The Pentagon replicated a Ukrainian-style drone attack in Florida. Now it’s changing its counter-drone strategy
Several things—from the players to the technology—set the exercise apart from previous experiments.
Patrick Tucker | April 23, 2026
In a September exercise on a Florida airfield, members of the 10th Special Forces Group launched a drone assault that mirrored the “spiderweb” attack that Ukraine had recently staged against Russia. The defenders were counter-drone troops from across the U.S. military, trained for a week on tech that the Pentagon has spent billions to develop.
U.S. counter-drone efforts haven’t been the same since.
“What I would tell you is that it helped us develop our priorities,” said Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, who leads Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the Pentagon’s counter-drone clearinghouse.
Dubbed Operation Clear Horizon, the exercise at Eglin Air Force Base sought to replicate conditions and weapons seen on the battlefields of Ukraine.
The special operators “had lessons learned from Ukraine in Eastern Europe and they came back and they said, ‘This is what we're seeing on the battlefield’,” Ross said.
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2026/04/pentagon-ukraine-counter-drone/413087/?oref=d1-homepage-top-story
