26 February 2026

When it comes to drones, the Pentagon should mind the experience gap

Sara Willett

As US and allied partners push to develop, produce and field military technologies for the modern battlefield, they are leaning into lessons learned from Ukraine and other recent global conflicts. Unmanned and autonomous systems are a major focus, and to have lasting impact must fit seamlessly into how wars are fought and sustained.

When it comes to unmanned systems, the US military does not have a technology problem — there are dozens of viable options in existence that would improve our capabilities to deter and wage wars. Rather, we have a technology adoption problem. The challenge lies in how these technologies fit into the ways our military operates and wages war, and trust by human operators in both the technology and the application must be created if those technologies are to be successfully accepted, produced and fielded in appreciable quantities.

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