Thread by @JackDetsch

If Russia's war in Ukraine has taught the U.S. Army anything about the future of warfare, it’s this:

Just look up.

@ForeignPolicy got a chance to travel to Ft. Irwin, one of the Army's biggest training bases, where soldiers face off against 105 drone swarms that can attack all at once.

Here are 3 things the Army is doing learn to fight and defend in a world of drone swarms.

PHOTO: SPC. JAARON TOLLEY/U.S. ARMY

1️⃣ TURN OFF YOUR PHONE: The cell phone is the new cigarette in the foxhole.

To survive on the modern battlefield, soldiers are having to make themselves smaller and smaller—almost invisible.

Loitering munitions can wait over the battlefield for hours, ready to dive if an operator senses the faintest twitch.

Soldiers are listening for drones and coming up with battle drills to defend against them. And U.S. troops will probably have to turn off their iPhones and Androids.

“We’ve shown soldiers, ‘hey, your cell phone can get you killed,’” said Maj. Gen. Curt Taylor, the training center commander.

For instance: Taylor and his team recently spotted an otherwise undetectable Apache helicopter weaving through their air defenses when they clocked the pilot’s iPhone doing 120 miles per hour across the desert.

2️⃣ COST CURVE: The $1,500 drone versus a fighter jet.

War is moving at the speed of technology—light-years. But the U.S. Army moves at the speed of budget—fiscal years.

That’s not going to work when a home-built quadcopter can drop a grenade and destroy a fighter jet parked on the ground.

“What keeps me up is the cost imposition factor that robotics systems bring,” said Alex Miller, the chief technology officer to the Army chief of staff. “A $1,500 drone can take out a multimillion-dollar aircraft.”

3️⃣ COVERING UP: Cutting the command post.

If something can be seen or sensed, it can be killed. Unwieldy server stacks and satellite dishes sticking out of U.S. vehicles and outposts could get soldiers killed.

Maj. Gen. Jim Isenhower, who leads the Army’s 1st Armored Division, told Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George during a demonstration that he believes putting command-and-control systems onto screens, tablets, and mixed reality applications can help him reduce the size of a combat outpost by 95 percent, from 326 troops to about eight.

It's so small that the Army’s opposition force didn’t even spot it during practice drills.

Here is Gen. George testing it out at Ft. Irwin.

Photo: SGT. MAXWELL BASS/U.S. ARMY

If you enjoyed that, check out @ForeignPolicy's feature: "America's Next Soldiers Will Be Machines."

foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/06/us-…