones which Ukrainian forces use regularly but instead contributes to developing new drone models and organizes mass production for those new models that are successful. The American military took note of this but acting on it takes a lot longer for a peacetime military.

Drones were an unexpected development that had a huge impact on how battles in Ukraine's current war are fought. Drones were successful because they were cheap, easily modified, and expendable. Modifications and upgrades could be implemented quickly and inexpensively. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces were soon using cheap quadcopter drones controlled by soldiers a few kilometers distant using FPV/First Person Viewing goggles to see what the day/night video camera on the drone could see. These drones cost a few hundred dollars each with the most complex models going for about a thousand dollars. Most of these drones carried half a kilogram of explosives, so it could instantly turn the drone into a flying bomb that could fly into a target and detonate. Some drones carried more explosives depending on what was needed to deal with a target.

These drones were awesome and debilitating weapons when used in large numbers. If a target wasn’t moving or required more explosive power that the drones could supply, one of the drone operators could call in artillery, rocket, or missile fire, or even an airstrike. A major limitation to the expansion of drone operations was the need for trained drone operators. As operators spend more hours operating drones in combat, the number of new lessons learned and applied increases. Fortunately, adults or teenagers who play video games a lot were already trained. Ukrainian drone operators tended to use commercial game controllers. This was why, when Ukraine recruited new drone operators, they favored those with video game experience.

The small drones were difficult to shoot down so most of these drones were able to complete their mission, whether it was a one-way attack or reconnaissance and surveillance. The recon missions were usually survivable and enabled the drone to be reused. All these drones were constantly performing surveillance, which meant that both sides committed enough drones to maintain constant surveillance over a portion of the front line, to a depth, into enemy territory, of at least a few kilometers. Longer range drones could track Russian operations hundreds of kilometers behind the front lines.

This massive use of FPV-armed drones has revolutionized warfare in Ukraine and both sides produced as many as they could. Russia initially produced its own drones after briefly using imported Iranian Shahed-136 drones that cost over $100,000 each. Ukraine demonstrated that you could design and build drones with similar capabilities at less than a tenth of that. The Iranian drone was more complex than it needed to be, and even the Russians soon realized this and turned from the Shahed-136 for more capable drones they copied from Ukrainian designs or their own.

Military leaders in other nations noted this and scrambled to equip their own forces with the most effective drones. Not having enough of these to match the number the enemy had in a portion of the front meant you were at a serious disadvantage in that area. These drones were still evolving in terms of design and use and were becoming more effective and essential.

One countermeasure that could work for a while was electronic jamming of the drones’ control signal. Drone guidance systems were constantly modified or upgraded to cope with this. Most drones have flight control software that sends drones with jammed control signals back to where they took off to land for reuse. The jammers on the ground could be attacked by drones programmed to home in on the jamming signal. Countermeasures could be overcome and the side that could do this more quickly and completely had an advantage. That advantage was usually temporary because both sides were putting a lot of effort into keeping their combat drones effective on the battlefield.