What Drones Can—and Cannot—Do on the Battlefield
The Pentagon Should Learn From Israel and Ukraine
Michael C. Horowitz, Lauren A. Kahn, and Joshua A. Schwartz
July 4, 2025
MICHAEL C. HOROWITZ is Senior Fellow for Technology and Innovation at the Council on Foreign Relations and Richard Perry Professor and Director of the Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Development and Emerging Capabilities.
LAUREN A. KAHN is Senior Research Analyst at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University.
JOSHUA A. SCHWARTZ is Assistant Professor of International Relations and Emerging Technology at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology. He is a former Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Within the space of two weeks in June, the Ukrainian and Israeli armed forces executed two of the most audacious operations in recent military history. On June 1, using hundreds of short-range one-way attack drones smuggled deep into Russian territory, Ukraine was able to significantly damage or destroy at least 11 Russian strategic bombers as part of its Operation Spider’s Web. Then, starting on June 13, in Operation Rising Lion, Israel used one-way attack drones that had been smuggled into Iran piece by piece to destroy Iranian air defenses, helping Israel gain full control of Iranian airspace. In each case, drones that cost no more than a few thousand dollars each were able to wipe out tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of advanced weapons systems that cannot be easily replaced.
These two stunning tactical successes herald a broader shift in the conduct of warfare. Both Ukraine and Israel also continue to rely on traditional, expensive weapons systems, and Israel’s success in Iran in particular required the extensive use of crewed fighter jets. But for modern militaries, uncrewed weapons systems—increasingly enabled by artificial intelligence—are becoming critical for success on the battlefield. This should be no surprise: according to Ukrainian officials, one-way attack drones are now responsible for 70 percent of the frontline casualties in the war between Russia and Ukraine. In 2024, Eric Schmidt, the chair of the U.S. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence and Google’s former CEO, argued that the rise of cheap drones has rendered older technologies such as tanks “useless” and advised the United States to “give them away” and buy drones instead. In posts on X in 2024, Elon Musk suggested that “idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35” and said that “future wars are all about drones.”
Despite this growing consensus, the U.S. Department of Defense still devotes most of its funding to expensive legacy weapons systems. Operation Midnight Hammer—the June 22 U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear sites involving more than 125 U.S. aircraft, including seven B-2 bombers—showed that high-cost, crewed weapons systems still have an important role on the battlefield. But as modern warfare evolves, so must the world’s most powerful military. The Pentagon spends tens of billions of dollars annually sustaining and upgrading aircraft carriers, F-35s, and tanks. But it invested just $500 million in low-cost drones through the first round of its signature Replicator Initiative in 2023. Although the Replicator Initiative represents a good start, U.S. investment in the low-cost drones necessary to fight a high-intensity, modern war is still at least an order of magnitude too small.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/what-drones-can-and-cannot-do-battlefield
