What began Like a secret In the army he has jumped to the first flat of the nation: the pentagon has reacted afternoon and bad To the revolution of the drones. While Ukraine and Russia integrate at dizzying rhythm Cheap, disposable and effective platforms, and China You don’t know what to do With as many drones, Washington is entangled in procedures, inherited priorities and a culture of acquisitions that treats drones as “new airplanes” and not as low cost ammunition and mass production.
In the background, a dead end: to anticipate the Chinese threat need … China.
Revolution. The contemporary battlefield has been marked by a CStructural Ambio: Cheap, mass and disposable drones have become the decisive asymmetric weapon, capable of altering the balance of power between large and small powers.
Ukraine, with one constant creativity And an incessant flow of adaptations, has shown that an army with limited resources can neutralize armored, strategic airplanes and russian logistics lines by swarms of short and medium reach drones.
And delay. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, despite publicly recognizing the threat, maintains A dangerous delay. The statement of General James Mingus, who compared the current drones with the devastating impact of the improvised explosive artifacts in Iraq, Synthesizes the dilemma: This is the “FDE today”, a transformative weapon against which the United States has not yet reacted with the necessary urgency.
Strategic blindness. They tell The analysts of the country that history is repeated. During the years of the insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, thousands of soldiers died while the Department of Defense delayed the adoption of the Mrap vehiclesarmored designed for Resist FDIuntil the pressure of Robert Gates He broke the internal resistances.
Today, the same pattern It is observed with drones. The rigid structure of the pentagon, obsessed with large programs as the F-35strategic submarines or The Sentinel missilesmarginalizes the cheap and fast solutions that make a difference in the field. There is talk of initiatives such as The Replicator program or of record budgets for research in autonomous weapons, but the reality is that, in front of the millions of drones that China could produce and the monthly thousands that Russia already displays, the United States barely has prototypes and promises.
Presentation of Lucas, the Made in USA copy of the Shaheds, or almost
The awkward mirror: the Shahed. We have gone counting. The weapon that best reflects that gap is The Shahed-136renamed Geran by Russia. Born as an Iranian clone of Israeli designs, it has become the most influential mercupy ammunition of the 21st century. With an approximate cost of $ 50,000, A autonomy of up to 1,600 kilometers and the ability to carry loads of 20 to 40 kilos, combines simplicity with strategic efficacy.
In Russian hands, it already occurs at an industrial scale And it has been perfected with more range variants, better tight sensors and loads. Faced with the millions of cruise missile, Shahed is the pure expression of the war economy: cheap, abundant and devastating. The fact that the United States does not have an equivalent produced by mass constitutes a Strategic negligence symptom.
The double error. On the one hand, the Pentagon has ignored the need to adopt massively short -range dronesof the FPV type, which in Ukraine have become the Common soldier weaponcapable of extending the scope of an infantry squad from 800 meters to more than 12 kilometers. On the other, it has dismissed for years the importance of long -range ammunition low costentrusting in expensive and limited missile arsenals.
This double error points to a mentality anchored in past warsunable to accept that innovation does not reside in the exquisite, but in the numerous. The US army still does not have formations dedicated to drones, or new military specialties focused on them. The doctrine barely begins to adapt and pilot programs advance at a ridiculous speed compared to the rhythm of Ukrainian innovation.
Russian Shaheds Factory
China and recover lost time. The proposal of the most realistic analysts It is clear: United States needs, without delay, standardize Two drone designs long -range kamikaze. The first, about 1,600 km, cheap and massive, would serve both in Europe and in the First Pacific Islands chain.
The second, more than 3,000 km, would be crucial to, for example, hit from the second island chain to the interior of China, even after the establishment of Bubble A2/AD. Both, complemented with variations in useful loads and guidance systems, would guarantee tactical flexibility and a deterrent volume. Without this capacity, the United States would enter any greater conflict with a ridiculously insufficient arsenal against tens of thousands of enemy threats.
The logic of wear. The value of these weapons does not only reside in their destructive capacity. His strength lies in the economic equation: they force the adversary to spend millions in interceptors for each device which costs just tens of thousands. The “effector depletion” thus becomes a strategic weapon: saturate enemy defenses until their missile arsenals and force them to cover a spectrum of threats impossible to handle.
Even a drone that never reaches its objective fulfills its function to the Force the enemy to shoot. Ukraine lo has demonstrated by forcing Russia to disperse anti -aircraft defenses against improvised swarms; The same logic, multiplied by tens of thousands of units, could turn the balance against China or Russia.
The Chinese problem. The underlying problem is industrial disability. And here comes one of the paradoxes of the situation: the United States depends almost completely on the nation of which he intends to defend himself. And is that It depends on China for everythingfrom batteries to basic motors and materials. Its acquisition structure, designed for the slow rhythms of the cold war, is not prepared to produce quickly and decentralized.
While the adversary itera versions in weeks, the Pentagon takes years to approve contracts. The solution: analysts aim to diversify production between dozens of medium and small companies, under a framework of standardized designs owned by the government, avoiding units of a single contractor (China). The end: build a resilient, scalable and competitive supply, capable of accumulating tens of thousands of drones in peacetime and multiplying production in case of war.
The deadlines. Plus: The challenge is immediate. China, with its production capacity Massive and state control, could, a priori, flood the Pacific with millions of drones in a matter of months. Russia already produces shaheds in quantities that exceed all American amazion of cheap long -range ammunition. Iran has exported its technology to multiple regionsconsolidating as a weight actor in the proliferation of asymmetric weapons.
Faced with this panorama, American passivity is not just a setback: it is an existential threat to its deterrence. The fight of the future will not win with a few sophisticated systems, but with endless waves of cheap, versatile and ready to saturate defenses.
A warning. In short, what is at stake is not one more program or a marginal innovation. For the United States it is about Strategic survival In a world where the war of swarms, cheap and ubiquitous It is already a reality.
From that prism, most agree: Washington must stop dream with perfect weapons and assume that the future is played in the volume, speed and adaptability. If you do not act, if you do not produce tens of thousands of Shahed -style drones and do not transform your doctrine and its industry, it will be late for what comes.
Image | Army Contracting Command’s Facebook Page
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