While Ukraine engineers battlefield drones in garages and China advances AI-controlled naval fleets, America’s Army and Navy are still learning the basics.
Literally.
This past month, two stories landed back-to-back, each quietly underscoring a larger and more alarming truth: the United States military—still the most expensive force on earth—is dangerously behind in the drone wars already being fought.
The Army: Still in Class
At Fort Rucker, Alabama, 28 soldiers are enrolled in the Army’s first-ever course to learn how to fly first-person-view (FPV) drones. It’s called the Unmanned Advanced Lethality Course, and it’s the Pentagon’s admission that we’re playing catch-up with fighters who’ve been dropping grenades from the sky for years.
Capt. Rachel Martin, who built the program from scratch in just 90 days, was blunt: “We’re behind globally.”
They’re not wrong. By the time these troops finish learning to fly and 3D-print parts, the warfighting landscape may have shifted again. Meanwhile, Ukrainians with $400 drones and an internet connection are hitting tanks with terrifying accuracy. They’re innovating on the battlefield. We’re simulating in Alabama.
The Army calls it part of “Transforming in Contact,” a doctrine designed to modernize units while they’re still in the fight. But it feels more like “Transforming After the World Left Us Behind.”
This is no longer about readiness. It’s about survival in a fight where the rules—and the weapons—have changed.
The Navy: Crashing Into the Future
Then there’s the Navy.
In a well-publicized test off the California coast, two of our so-called autonomous drone boats failed spectacularly. One stalled. The other rammed into it like a wayward Roomba with a vendetta.
These weren’t budget prototypes. These were cutting-edge ships from Silicon Valley-backed startups—Saronic and BlackSea Technologies—with multi-million-dollar Defense Innovation Unit contracts. The Navy has already spent at least $160 million on BlackSea’s drone fleet. And it shows: just not in results.
In another incident, a towed drone boat took off unexpectedly, capsizing the crew boat and flinging its captain into the sea. You read that right. The boat launched itself mid-tow. That’s not “autonomy.” That’s mutiny.
The Pentagon’s solution? Hit pause on a $20 million contract. More studies. More software patches. More delays.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is running naval kamikaze missions in the Black Sea with sea drones costing a fraction of the price—about $250,000 a pop—hitting Russian targets and altering naval warfare in real time. China, too, is testing swarms of AI-piloted ships designed to operate without a single human onboard.
We’re not just behind. We’re playing the wrong game.
The Cost of Hesitation
This is not a question of funding. The “Big Beautiful Bill” signed last month set aside $5 billion for autonomous naval systems. The Replicator initiative is a $1 billion commitment to unmanned fleets.
But money doesn’t buy time. And time is what we’ve lost.
While America studies drone swarms, our adversaries deploy them. While we field-test drone boats, the rest of the world is weaponizing autonomy. The Ukraine war should have been our wake-up call. Instead, we hit snooze.
Yes, training matters. Doctrine matters. But the enemy doesn’t wait for your syllabus to catch up.
A Call to Reality
It’s easy to blame procurement bloat or tech integration hiccups. It’s harder to face the truth: the U.S. military has been a peacetime institution for too long, more comfortable with process than pressure.
As many in the military can cite, bureaucracy kills more soldiers than bullets. And right now, the drone gap is growing wider, not because we lack innovation, but because we lack urgency.
So here’s the bottom line for cubillos.com readers, citizens, and anyone paying taxes:
We are not ready for the wars we say we’re preparing for.
Not on land. Not at sea. Not yet.
And if we don’t shift out of PowerPoint mode and into combat speed soon, the next battle won’t be ours to win—it’ll be ours to explain.