Drones and AI Will Define Future Warfare, US Army Warns Lawmakers

Drones will define future wars: US Army

Washington, May 16

Appearing before the House Armed Services Committee, US Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll said the character of war was changing at unprecedented speed and militaries that fail to adapt risk being left behind.

"Drones are reshaping how humans will inflict violence on each other at a pace never witnessed in human history," Driscoll told lawmakers. "They are cheap, modular, precise, multi-role, and scalable."

He said the Army was moving aggressively to integrate autonomous systems, battlefield AI and open-architecture command systems into future operations, particularly as the Pentagon prepares for potential conflicts in the Indo-Pacific.

The remarks came during a heated hearing on the Army's fiscal year 2027 budget request, where lawmakers from both parties repeatedly cited battlefield lessons from Ukraine, especially the growing role of cheap drones in surveillance, targeting and mass attacks.

General Christopher LaNeve said the Army was rapidly adapting training and operational doctrine based on combat experiences from Ukraine and the Middle East.

"We're taking a lot of lessons learned from both Ukraine and OEF," LaNeve said, referring to Operation Enduring Freedom. "It's moving at a much faster rate into our schoolhouse and into our doctrine."

Army leaders have launched a major integration effort called "Operation Jailbreak" underway at Fort Carson, Colorado, where defence contractors and Army engineers are attempting to break down software barriers that prevent military systems from sharing battlefield data seamlessly.

Driscoll said existing US military systems were often built as isolated "walled gardens" that restrict interoperability.

"Every single system that creates a piece of data should be able to share that data anywhere we, the United States Army, need it to go," he said.

The Army Secretary warned that modern drone warfare would require AI-assisted battlefield decision-making because human operators alone would not be able to react fast enough against drone swarms and electronic attacks.

"When you're thinking of drone swarms and the threats to react, a human being cannot do that alone," Driscoll said.

Lawmakers also questioned whether the Army's proposed drone procurement budget matched its rhetoric on future warfare. Representative Eugene Vindman noted that funding for small unmanned aircraft systems had declined compared to previous years.

Driscoll responded that the Army's strategy was not simply to stockpile millions of drones in peacetime, but to build an industrial ecosystem capable of rapidly scaling production during war.

"What Ukraine is producing, I think it's about 5 million drones. Russia is about the same," he said. "We are not going to be at a place where we need to manufacture as a nation 5 million drones until we're in conflict, but we need to be able to get there really quickly."

— IANS