Technological and other developments in the area of unmanned vehicles since the early 2010s are now enabling a style of warfare that uses large quantities of attritable, adaptable unmanned systems, each at a price point that is orders of magnitude below today’s defense-specific platforms but still good enough to get its part of the mission done. These developments could allow the U.S. military to deter or defeat a major-power adversary that has quantitatively superior forces. However, the U.S. Department of War (DOW) is facing multiple obstacles to making this vision a reality.
This paper highlights key technological and other trends driving the drone revolution in the military and civilian sectors. The authors outline opportunities, obstacles, and next steps that DOW can take to leverage these developments. For DOW’s drone dominance efforts to fully realize the promise of the drone revolution, the department needs to make coordinated changes across doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy. DOW will also need to continue changing its overall culture to become more agile and innovative.
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