OPINION – On a recent visit to Kyiv, we stood near midnight in an operations center surrounded by young Ukrainian drone pilots remotely flying reconnaissance missions along the front lines. It looked more like a high school video gaming club than an elite military unit, except that the effects of their expertise were both very real and deadly serious.
The following night, we toured the warehouse factory where the drones were being manufactured. Dozens of people, working around the clock, sat at benches building surveillance and strike drones that are cheaper and better than any others in the world. These scenes brought to mind sci-fi author William Gibson’s sentiment that the future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.
Ukraine’s battlefields are a glimpse into likely aspects of our own future. They have become the best place on the planet to understand the revolution in military technology, especially drones that fly and float, the tactics and procedures of their use, how to defend against them, the constantly evolving electromagnetic environment in which they operate, and the stunning potential of tactical data combined with cutting-edge AI and a tech savvy fighting force.
Ukrainians are building these systems themselves because some of the very best of what the U.S. and our allies have provided to Ukraine simply doesn’t work against Russian forces that are adapting quickly, and because the sheer number of systems required is orders of magnitude greater than anything our ponderous defense production system can deliver right now. For example, the Replicator Initiative, DoD’s best effort to break bureaucratic barriers to deliver autonomous systems to warfighters, will produce several thousand drones within 18 – 24 months. In Ukraine, these garage factories can produce – and military on the front lines can consume – several thousand drones in a day.
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Put aside the essential nature of a rules-based international order where European borders cannot be redrawn by force. Put aside the importance of American alliances and commitments. Put aside even the fact that Russia’s military has been decimated at a cost of zero American military combat casualties and less than five percent of what the U.S. spent in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ukraine has become the proving ground, and increasingly the foundry, for the future of security-related technologies. We need that learning, and we need it more quickly and at a greater scale.
What’s happening in Ukraine won’t stay in Ukraine.
America’s adversaries and competitors have lined up to support Russia’s invasion – Iranian attack drones, North Korean troops, and Chinese semiconductors and machine tools all contribute to Russia’s side of the fight. This collaboration is most concerning in the context of Moscow’s and Beijing’s self-declared “no-limits” partnership. In return for its support, we can expect to see China turn Russia’s lessons-learned into leapfrogging innovation in every aspect of autonomous systems, ways to counter autonomous systems, electronic warfare, and cyber operations.
It's essential that the U.S. do the same. We are capable of incredible innovation when threatened, but we tend to wait until after we have lost the first battle to wake up and bring our uniquely American dynamism online in support of our defense. Any future war will likely move far too quickly for us to have the luxury of this approach. Fortunately, we have friends in Ukraine who are learning quickly, and who want to share those lessons with their American partners. As a member of the Ukrainian war cabinet said to us, “sharing lessons learned is how we can repay you for all you have done for us.” We would be foolish to walk away from the offer.
This opinion piece was published on LinkedIn and is being published in The Cipher Brief with the author's permission.
