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Earlier this year, speaking at a press conference in Qatar, President Donald Trump categorically declared that “nobody can beat us.” He continued, “We have the strongest military in the world, by far. Not China, not Russia, not anybody!”
We do have a strong military, but we are woefully unprepared to fight a modern war. That’s because, despite all of the major technological advances in warfighting in recent years, manpower is still absolutely critical, and understanding how those boots on the ground interact with emerging drone warfare is still in its infancy in the U.S. military.
Ground warfare has evolved over the past three and a half years since Russia invaded Ukraine. I've spent considerable time studying this conflict from strategic, operational and tactical angles, and I’ve conducted multiple interviews with combatants on both the Russian and Ukrainian sides. The picture that emerges explains not only why Russia’s progress is slow and Ukraine is gradually losing ground, but also why the U.S. would face serious challenges if forced into a similar fight today.
Some have argued that Russia has failed to completely conquer Ukraine because Russian generals and soldiers are of poor quality. That conclusion ignores the genuinely game-changing nature of drones on the conduct of land warfare.
There isn’t one category or type of drone that is game-changing by itself, but rather the categories of drones and the ways they can be employed in concert with other drones and legacy platforms and soldiers. There are primarily four main classes of drones: first-person view (FPV) drones that fly explosive charges directly into vehicles or soldiers, bomber drones that fly over a target and release bombs, missile-carrying drones, and reconnaissance drones.
Despite endless talk about game-changing weapons, only the widespread deployment of drones has truly altered the nature of this war. Armored vehicles remain essential for transporting infantry to the front, but they can’t move in large numbers without suffering catastrophic losses. Traditional armored charges – such as the type I participated in during Desert Storm’s Battle of 73 Easting – are deadly in today’s battlefield conditions. Russia has increasingly turned to motorcycles to improve frontline mobility – not because they offer protection, but because their speed and maneuverability improve their chances of defeating drone attacks. No armored vehicle can dodge an FPV or fiber optic-guided drone, but a motorcycle might.
As a result, every inch of ground in modern war is contested: by various types of drones, artillery strikes, missiles, rockets, air attacks, armored vehicle cannons, and infantry attacks. Both sides in the Russia-Ukraine War have suffered high vehicle losses. Fighters from both Russia and Ukraine have told me that stepping out of a trench – for any reason, even to eat or relieve themselves – is extraordinarily dangerous.
Any movement above ground can be spotted and targeted by drones within minutes. Reconnaissance drones scan likely targets and guide attack drones to strike. Others simply loiter above the battlefield, waiting for an opportunity.
This is why manpower is still the decisive factor: Drones and air attacks can be devastating, but it takes boots on the ground to either take territory or hold it. This is where Russia’s biggest advantages have come into play in this war of attrition. Russia has millions more men of military age to draw from than Ukraine, and Moscow has chosen to limit its manpower losses and play up its firepower advantages.
Rather than launching costly frontal assaults, Russian forces now frequently flank Ukrainian positions and cities, saturating them first with artillery and glide bombs, then using drones to pin down defenders, and only then send in the infantry to seize territory.
This has sobering implications for the United States and NATO. We do not know how to fight this kind of war. Only recently has the Pentagon begun taking drone warfare seriously – something that should have happened after the 2020 Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. Better late than never, perhaps, but the deeper problem is cultural and doctrinal. We still think in terms of maneuver warfare, “shock and awe,” and rapid dominance. Those concepts no longer apply in peer-on-peer conflicts like this one.
Russia needed nearly two years to discard its outdated views on modern war. It adapted. We haven’t. Earlier this month, the Ukrainian military even mocked the U.S. Army’s newly updated field manual for the “Tank Platoon,” saying flat-out that our doctrines are detached from current battlefield realities.
Today’s U.S. armed ofrces no doubt have skills, quality personnel, and good equipment. But we are far behind in understanding how to fight modern wars. It took both Russia and Ukraine the better part of a year and a half to fully recognize how all the classes of drones have changed the nature of war. Both sides paid an exorbitant price in blood to learn those lessons.
The U.S. Army has studied the conflict and just last month published a compendium on examining the changing nature of war. That’s useful and good. But intellectual knowledge alone won’t help you in the next fight. We’ve got to make profound and fundamental changes now to have a chance to avoid disaster when next we fight on the ground. If the Pentagon was taking this seriously, leaders wouldn’t have merely published a report. They would be urgently changing our fighting doctrine, systems of equipment, types of ordnance and the like to enable and equip our troops to successfully wage war in this new world of conflict.
Yet there is little evidence they’ve done any of those things.
History is filled with the wreckage of once-powerful armies that failed to change with the times and suffered avoidable defeats in subsequent wars. If we are to avoid that sad tradition, major changes must be made, immediately and with urgency. Otherwise, we will pay in blood later for what we should have done today.
– Daniel L. Davis is a retired Army lieutenant colonel with four combat deployments. He is presently a senior fellow with Defense Priorities and host of the Daniel Davis Deep Dive show on YouTube.
