The US Must Stop Underestimating Drone Warfare
In 2026, we We won’t see terrorist incidents similar to 9/11, when hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center, or the Oklahoma City bombing, when trucks filled with ammonium nitrate leveled federal buildings. Instead, the next act of terror will begin with the drone of the drone’s rotors spinning at 5,000 rpm, audible just seconds before the swarm reaches its target.
In recent years, drones have become an integral part of modern warfare. On the battlefield, we have undeniably entered the era of precise mass in conflict, where low-cost assignable drones, powered by widely available commercial technology, open software, and AI, are now the most effective weapons. They can be hidden in plain sight and then launched to destroy targets thousands of miles from active battlefields. In June 2025, for example, they were used by Ukraine to destroy 10% of Russian bombers on the tarmac as part of Operation Spider Web. The same month, Israel also launched clandestine drone attacks from Iran to destroy military and nuclear sites. In April, Houthi rebels used drones and cruise missiles to attack the USS. Harry Truman—a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier—in the Red Sea. The carrier swerved so hard to avoid being hit that it knocked a $56 million F-18 off its deck.
It is certain that in 2026 we will witness a drone attack in the United States, against civilian or military targets.
Like the September 11 attacks, the surprise will not be a surprise. The offensive and defensive power of low-cost commercial drones was known to the U.S. military as early as 2017. That year, the Defense Innovation Unit, the Pentagon’s office in Silicon Valley, created the military’s first commercial drone unit, with the support of then-Defense Secretary James Mattis. Named Rogue Squadron, it conducted simulated drone battles in parking lots and created the first mass adoption program of commercial drones within the military, called Blue UAS (unmanned aerial system).
Yet today, due to bureaucratic inertia and the accelerating drone capabilities of foreign adversaries, the United States finds itself defenseless. Currently, no U.S. military installation can reliably repel a complex drone attack such as Ukraine’s assault on Russian nuclear bombers. Our civilian infrastructure is even less protected.
Yet the DoD budget for 2025 only provides $350 million for tactical-level UAS systems. With this funding, DoD plans to field only about 4,000 UAS, bringing the average cost per system to nearly $100,000. The largest drone factories in Ukraine can produce thousands of “first-person” (FPV) drones per day, at a cost of a few hundred dollars each. The Ukrainian army delivers 200,000 FPV drones to the battlefield per month and plans to expand production to 4,500,000 FPV drones per year by the end of this year.
