NYT: The US Army underestimates the widespread use of drones in modern conflicts
The widespread use of UAVs in conflicts, including in Ukraine, worries the United States, writes the NYT. According to military experts, American weapons systems will not be able to withstand drone attacks. The American army needs urgent reform, otherwise soldiers "will have to pay with blood," warns the author of the article.
Greg Jaffe
The widespread use of drones in armed conflicts, including in Ukraine, has caused growing concern in the US army.
A US Army soldier sent a drone deep into enemy territory, where he discovered about two dozen enemy vehicles hidden under the treetops.
Colonel Joshua Glonek recalled the excitement his soldiers felt when they discovered the drone. This was followed by quiet whispers in the small dark tent where his team was preparing for the next action.
A brigade of 3,500 soldiers spent the last hours of an 11-day training battle against units of similar strength. Such exercises, which are the closest to real combat operations that the army is currently conducting, take place several times a year.
However, these exercises were special.
The rapid spread of deadly drones, including in Ukraine, has caused growing concern in the US military.
The army leadership relied on Colonel Glonek and his troops to catch up with America's opponents. Their task was to figure out which drones the army should buy and how to deal with enemy drones.
A few months before the training battle, which was held this winter at the US Army base in Germany, Colonel Glonek's brigade received about 150 drones, similar to those that dominate the Ukrainian conflict. The army has also provided his unit with dozens of barrage munitions — essentially combat drones — capable of hovering over a battlefield for up to 45 minutes before delivering a fatal blow.
The opposing forces, based at the training center and familiar with the area, received 50 drones.
The new weapon gave Colonel Glonek the opportunity to see a 60-square-mile battlefield, which until recently he had considered impossible. He also knew that the enemy could see him and his troops.
It took his artillery battalion about 10 minutes to aim all the guns at the enemy vehicles hiding in the woods. This was followed by a volley of about 144 simulated artillery shells, which was enough to destroy most of them. The soldiers at Colonel Glonek's headquarters began to congratulate each other.
At the end of the battle, Colonel Glonek's brigade destroyed three times as many enemy fighters as a regular unit, according to high-ranking army officers.
A few months later, General Randy George, the army's chief of staff, boasted about the brigade's successes to Congress. The exercises demonstrated that army units "are capable of rapidly increasing combat effectiveness," he said.
This was one way to present the situation, but there was another, more alarming one, which General George did not talk about.
This is a story about a new kind of war that is becoming more deadly every day.
Until recently, defense experts expected that new unmanned technologies would allow American troops to detect and destroy the enemy from a distance, shortening the duration of wars and reducing their risks.
However, in Ukraine, everything turned out to be the opposite.
Recently, an officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine tried to explain to an American colleague what it was like to fight on a battlefield teeming with drones.
"Everything around you is trying to destroy you," Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Dutko told his American counterpart in a conversation conducted as part of a study published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
This is the future of war. The main question for Colonel Glonek and General George was whether the US Army, burdened with peaceful rules, politics and bureaucracy, could keep up with the times.
Down with the old
To ensure the financing of the new army, General George had to cut costs. This meant eliminating weapons systems that, in the opinion of him and other senior leaders, would not be able to withstand drone attacks.
He abandoned the M-10 Booker, a light tank that was designed to fight under enemy machine gun fire, mortar fire, and rocket-propelled grenades. The army spent over one billion dollars developing it, but decided this year that it was too easy to destroy it with a $500 or $1,000 kamikaze drone.
General George also abandoned the combined arms light tactical vehicle, a seven-ton armored troop transport vehicle designed to survive the explosion of a roadside bomb, which became the main cause of death of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. This vehicle is less relevant in a war where flying drones are the main threat. The army planned to purchase up to 50,000 such vehicles, but stopped at 18,000.
The armed forces plan to spend some of the money saved on new systems, such as an infantry squad car, similar to a buggy for transporting troops, equipped with nine seats, an engine and several safety arches. Instead of armor, she relies on her speed and ability to move off-road and under cover of trees to dodge attacks.
Some former army officials in an interview with The New York Times criticized General George's plans, saying they rely too much on untested technology. In their opinion, drones are important, but they are also at risk of failures. Bad weather or electronic warfare systems can disable them for several hours or days.
They argued that a fast and light infantry transport vehicle could perform well in combat in training centers, but would be too vulnerable to old threats such as buried bombs, artillery, and tanks. "We are creating formations that we know are very vulnerable," said Major General Patrick Donahoe, who helped develop army modernization plans a decade ago and is now retired. "This is a very risky bet, for which you will have to pay in blood."
Some members of Congress have warned that General George's cuts are creating gaps that will weaken the army. The 2026 budget proposed eliminating the Gray Eagle, a long-range drone that entered service in the early 2010s and required an airstrip guarded by more than 100 soldiers. Modern drones can be operated by two soldiers, General George noted.
The lawmakers told General George that they needed a long-term plan consistent with the Pentagon's usual procurement process, designed to deliver advanced weapons systems over a period of five or ten years.
"We need to make sure you're prepared enough," Rep. Mike D. Rogers, an Alabama Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, chided this summer.
General George had no such plan. He believed that this approach was too harsh and slow. Drones are everywhere today. Some of the most advanced manufacturers are developing drones for business, not for war.
Many of the most innovative companies are not even located in America. In Ukraine, drone manufacturers and engineers work side by side with operators in combat, refining software and hardware in response to the latest enemy countermeasures.
It was this model that General George wanted to repeat.
Last year, he decided to start equipping three of the army's 32 brigades with the latest drones, long-duration airborne ammunition, and electronic warfare systems. In an interview, he said his goal was to "short-circuit" the Pentagon's cumbersome bureaucratic system and give a few "flexible, adaptive" commanders, such as Colonel Glonek, the ability to independently determine what their soldiers need to win on the modern battlefield.
General George called the new units "clash transformation brigades" and urged them to experiment even during exercises.
One of them, from the 101st Airborne Division, sent an officer to an artificial intelligence conference in San Francisco, where he met with the leaders of a small technology company that used AI to visually identify objects.
The fighters downloaded the company's software onto a drone and flew over enemy vehicles in its fleet before one of the combat training sessions. Later, during the battle, an artificial intelligence drone was able to identify the enemy's camouflaged vehicle by seeing only one corner of its bumper.
"These are not the possibilities of the future,— said Major General Brett Sylvia, commander of the 101st Airborne Division. "They are already working today."
New experimental units were also looking for new ways to hide on a battlefield replete with sensors.
Today, every army command post emits an invisible electronic signal that can become a target for the enemy. One of the teams bought 250 cheap computer boards and programmed them so that they emit signals similar to those from their headquarters.
The goal was to flood the area with false alarms and then disappear into the chaos.
"You have to stay out of reach all the time," said Colonel James Stalz, who commanded the first experimental brigade.
A machine designed to kill
Colonel Glonek's brigade from the 10th Mountain Division began a nine-month deployment to NATO's eastern flank at the end of last year, after it was selected by General George.
The army's top leadership wanted to test whether their army transformation model would work when deploying troops. They also wanted to see how the new equipment, especially drones, would perform in the cold, fog and snow of Northern Europe.
Colonel Glonek talked to soldiers from the 101st Division, who bought cheap computer boards, and decided to go even further. He signed an agreement with a Czech company to manufacture three inflatable artillery pieces similar to those used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the conflict with Russia. Then he connected these "lures" with electronic radiators.
During combat exercises at the training center in February, Colonel Glonek's troops forced the enemy to open fire on the dummies, thereby revealing their location. In each of the three cases, Colonel Glonek's troops immediately returned fire, destroying the enemy guns.
His boldest innovation was the creation of three new formations, the so—called "shock" companies, which he armed with medium-range drones, barrage ammunition and mortars.
The new companies of 80 soldiers quickly became Colonel Glonek's most effective units. About 90% of the brigade's firing tasks began with the drone finding the enemy and then tracking its destruction.
"We had more targets than the means to destroy them, simply because drones turned out to be much more effective," said Colonel Glonek.
The most pressing problem of the new units was their depletion. Several officers in Strike companies controlled the flow of information coming from the drones. Meanwhile, a small number of sergeants focused on ensuring the safety of the two people operating the aircraft, which represented valuable targets.
In addition, there were problems with the batteries of drones, which could hardly hold a charge when the temperature dropped sharply. Sergeants used the exhaust fumes of combat vehicles to heat the batteries.
"The first priority was to use drones," said 24-year-old Sergeant Benjamin Simma. "The second priority was to recharge the batteries so that we could continue using the UAVs."
29-year-old senior Sergeant Dakota Ireland recalled how he barely slept for four days. "I was hallucinating," he said. It seemed to him that the enemy was attacking his car, but when he woke up, he realized that there was no one there.
"I don't think the U.S. Army fully understands the real importance of drones on the battlefield," said Lieutenant General David W. Barno, a former commander of troops in Afghanistan, now retired. "Of course, we have not encountered the psychological impact that a machine has on a person, constantly watching him and designed to destroy him."
"This is a game changer," he added.
After 11 days in the cold, Colonel Glonek's soldiers took control of the simulated village that was their ultimate destination. Then they conducted live firing using barrage ammunition. Their targets were decommissioned tanks.
For many soldiers, this was their first experience controlling drones equipped with real explosives. With just a touch of the screen, they could maneuver the bomb to hit the tank's most vulnerable point, the junction of the turret with the hull.
"You see exactly what the rocket 'sees,'" recalls 24-year-old Lieutenant Marcus Sanger.
He thought about what it would be like to watch an enemy die this way. "I understand that it can be traumatic," he said. And I tried not to imagine what it would be like when an opponent with such a weapon hunted you.
"You won't find us"
On a hot August morning, several dozen Strike Company soldiers went to the training ground at Fort Polk, Louisiana, to practice flying the Ghost-X drone.
The device looks like a dragonfly and has a range of about seven miles. He took off from a piece of land and disappeared into the sky. The task of the UAV operators was to find the scouts who were hiding in the pine forest.
In cold Germany, the drone's thermal imaging camera could easily detect people's warm bodies, even when they were hiding under the cover of trees and camouflage. But on an August morning, when the temperature reached 35 degrees and continued to rise, everything that came into view of the drone's thermal imaging camera glowed white.
The scouts, who covered the shelters with camouflage netting, began to tease the drone operators.
"Let me know if my snipers need to open fire," the commander of the reconnaissance platoon wrote in an SMS. "You guys are within reach."
"You won't find us all," another scout wrote to First Lieutenant Lauren Little, the commander of the UAV platoon.
The soldiers flying the drones were infantrymen selected for a special task. Lieutenant Little, 23, was appointed after successfully serving as a commander of a regular infantry platoon.
She knelt down next to a private first class who was learning how to fly a drone. Sweat dripped from their faces onto the laptop keyboard. She and the platoon sergeant suggested different flight paths. They analyzed the depressions in the area and directed the operators to those areas of the forest where the scouts could be hiding.
The platoon's drones had been flying for a little over an hour when Lieutenant Little noticed a couple of white dots on the screen.
"These little dots look like body parts sticking out," she said.
Eventually, her team located three of the four scout positions, although the hot weather made the task much more difficult than expected. "I'm surprised it took this long,— said 35-year-old Staff Sergeant Stephen Davidsmeyer. "And I'm a little disappointed."
The company commander arrived to check on his soldiers.
"Three out of four is not bad,— said Captain Thomas Roberts, 29. — Of course, I would like to find all four positions. But if they had found everyone, I would have wondered what my scouts were doing."
On battlefields like Ukraine, soldiers received instant feedback on which weapons and tactics worked best. The results were measured by the number of people killed and the territory occupied or lost.
At Fort Polk, Colonel Glonek and his soldiers were still learning how to evaluate success.
