America’s Drone Delusion | Foreign Affairs

After nearly four years of fighting, few aspects of Russia’s war in Ukraine have gained as much attention among Western militaries as the rapid expansion of drone warfare. Since 2023, both sides have deployed millions of cheap quadcopter-type drones across the battlefield. In some parts of the front, these small drones now account for up to 70 percent of battlefield casualties. Meanwhile, Russia is using thousands of Geran-2 and Geran-3 propeller-powered one-way attack drones in almost nightly long-range strikes on Ukrainian cities, and Ukraine has been using a wide array of its own one-way attack drones for regular strikes on Russian bases, factories, and energy infrastructure.

Watching these developments, many Western defense strategists have made urgent calls to shift military priorities. In June, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to accelerate drone production. Since then, the U.S. Department of Defense has made several policy changes to facilitate the rapid integration of low-cost drones into the U.S. arsenal, and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has called for the United States to establish “drone dominance.” In the private sector, meanwhile, software and AI companies that have bet heavily on developing uncrewed military technologies, such as Anduril, Palantir, and Shield AI, are racing to win lucrative new defense contracts. It is certainly the case that small uncrewed aircraft systems have fundamentally changed the way that infantry combat is fought, and that the U.S. Army and other parts of the force are behind on these capabilities—and, more concerning, on counter-UAS technologies—compared to Russian or Chinese forces.

But the assumption that large-scale acquisition of AI-enabled drones will strengthen U.S. defenses against China is misguided. For one thing, lessons from the war in Ukraine—an attritional, inconclusive struggle between two fundamentally land-centric armed forces—often do not apply directly to other kinds of conflicts. The realities of Beijing’s military arsenal and the likely nature of any potential confrontation in the Indo-Pacific mean that such a conflict would be decided by very different factors. Despite having the largest and most advanced drone industry in the world, China has actually been prioritizing crewed military hardware. Each year, the People’s Liberation Army receives eye-watering numbers of modern and highly capable combat aircraft, large warships, and cutting-edge ground-based, maritime, and air-launched missile systems. If the United States focuses too heavily on drone development and acquisition, it risks losing its slim remaining edge over the PLA in the high-end air force and navy capabilities that would dominate any Indo-Pacific conflict.

WHY DRONES DOMINATE THE DONBAS

Over the past few years, military analysts and defense industry executives alike have focused on the lessons that Western militaries should supposedly take from Ukraine’s remarkable defense against Russia. One result of this interest has been an oversaturation of new defense products and technologies that are being marketed to Western militaries as “transformational,” based on vaguely described combat use in Ukraine. In fact, many such systems, especially Western-made drones from tech startup firms, have proved ineffective or even failed outright on the battlefield in the face of omnipresent Russian (and Ukrainian) electronic warfare and hard environmental conditions.

A larger problem, however, is that the war in Ukraine features many characteristics that would not apply to U.S. and Chinese forces in an Indo-Pacific context. Russia’s ongoing ground invasion of Ukraine has resulted in sparsely manned frontlines stretching more than 600 miles from Kharkiv Oblast in the north to Kherson in the south. Neither side has achieved air superiority, making airpower far less significant than in other modern conflicts. Since both Russian and Ukrainian armored formations and other elite units suffered catastrophic losses in the early phases of the war, neither side has been able to conduct large-scale combined-arms maneuver warfare since mid-2023. As a result, both armies have had to rely heavily on small infantry units with attached tank, artillery, and drone support to make probing attacks through minefields against fixed defensive lines. Progress is grindingly slow and costly in both directions.

Under these conditions, short-range, lightweight, cheap, and mass-produced quadcopter-type drones have proved highly effective. Especially as conventional artillery and long-range rocket artillery ammunition and launchers have become increasingly scarce, both sides have used cheap drones to inflict attrition and suppress the enemy’s resupply and tactical movements within six to 12 miles of the frontlines. By 2024, frontline combat had indeed come to be dominated by ever greater numbers of drones and the constant development of new technologies such as fiber-optic drones and AI-assisted terminal imaging guidance. Counterdrone defenses such as netting, electronic jamming, and specialized shotgun and cannon ammunition types have likewise become critical and continue to evolve rapidly. However, many active counterdrone defense systems are overstretched in Ukraine due to the widely dispersed nature of forces on the frontlines and constant attrition.

Even so, the expansion of drone warfare is arguably not what has prevented Ukrainian forces from holding key positions against Russian forces in 2024 and 2025. Instead, it is the hundreds of heavy glide bombs that Russia is delivering by Su-34 fighter-bombers against the frontlines each week. These 500kg–3000kg glide bombs can demolish even deep, hardened fighting positions and kill dug-in troops far more effectively than small drones, and Ukraine still lacks an effective way to intercept the launch aircraft that release the bombs from more than 40 miles behind the frontlines. Drones inflict the majority of day-to-day attrition against infantry and vehicles on the move in and around the frontlines, but concentrated glide bomb attacks pose a much greater threat to dug-in troops. Relentless Russian glide bomb strikes on key positions have been particularly difficult for Ukrainian troops fighting to hold heavily fortified strategic locations, such as the hilltop city of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk Oblast.

THE PACIFIC DIFFERENCE

In sharp contrast to the operational conditions in Ukraine, any likely conflict between U.S. forces and China’s People’s Liberation Army would unfold predominantly in the air and at sea, with combat between land forces likely limited to key islands such as Taiwan or the Senkakus (known in China as the Diaoyus). In this context, success for the United States would depend on the ability to rapidly and repeatedly bring decisive airborne and maritime firepower to bear at those key points at critical moments. This would mean projecting power across thousands of miles of ocean against numerous highly advanced Chinese missile, air, and maritime threats. Such operations would require highly trained personnel manning advanced fighter aircraft, bombers, and warships conducting mutually supporting actions in carefully synchronized joint operations. In other words, the conflict would involve very different kinds of forces and equipment from what either Ukraine or Russia is using in the current war.

In an Indo-Pacific conflict, drones would likely still play a significant role in land and amphibious operations. Taiwan, for example, could greatly benefit from being able to deploy hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of small drones to repel a PLA landing force on its beaches. It would also be essential for Taiwanese forces to have counterdrone capabilities that could sustainably intercept and jam PLA one-way attack drones and surveillance drones flying from the mainland or from ships off the beaches. Yet such uncrewed systems would be useless to the U.S. Air Force and Navy in their efforts to assist with air cover and, ultimately, maritime support, which would require projecting power from Guam or other distant U.S. bases.

Distances are punishing in the Indo-Pacific. The greatest shortcoming of the current generation of “exquisite” American fighter aircraft—the F-22, F-35, and F/A-18E/F—against growing Chinese threats is not that they are expensive and comparatively few. It is their comparatively limited range. With combat radii of between 350 and 600 hundred miles, they require aerial refueling tankers to reach contested areas from viable bases, which in conflict would have to fly dangerously close to Chinese missile and fighter aircraft threats. Small drones cannot solve this problem. Even the longest-range fiber-optic-cable-equipped first-person view drones in common use in Ukraine are limited to around 15 miles, and most small FPVs have significantly shorter ranges than that. In other words, the one weapons system that has made combat in Ukraine significantly different from that of previous state-on-state wars would be largely irrelevant in the critical early phases of a conflict between Chinese and American forces.

The United States has a shrinking and increasingly aging conventional force structure.

Even if small drones could be delivered rapidly across the required ranges, none of the varieties currently in use in Ukraine by either side could effectively defend U.S. forces against Chinese attacks. Beijing already operates thousands of high-end ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles that would be used to strike U.S. forward bases, aircraft carriers, tanker aircraft, and other key large assets. To counter such threats, the U.S. military would unavoidably have to rely on multimillion-dollar missile defense systems such as the Patriot PAC-3 MSE, THAAD, SM-6, and SM-3. Intercepting hundreds of increasingly capable Chinese combat aircraft will, likewise, require large quantities of advanced air-to-air missiles such as the AIM-260 JATM and the AIM-174B, as well as the AIM-120D AMRAAM. These will be needed in large quantities regardless of whether they are launched by crewed fighters or, potentially, in the future by AI-enabled uncrewed systems. Small drones simply cannot intercept combat aircraft operating at high altitudes and speeds.

Moreover, the many types of uncrewed systems that would potentially be far more useful in the Indo-Pacific will entail large costs of their own. For example, stealthy Collaborative Combat Aircraft—automated or AI-enabled uncrewed combat aircraft intended to accompany and support traditional fighters—are expected to cost as much as $20 million to $30 million apiece. The less ambitious designs that are intended to be little more than forward sensors and weapon-launching “trucks” will still cost many millions of dollars. There may well be significant benefits to their development and adoption, but they cannot be “swarmed” or expended en masse on a regular basis given their cost.

Operating these systems will also require large numbers of human maintainers, armorers, logisticians, force protection personnel, and other specialists to prepare them for flight, recover them after use, maintain them, and move them to launch locations in theater—personnel who will have to be reassigned from other activities. CCAs also will not fundamentally change the U.S. military’s position relative to the PLA, since China is developing similar systems.

Simpler, one-way attack, decoy, or stand-in jamming-type drones can be somewhat cheaper to produce and could still perform vital roles within a complex joint strike package. But even these drones will likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to be able to have the required range and performance. AI-enabled swarming behavio­rs in flight may increase the effectiveness of such drones or missiles in various tactical situations, but the data links and processing power required will further increase unit cost, and thus quantities will remain limited. Weapons that serve much the same purposes—smart stand-off attack, decoys, and stand-in jammers—have already existed for decades in the form of cruise missiles and decoys such as the ADM-160 MALD-X. The issue is not that these existing tools are unable to perform the required roles; it is that the United States does not have enough of them.

COMBAT MASS CONUNDRUM

For the United States, it is unavoidably clear that a significant peer conflict will require very different resourcing than the overseas interventions and counterinsurgency operations that it has conducted in recent decades. In any confrontation with China, the U.S. military would need vast stockpiles of ammunition, spare parts, medical supplies, and other logistical necessities. Washington currently has significant shortfalls of key long-range strike, antiship, and interceptor missiles, and most of its allies lack them to a greater degree still. The United States also has a shrinking and increasingly aging conventional force structure thanks to more than a decade of deferred air force and navy modernization during the global war on terrorism. The sheer cost of bringing back “combat mass” with conventional high-end military systems has driven an almost frantic search by many defense analysts and policymakers for a way to get AI-enabled technology, including drones, to deliver “cheap mass.”

The PLA, by contrast, increasingly has both mass and quality. Strikingly, despite having by far the world’s largest and most advanced drone-manufacturing industrial base, China’s major military focus is on acquiring more crewed combat aircraft, large warships, and advanced missile systems. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) is on course to have a fleet of around 1,000 J-20s—China’s primary fifth-generation stealth fighter—by 2030. China is also building many hundreds of advanced antiship and long-range surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles, and tens of advanced destroyers and cruisers per year. Especially in the air-to-air and surface-to-air missile domain, many of these Chinese systems are starting to exceed the performance of their U.S. equivalents in some key areas. Almost all of this production is going to the PLA rather than to export customers like Pakistan, and much of it would likely be brought to bear in any Chinese attempt to capture Taiwan, as well as any other conflict involving Beijing in the East China or South China Seas.

By comparison, while Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighters are being built at a slightly higher rate than China’s J-20A and J-20S, only some of that production is being purchased by the U.S. military. The U.S. Air Force purchased just 48 F-35As in 2025 and plans to purchase fewer than that in each of the remaining years of the current decade. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are acquiring other variants of the fighter, but most of the balance of Lockheed Martin’s current output is destined for U.S. allies in Europe and Asia. The next generation F-47 fighter, which is expected to cost more than $300 million apiece, is not scheduled to enter U.S. Air Force service until the early 2030s as a production standard combat asset. An equivalent next-generation program for the U.S. Navy, called F/A-XX, will come even later still, assuming the program goes ahead. By that point, however, the next-generation Chinese J-36, J-XDS, and J-50 equivalents, all of which are already in flight testing, will likely also be in service. They may be marginally less capable than the F-47 on a per-aircraft basis but they will likely be produced faster and in greater numbers.

There are no easy answers to the challenge posed by China’s growing military capabilities.

Another area in which China’s high-end capabilities are already outstripping those of the United States is in airborne long-range early warning and command system (AWACS) aircraft. These aircraft are huge force multipliers because they provide air forces and joint forces with long-range, wide-area radar coverage for early warning, battlespace management, and targeting. The PLA already has roughly 60 modern AWACS, all equipped with the latest active electronically scanned array-type radars and advanced data link and satellite communications capabilities to act as network nodes. More are being produced each year.

By contrast, the U.S. Air Force has only 16 serviceable AWACS, and these are the nearly obsolete and badly worn-out E-3G Sentry. The plan to acquire the Boeing E-7A Wedgetail to replace this rapidly shrinking fleet was canceled by Hegseth in June 2025, citing concerns over cost overruns, delays, and operational vulnerability. Congress included $400 million to continue the program in the bipartisan bill to end the U.S. government shutdown in November, but even if the program does survive, it may be downsized and still faces significant delays. That means that the United States will face an airborne sensor and airborne networking and battle management node gap with China for at least a decade. Both nations are pursuing advanced space-based sensor and networking capabilities, but these are not yet ready to replace AWACS coverage.

The uncomfortable fact is that there are no easy answers to the challenge posed by China’s growing air, maritime, and missile capabilities in the Indo-Pacific. To an overwhelming degree, the U.S. military relies on its air force and navy to credibly deter Chinese military aggression against Taiwan or elsewhere. There is no way to change the entire joint force to a fundamentally different structure in time to face the threat in the coming years. Trying to replicate Ukraine’s emphasis on drones at a vast scale will not solve the problem. American military and political decision-makers should focus instead on fixing the increasingly large gaps in existing conventional air and maritime forces. To do this, Washington has few alternatives to urgent, heavy investment in far greater production capacity and rapid procurement of existing long-range air-to-air, surface-to-air, and air-to-surface missiles, as well as F-35, F-47, and B-21 combat aircraft and nuclear attack submarines.

Dealing with these critical shortfalls will require either major budget increases—unlikely in the current environment—or major cuts elsewhere in the joint force structure. But unless the United States can maintain air and maritime superiority over key contested areas, it will find that the rest of its military force structure will struggle to produce relevant combat power against China in any Indo-Pacific clash. Millions of battlefield quadcopters and tens of thousands of one-way attack drones have not enabled Russia to defeat Ukraine, or vice versa. Even if the Pentagon acquires similar capabilities, they will not change its rapidly degrading balance of power with China in the Indo-Pacific, no matter how good swarms of AI-enabled drones might look on PowerPoint slides.

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