U.S. military must adapt to drones on battlefield or risk losing supremacy, Marine veteran warns
Drones have revolutionized warfare, and with relatively cheap technology posing a deadly threat, the U.S. military needs to adapt, Marine veteran William McNulty said.
His venture-capital fund has invested in Ukrainian drone technology, which has evolved rapidly over the course of the war with Russia. Drones are now estimated to inflict around 80% of combat casualties on both sides, according to some estimates.
"There's a real risk that the U.S. would lose its military supremacy if it doesn't adapt to modern conditions on the battlefield," McNulty said. "We're going to be going up against these same unmanned systems that Russia is using against Ukraine."
Shortly after 60 Minutes spoke with McNulty, America went to war, and the Iranian drones began flying. The first Americans killed in the conflict were targeted with a drone. The U.S. military is now learning its lessons in blood, just as Ukraine did.
Drones dominate in Ukraine
The traditional front line in Ukraine has expanded to a strip of land, around 10 miles wide, called the "kill zone." Anyone who steps foot there can be spotted by a drone operator, and hunted down.
Tanks have been retrofitted with cages and mesh to deflect drone strikes. Roads close to the front are covered with netting, designed to catch drones before they hit their target. And to evade interference from electronic jammers, the militaries of both Russia and Ukraine launch drones attached to miles-long spools of fiber-optic wire.
The drones are not just in the air. Ukraine has also developed sea drones, including a model called Sea Baby, which can carry around 4,400 pounds of explosives, an operator told 60 Minutes. He said it's enough to take out a Russian warship.
Sea drones, produced for around $300,000 apiece, have destroyed warships that cost tens of millions of dollars. Ukraine says it has used them to sink or disable 11 Russian vessels.
A ground drone, mounted with a .50-caliber machine gun, recently held off a Russian attack single-handedly for 45 days straight. In January, three Russian soldiers surrendered to a similar model.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, the architect of Ukraine's drone program, said that over the course of the war, he boosted Ukraine's production from 2,000 to 4 million drones per year. The inexpensive new technology has helped level the battlefield for the outnumbered Ukrainians.
"It's a data-driven war, with big numbers. It's a numbers game," Kamyshin said, adding, "We have to count everything. We have to count [the] number of drones we use, efficiency of each of them, cost to kill for every Russian."
Drone innovation as Ukraine, Russia war continues
Ukraine's military has set up drone training academies to teach the new technology and the rapid shifts in tactics that come with it. Ukraine says it makes more than 95% of its own military drones – and the country is harnessing talent from some unusual places. Former brewery engineer Roman Tkachenko, for example, founded a company called Tencore, which develops remote-controlled, armored evacuation drones to transport wounded soldiers.
Tkachenko says the idea is to "send the robot" so as to "not risk" a human life.
"So for us, it's a human life is most important," Tkachenko said.
Tkachenko said he works with soldiers on the front lines to create future drone designs. The same drone, which Tkachenko said has saved hundreds of lives, can also be adapted to mount a 40-mm grenade launcher, which can be controlled from a bunker miles from the battlefield.
The innovation cycle for drones is brief, lasting roughly one week, Kamyshin explained.
"It means from the point you send a drone to the front line, get the feedback, change something, and get the new version, it could be as short as one week," Kamyshin said.
Russia is also innovating in the drone arms race. Kamyshin believes that at this point, it's "equilibrium," and neither country has the edge.
Preparing for the next conflict
Forces around the world are confronting the change in warfare. At a NATO training exercise in Estonia last year, commanders tested their vulnerability against drones. Around 1,000 NATO personnel were defeated in the drill by a group of drone operators, some of them Ukrainian.
The U.S. military now has drone innovation labs set up around the world, including at the U.S. Army Garrison Wiesbaden in Germany. Any service member with an idea, or just an interest, can request to spend time in one of the labs.
Capt. Ronan Sefton, who was first deployed to Germany with the Army's 2nd Cavalry Regiment not long after Russia launched its invasion in 2022, said Americans have been learning from Ukrainians.
"The first really poignant lesson for us was, there needs to be more drones," Sefton said. "They need to be everywhere involved in the training to add to the realism."
Sefton went to every senior commander he could find to tell them about it.
"The thing that we wanted to communicate was, 'This is important, it's changing warfare, and here's how we can actually implement it now,'" Sefton said.
Sefton joined the Army's Ukraine Lessons Learned Task Force, which has the job of translating experience from Ukraine's scrappy fighting force to America's sprawling military. New technology does not make the U.S. military's traditional firepower obsolete, Sefton said, but it needs to adapt, urgently, to counter the drones developed by America's adversaries.
"The goal there is to become ready for the next conflict. We see it with the armed forces of Ukraine. They have learned these lessons through blood," Sefton said. "There will of course be additional lessons that we will learn, perhaps through blood. But it will only make us better at what we already are."