Closing the Loop: Improving Innovation Feedback Between Soldiers, Startups, and Strategy

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Nils Olsen, Luc Hillion and Dan Smith

The United States Army’s transition from legacy RQ-11 Raven drones to newer Skydio X10D platforms has degraded the tactical capabilities of the 173rd Airborne Brigade due to systemic procurement and integration failures. This technological regression leaves deployed paratroopers with unreliable connections, incompatible battery shipments, and zero direct feedback channels to the defense technology industry.

These operational deficiencies stem from an institutional mismatch where the military applies rigid scaling strategies designed for finished products to rapidly evolving small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) that require continuous, user-driven iteration. Consequently, tactical units face broken feedback loops, a lack of standardized interoperability for critical components, and severe contracting gaps that stifle domestic industrial capacity while host-nation restrictions compound deployment delays. To resolve these bottlenecks, the Pentagon must reform its acquisition architecture to prioritize achieving product-market fit through phased validation models before attempting to scale production.

Comment

The Skydio X10D deployment issues within the 173rd Airborne Brigade expose a structural barrier in the United States' domestic drone manufacturing base. Unlike China's highly subsidised, vertically integrated commercial ecosystem, American startups face fragmented supply chains struggling to deliver compatible components. This bottleneck is exacerbated by the Defense Innovation Unit's inability to guarantee sustained, long-term demand signals, which prevents venture-backed hardware firms from investing in continuous production-line tooling. Consequently, the domestic industrial base remains trapped in low-volume prototyping, unable to match the rapid iteration cycles seen in Eastern Europe.

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