The Drone and AI Delusion
What Defense VC Firms Get Wrong about Military Evolutions and War
Secretary of Defense Rock
Aug 06, 2025
Ukrainian Infantryman training
A few days ago, Palmer Luckey, the founder of Anduril Industries and a leading voice in the Silicon Valley defense-tech ecosystem, delivered a speech at National Taiwan University in Taipei.1 Framed as a call to action for Taiwan’s next generation of engineers and technologists, the speech urged students to apply their talents to national defense and help build a high-tech deterrent against the growing threat from China. But beyond its rhetorical appeal to patriotism and innovation, Luckey’s remarks recycled a familiar set of assumptions that have become gospel among defense-focused venture capital firms and companies spawning in Silicon Valley and making their way east to Washington to sell their products. These firms, flush with cash and influence, consistently misinterpret the nature of military power, how wars are actually won, and why military technology evolves the way it does. Luckey’s speech exemplifies the strategic naïveté that emerges when technologists mistake tactical disruption for strategic transformation.
Over the past year, nearly every major American media outlet has published a long-form article touching on the “drone and AI revolution” in warfare.2 From cable news segments to longform features in major newspapers, the narrative is remarkably consistent: low-cost drones and autonomous systems are transforming the modern battlefield and heralding a new era of war, one that the United States is aloof from.3
Dexter Filkins in The New Yorker writes, “A growing consensus of defense experts holds that the United States is dangerously unprepared for the conflicts it might face.”4 This techno-optimism (and fear) has also permeated the discourse of the foreign policy elite and government. A growing number of opinion pieces and essays in flagship publications like Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and The National Interest have echoed and amplified this framing.5 An article in Foreign Affairs asserts that “the United States has largely missed this revolution in military technology” in reference to the rapid evolution and adoption of drone warfare.6 Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth pledged in a memo that the DOD would be “unleashing the combined potential of American manufacturing and warfighter ingenuity” to increase production and integration of drones.7 Furthermore, the Army has stated it would like to have upwards of 90% of its aircraft be unmanned in the coming years. 8
The government and these outlets increasingly portray drones, machine learning, and algorithmic targeting as not just tactical tools but strategic game-changers—capable of offsetting traditional military disadvantages and reshaping how nations deter and fight wars. The result is a growing intellectual consensus, or at the least an evident enthusiasm, that elevates emerging technologies as the decisive factor in 21st-century conflict, often without sufficient attention to the broader institutional, logistical, and political realities that shape war’s outcomes.
https://secretaryrofdefenserock.substack.com/p/the-drone-and-ai-delusion?r=1oi1iu&triedRedirect=true
