Why Cheap Drones Have Changed Everything

For more than a century, the mathematics of warfare remained surprisingly stable.¹

If one nation wanted to defeat another, it produced larger armies, built more tanks, manufactured more aircraft, and attempted to overwhelm its opponent through industrial production. The machines certainly became more sophisticated—from biplanes to stealth bombers—but the basic equation never changed. The expensive weapon usually defeated the cheaper one, but that assumption has quietly died somewhere over the battlefields of Ukraine.² ³

Military historians may eventually point to this decade as the moment when warfare experienced its most significant technological shift since the widespread adoption of gunpowder.⁴ Not because someone invented an entirely new weapon, but because thousands of inexpensive flying robots suddenly became capable of destroying machines worth thousands of times their own cost.⁵

A $700 first-person-view drone has disabled multiple $10,000,000-per-unit Abrams tanks.⁶ Hobby aircraft assembled from commercial electronics have destroyed ammunition dumps hundreds of miles behind enemy lines.⁷ A swarm costing less than a single cruise missile can overwhelm air defenses designed to stop aircraft costing tens of millions of dollars.⁸

History occasionally reaches these moments when an old economic model simply collapses, and this appears to be one of them, causing the conflict in Ukraine to become the world’s largest military laboratory.⁹

Both Russia and Ukraine now manufacture drones in numbers that would have sounded absurd only five years ago. Reconnaissance drones hover continuously over front lines. First-person-view attack drones hunt vehicles and infantry. Long-range unmanned aircraft strike oil refineries, ammunition depots, command centers, bridges, and logistics hubs hundreds of miles from the battlefield. Naval drones have even forced one of the world’s largest navies to rethink operations in the Black Sea.¹⁰ ¹¹

The remarkable aspect isn’t merely the technology. It is a production philosophy.

Unlike traditional defense procurement—which often requires a decade to design, test, and field a new system—Ukrainian engineers sometimes redesign drones in a matter of weeks after discovering Russian countermeasures. Russian engineers respond with new electronic warfare techniques, Ukrainian software changes, Russian jammers evolve, fiber-optic guidance appears, and artificial intelligence begins assisting navigation.¹²

The engineering cycle now resembles Silicon Valley more than a twentieth-century arsenal, where software updates can become battlefield advantages, and that should concern every military planner on Earth.¹³

Yet, for all the headlines surrounding drones, they have not eliminated the importance of soldiers. Quite the contrary. Every successful drone strike still depends upon intelligence gathering, logistics, communications, maintenance crews, ammunition supplies, and infantry capable of holding the terrain after an attack. Drones can destroy a trench, but they cannot occupy it. They can cripple an armored column, but they cannot search a building, question civilians, or establish political control over captured territory.¹⁴

Technology has changed the battlefield, but it has not changed the purpose of war.¹⁵

Israel offers yet another glimpse into this future.

Its military has integrated unmanned aircraft into virtually every level of modern operations. Small quadcopters clear buildings before infantry enters, while larger unmanned aircraft provide continuous surveillance. Precision-guided drones reduce the need to expose soldiers unnecessarily while maintaining constant observation over hostile territory.¹⁶

The important lesson is not simply that Israel possesses sophisticated drones, but that drones have become another member of the squad. A modern infantry platoon increasingly operates alongside robotic systems rather than merely receiving occasional aerial reconnaissance, and that relationship is likely to deepen. Artificial intelligence already assists target recognition, navigation systems increasingly compensate for electronic jamming, and autonomous flight continues improving. One can easily imagine future battlefield robots coordinating among themselves faster than any human headquarters could issue orders.¹⁷ ¹⁸ ¹⁹

The implications extend well beyond Europe and the Middle East.

Sudan’s ongoing civil war has demonstrated that even nations lacking advanced aerospace industries can employ drones strategically. Long-range attacks against infrastructure, airports, and fuel depots have shown that relatively inexpensive unmanned aircraft can threaten locations previously considered secure. Technologies once reserved for major military powers are becoming globally accessible.²⁰

History suggests that military technology rarely remains exclusive for long. No matter the weapon—from the bow and lance to guided missiles and drones—eventually everyone acquires it. Drone warfare appears to be following precisely that historical pattern.²¹

The economic implications may prove even more profound than the tactical ones. A modern fighter aircraft may cost over one hundred million dollars, and an aircraft carrier costs billions. Main battle tanks often approach ten million dollars once training, logistics, and support equipment are considered.²²

Against them stands a machine assembled from commercial motors, batteries, cameras, and open-source software. Defense economists now face an uncomfortable question: What happens when offense becomes dramatically cheaper than defense? History has usually favored the side capable of producing greater industrial capacity. The coming decades may instead reward whoever can manufacture the greatest number of intelligent autonomous systems and, as any student of military history knows, “Quantity has a quality all its own.”²³

Researchers across Europe, North America, and Asia are actively developing systems capable of autonomous navigation, cooperative swarm behavior, electronic countermeasure avoidance, and target recognition. These are no longer science-fiction concepts but active engineering projects moving steadily from research laboratories toward military deployment.²⁴ ²⁵

The ethical questions become increasingly uncomfortable. Who bears responsibility when an autonomous drone makes the wrong decision? Can software be trusted with lethal authority? How much human oversight is sufficient? These debates have barely begun.²⁶ ²⁷

One lesson, however, already appears unavoidable. Future wars will almost certainly involve fewer pilots and more programmers, fewer tank crews and more software engineers, and fewer mechanics carrying wrenches and more technicians carrying laptops.²⁸

Military academies will continue teaching tactics, but they may soon find themselves teaching data science, artificial intelligence, and electronic warfare with equal intensity. The battlefield is becoming a network, the soldier is becoming an operator, and the factory is becoming a software company.²⁹ ³⁰

This transformation is still in its infancy. Future historians may someday describe the battles now unfolding in Ukraine, Israel, and Sudan the same way historians describe the Spanish Civil War—a proving ground where the technologies that defined the next generation of warfare first revealed themselves.³¹ ³²

If that proves true, we are not witnessing the end of human warfare. We are witnessing the beginning of machine warfare. The soldiers will still matter, but the machines simply won’t ask permission anymore.³³ ³⁴ ³⁵

End Notes

1. Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds, Meatgrinder: Russian Tactics in the Second Year of Its Invasion of Ukraine (London: Royal United Services Institute, 2023), 24–34.
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/meatgrinder-russian-tactics-second-year-its-invasion-ukraine

2. Alex Vershinin, “The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine,” Royal United Services Institute, March 18, 2024.
https://my.rusi.org/resource/the-attritional-art-of-war-lessons-from-the-russian-war-on-ukraine.html

3. Institute for the Study of War, Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, daily operational assessments.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates

4. U.S. Department of Defense, “DOD Releases First-Ever National Defense Industrial Strategy,” January 11, 2024.
https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3643326/dod-releases-first-ever-national-defense-industrial-strategy/

5. U.S. Department of Defense, Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap 2017–2042 (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2018), 9–31.
https://news.usni.org/2018/08/30/pentagon-unmanned-systems-integrated-roadmap-2017-2042

6. NATO, “Emerging and Disruptive Technologies,” June 25, 2025.
https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/deterrence-and-defence/emerging-and-disruptive-technologies

7. International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2025 (London: IISS, 2025), 190–214.
https://www.iiss.org/publications/the-military-balance/

8. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Military Expenditure Database.
https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex

9. Michael Kofman and Rob Lee, “Not Built for Purpose: The Russian Military’s Ill-Fated Force Design,” War on the Rocks, June 2, 2022.
https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/not-built-for-purpose-the-russian-militarys-ill-fated-force-design/

10. Raphael S. Cohen et al., The Future of Warfare in 2030: Project Overview and Conclusions (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2020).
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2849z1.html

11. Center for Strategic and International Studies, “The Russia-Ukraine Drone War: Innovation on the Frontlines and Beyond,” May 28, 2025.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/russia-ukraine-drone-war-innovation-frontlines-and-beyond

12. Center for Strategic and International Studies, “Lessons from the Ukraine Conflict: Modern Warfare in the Age of Autonomy, Information, and Resilience,” May 2, 2025.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/lessons-ukraine-conflict-modern-warfare-age-autonomy-information-and-resilience

13. Reuters, “How Drone Combat in Ukraine Is Changing Warfare,” March 25, 2024.
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRAINE-CRISIS/DRONES/dwpkeyjwkpm/

14. Reuters, “Cheap Drones Are Reshaping the War in the Sky,” March 16, 2026.
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/IRAN-CRISIS/DRONES/dwpkyamxqpm/

15. The Economist, “Modern Warfare Is Becoming More Small, Cheap and Autonomous,” January 25, 2024.
https://www.economist.com/special-report/2024/01/25/modern-warfare-is-becoming-more-small-cheap-and-autonomous

16. David Hambling, “Drone Hide and Seek: FPVs Are Changing the Rules of Urban Warfare,” Forbes, May 5, 2026.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2026/05/05/drone-hide-and-seek-fpvs-are-changing-the-rules-of-urban-warfare/

17. Atlantic Council, “FPV Drones in Ukraine Are Changing Modern Warfare,” June 20, 2024.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/fpv-drones-in-ukraine-are-changing-modern-warfare/

18. U.S. Army, “Unmanned Aircraft and the Revolution in Operational Warfare,” Military Review, July–August 2025.
https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/July-August-2025/Unmanned-Aircraft-Revolution/

19. U.S. Army Futures Command, The U.S. Army Robotic and Autonomous Systems Strategy (Austin, TX: Army Futures Command, 2019), 6–24.
https://info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-RoboticAutonomousMultiDomainOps.pdf

20. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, “OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics Program.”
https://www.darpa.mil/research/programs/offensive-swarm-enabled-tactics

21. Congressional Research Service, Defense Primer: Categories of Uncrewed Aircraft Systems, October 25, 2024.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12797

22. Congressional Research Service, Department of Defense Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems, March 31, 2025.
https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R48477.html

23. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community 2025, 10–17.
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-2025-Unclassified-Report.pdf

24. U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-1 (Fort Eustis, VA: TRADOC, 2018), 19–37.
https://www.army.mil/article/243754/the_u_s_army_in_multi_domain_operations_2028

25. David H. Berger, Force Design 2030 (Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 2020), 4–15.
https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/142/Docs/CMC38%20Force%20Design%202030%20Report%20Phase%20I%20and%20II.pdf

26. Mark A. Milley, testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, 2023.
https://armedservices.house.gov/

27. Jack Watling, Oleksandr V. Danylyuk, and Nick Reynolds, Preliminary Lessons from Russia’s Unconventional Operations During the Russo-Ukrainian War, February 2022–February 2023 (London: Royal United Services Institute, 2023), 12–20.
https://static.rusi.org/202303-SR-Unconventional-Operations-Russo-Ukrainian-War-web-final.pdf

28. Michael Kofman, “Lessons from Ukraine,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
https://carnegieendowment.org/programs/russia-eurasia/ukraine-war

29. Council on Foreign Relations, “How Drones Are Changing Warfare.”
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/how-drones-are-changing-warfare

30. Foreign Affairs, “The Drone Age Has Arrived.”
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/tags/drones

31. Israel Defense Forces, official operational statements concerning unmanned aerial systems.
https://www.idf.il/en/

32. United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, Uncrewed Aerial Systems: A Primer.
https://unidir.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/UNIDIR_Uncrewed_Aerial_Systems_Primer.pdf

33. Paul Scharre, Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War (New York: W. W. Norton, 2018), 53–89.
https://wwnorton.com/books/Army-of-None

34. Financial Times, “Ukraine Is Winning the Drone Start-Up War,” April 10, 2025.
https://www.ft.com/content/2c7d3c96-f6a8-4afa-bd88-5ea2fa39f5c1

35. U.S. Army War College, Parameters: The Future Character of War, selected articles on autonomous systems and drone warfare.
https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/