Why the US military is racing to defend against a new wave of drone warfare

Why the US military is racing to defend against a new wave of drone warfare

The US military’s approach to drone warfare is undergoing a rapid and urgent shift after a series of deadly incidents and sobering intelligence reports revealed just how exposed American forces—and even domestic bases—are to modern drone attacks. After the deaths of three Army reservists in Jordan early last year in an attack blamed on Iranian-backed militias, the Pentagon began accelerating upgrades to overseas drone defenses. But more recent events—from Ukraine’s deep strikes on Russian bombers to Israel’s covert drone raids inside Iran—have highlighted a far bigger problem: the drone threat isn’t just abroad. It’s now a real and rising risk at home, the New York Times reported.

Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Web, which used drones launched from inside Russian territory to destroy strategic bombers, sent shockwaves through the defense world. US officials and defense contractors say it’s a clear demonstration of how low-cost, improvised drones can overwhelm even the most sophisticated militaries. Ukrainian officials estimate that drones have caused up to 70% of Russian military casualties in recent months—proof, some experts say, that this isn’t the future of war; it’s the present.

Epirus CEO Andy Lowery called the pace of change in drone warfare “breathtaking,” warning that the same types of attacks could be launched against the United States. “Operation Spider’s Web should be a real wake-up call to us, to the whole world,” he said.

In response, the Pentagon is ramping up investments in drone defense systems. Some of the most promising technologies don’t rely on missiles or bullets at all. Instead, they use directed energy—including high-powered microwaves—to disable large swarms of drones simultaneously. At least two field tests of these systems have taken place in the Middle East and the Pacific. The Department of Defense is also under pressure from US defense contractors to ensure that its planned “Golden Dome” missile defense initiative includes robust counter-drone capabilities.

Epirus, which developed one of the microwave systems being tested, says the US is entering a “guerrilla war of machines” and that traditional defense planning is ill-equipped to handle it.

Christian Brose, chief strategy officer at Anduril—a company that builds multi-layered drone defense systems for the Marine Corps and Special Operations—warned that the Pentagon is still lagging behind the pace of innovation. “This is a Sept. 11-style problem, and we are still operating in a Sept. 10 mindset,” Brose said. “After a catastrophic attack, there’s going to be a trail of evidence showing we should have seen this coming.”

His concerns aren’t theoretical. In late 2023, surveillance drones were spotted flying over a US Air Force base in Virginia, where F-22 fighter jets are stationed. While no attack occurred, the incident underlined the possibility that a domestic base could be targeted by the same tactics being used in Ukraine.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has acknowledged the growing threat, telling lawmakers last month that the Pentagon now sees “cheaper, one-way commercially available drones with small explosives” as a new and serious vulnerability. Hegseth and top military brass met after Ukraine’s airbase strikes to begin building a new institutional framework for counter-drone warfare.

As a result, the Pentagon has approved a new Army-led organization to address drone threats, modeled after the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization (JIDO), which tackled IEDs during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. But critics worry that much of the Army’s current approach is built on outdated systems that can’t adapt fast enough to evolving drone technology.

Companies like Anduril say they already have effective, scalable systems combining radar, sensors, and neutralizing tools like jamming and kinetic strikes. But their leaders argue that slow procurement processes and excessive regulation are preventing the military from adopting these technologies at the pace needed. “The tech is there. What we need is the urgency,” Brose said.

Lowery, of Epirus, likened the emerging threat to the famous scene in Star Wars where an X-Wing drops a single missile into the Death Star’s core. “That’s what we’re dealing with,” he said. “A cheap, tiny weapon that can bypass billion-dollar defenses and change the course of a war.”

As drone technology proliferates and adversaries adopt more creative methods to deploy them, the US military now finds itself in a race—not just to defend its outposts, but to defend its homeland from the wars of the future that have already arrived.