Thread by @JackieGSchneid

There are a lot of reasons why the US struggled to adopt the new drone revolution. Some of these have to do with capacity: budget, cybersecurity restrictions, supply chain considerations. But most of them won't be fixed with a memo. Thread below to understand why.

https://twitter.com/SecDef/status/1943401411431026977

1) For years, small drones weren't a priority for the armed services. The AF prefers strategic drones controlled by the AF; the Navy struggled to find a mission for drones; the Marines are limited by what the Navy buys; the Army isn't sure it wants the wars these drones enable.

2) The Biden Administration often fought the services to keep drone programs funded. The Replicator program was at the OSD level and DIU, a joint office, was often given money straight from Congress as a stop-gap until the services decided to fund programs of record.

3) One of the problems those efforts had was that, when the services did build requirements for small drone programs, they wanted so much out of them that the programs were doomed to fail. Check out minute 40 episode 6 of The Hand Behind Unmanned podcast

4) DIB capacity follows DOD demand. The DIB will not respond with production investment until small drone programs exist in armed service budget lines for procurement as well as operation & maintenance (as opposed to just research and development).

5) There are new companies, funded by venture capital, that are investing their own research & development ahead of these official requirements. Companies like Anduril have close connections with the Trump Administration & are making big bets that the budget lines are coming.

6) Let's say the memo forces armed services to allocate more funding to small drones, that the DIB is nimble & aggressive, & that policies that restricted acquisition due to supply chain, cybersecurity, or other concerns disappear. Is that enough to make the US a drone leader?

7) Probably not. The most impactful innovation stems from clear strategic priorities. Who are we willing to fight? Over what? At what stakes? The drone war in Ukraine, an entrenched war of attrition, is not the type of war the US has fought since the all volunteer force.

8) Meanwhile, the Israeli use of drones as part and parcel of manned-unmanned offensives (like the one against Iran) had extraordinary tactical success, but struggles to achieve strategic victory. Nor has the tit-for-tat of drone volleys between Russia & Ukraine led to victory.

9) The US can't copy-paste the Ukrainian or Israeli drone revolution, nor can the DOD just fund more drones & get the right weapons for the American way of war. From OSD, the DOD needs a clear strategy that articulates what the US is willing to fight for and in what ways.

10) It also needs Congressional reform that gives more money & authority to combatant ccs. It needs room for experimentation from bottom-up & processes to scale & standardize successful experimentation. These are not innovation units; but combat units empowered to innovate.

11) And it probably needs leaders that extend beyond a 4 year political appointee term. Military leaders that successfully shepherded emerging technology into armed budgets included Schriever and Rickover, who both had extended terms protected by Congress.

We talk about this extensively in our podcast, check out episode 7 for insights on the US contemporary drone innovation, featuring @paul_scharre, Mike Brown, @StaciePettyjohn, @KofmanMichael, Andrew Krepinevich, Ben Jensen, & others!