In Over Their Heads: U.S. Ground Forces are Dangerously Unprepared for Enemy Drones
Jonathan Gillis
May 30, 2017
America’s ground forces are not accustomed to looking at the sky. That’s because the last time the United States sustained a reported casualty from an enemy aircraft was April 15, 1953 — 64 years ago.
For decades, American air dominance has gone almost uncontested, and ground forces have all but forgotten they can be touched from above. But thanks to the proliferation of small, low-cost drones and desktop manufacturing, that paradigm is now changing — and quickly. As T.X. Hammes argued last year, small aerial drones have brought about the “democratization of airpower.” Today, both state and non-state actors are capable of coordinating precision air attacks at remarkably low costs. And the U.S. military is alarmingly unprepared.
https://warontherocks.com/2017/05/in-over-their-heads-u-s-ground-forces-are-dangerously-unprepared-for-enemy-drones/
