Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, drones have emerged as one of the defining weapons of modern warfare. Cheap, adaptable, and increasingly lethal, unmanned aerial systems have transformed battlefields and forced military planners around the world to rethink long-held assumptions about combat.
From First-Person-View (FPV) drones striking tanks and trenches to long-range unmanned aircraft capable of reaching targets thousands of kilometers away, the Ukraine war has become a testing ground for drone technology on an unprecedented scale.
Former Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi has claimed that FPV drones account for as much as 80 percent of Russian battlefield casualties. Ukrainian long-range drones now reportedly possess ranges exceeding 2,500 kilometers, enabling strikes deep inside Russian territory. Some reports have even suggested that Kyiv is marketing its long-range drone capabilities to European partners, including Germany, as a lower-cost alternative to expensive cruise missiles such as the Tomahawk.
The growing effectiveness of drones has fueled predictions that traditional military systems—including tanks, armored vehicles, and even manned combat aircraft—could soon become obsolete.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has spoken of creating a “drone wall” to strengthen national defenses, while military innovators are increasingly discussing the possibility of replacing frontline soldiers with unmanned ground vehicles. Across defense circles, drones are often portrayed as a revolutionary technology that will fundamentally reshape warfare.
Yet some military experts argue that enthusiasm surrounding drones has begun to resemble something closer to a technological obsession than a realistic assessment of warfare’s future.
Among the most prominent voices challenging the prevailing narrative is retired U.S. Lieutenant General Eric Wesley, former commander of the Army Capabilities Integration Center. In a recent paper published by the Modern War Institute, Wesley argues that drones are not the future of warfare in the way many observers claim. Instead, he describes them as merely the latest military problem awaiting a solution.
According to Wesley, the debate surrounding drones focuses on the wrong question.
“Today, a chorus of defense commentators, Silicon Valley evangelists, and think tank scholars are converging on a consensus: Aerial drones will define the next century of conflict,” Wesley wrote. “They are wrong—or rather, they are asking the wrong question entirely.”
Rather than asking what drones can do, Wesley argues, military planners should focus on what drones cannot do.
And the answer, he says, is critical.
“Drones cannot seize ground. They cannot hold it. They cannot compel a population to submit. They cannot plant a flag on a hilltop and mean it.”
For all their technological sophistication and destructive power, drones remain incapable of performing one of warfare’s most fundamental tasks: occupying territory.
Military history, Wesley argues, offers a useful parallel.
He compares the rise of drone warfare today to the emergence of machine guns during the First World War. When war erupted in Europe in 1914, armies entered the conflict with doctrines largely shaped by the wars of the previous century. Commanders expected infantry and cavalry formations to maneuver across open battlefields, seeking decisive engagements.
The widespread deployment of machine guns shattered those assumptions.
Mass infantry assaults that had once formed the backbone of military strategy suddenly became extraordinarily costly. Troops advancing across open ground were cut down by concentrated automatic fire, while powerful artillery further strengthened defensive positions.
Military thinkers who had spent decades studying maneuver warfare found themselves confronting an uncomfortable reality: traditional offensive tactics no longer worked.
The result was the deadlock of trench warfare.
The Western Front stretched across hundreds of kilometers, with frontlines often moving only marginally despite years of fighting and millions of casualties. To many observers at the time, the conclusion appeared obvious. Defensive firepower had become so dominant that offensive warfare itself seemed obsolete.
Some analysts declared that trench warfare represented the future of conflict.
History proved them wrong.
The machine gun was not the final stage of military evolution. It was simply a new battlefield challenge for which militaries had not yet developed an effective countermeasure.
That countermeasure emerged in the form of the tank.
Though early tanks were slow, unreliable, and mechanically primitive, they offered something that infantry alone could not: protection and mobility under fire. Tanks could cross no-man’s-land, suppress machine-gun positions, and restore the ability of armies to maneuver.
“Within four years, British engineers had built a lumbering, underpowered, mechanically unreliable iron box on tracks,” Wesley notes. Yet even that imperfect solution was enough to begin breaking the stalemate.
The tank did not eliminate machine guns. Instead, it reduced their ability to dominate the battlefield.
“Maneuver returned,” Wesley argues. “Decisive outcomes became possible again.”
For Wesley, the Ukraine war demonstrates a remarkably similar dynamic.
Despite the presence of advanced technologies—including satellite-guided munitions, precision artillery, long-range drones, and sophisticated electronic warfare systems—the conflict increasingly resembles aspects of the First World War.
Trenches stretch across large sections of the front. Defensive positions dominate. Territorial gains often occur in increments measured in hundreds of meters rather than kilometers.
Months of combat and thousands of casualties may yield only limited changes in the frontline.
In this environment, drones play a role comparable to that of machine guns in 1914.
FPV drones hunt armored vehicles. Loitering munitions strike artillery batteries far behind the front. Commercial quadcopters modified for military use drop explosives into trenches with remarkable precision.
The result has been a dramatic increase in the vulnerability of soldiers and vehicles operating in the open.
Drones have made maneuver significantly more dangerous and expensive.
But they have not eliminated the need for maneuver altogether.
“After every drone strike, after every armored column destroyed from above, someone still has to walk across that field,” Wesley argues. “Someone still has to occupy the tree line, clear the basement, and stand in the rubble and say: This is ours now.”
That fundamental reality remains unchanged regardless of technological advances.
According to Wesley, one reason the Ukraine war has struggled to produce a decisive outcome is because drone warfare, like airpower more broadly, is fundamentally a tool of attrition.
It can degrade enemy capabilities, disrupt operations, and inflict casualties. It can destroy equipment and complicate military planning.
What it cannot do by itself is compel political submission.
Military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously argued that war is ultimately about imposing one’s will on an opponent. Wesley believes that principle remains valid today.
“To compel the will of an intransigent opponent, you must ultimately confront him on the ground, in the physical space he values, and take it from him,” he writes.
Territory still matters. Occupation still matters. Control of physical space remains central to achieving political objectives in war.
As a result, soldiers continue to play an indispensable role.
The drone, in Wesley’s assessment, has not overturned centuries of military theory. It has merely introduced a new challenge that armed forces must learn to overcome.
The solution, he argues, is unlikely to be simply building more drones.
Instead, future military innovation will focus on restoring maneuver under conditions of persistent drone surveillance and attack.
Potential solutions may include advanced electronic warfare systems capable of jamming or deceiving drone swarms. Directed-energy weapons such as lasers could provide low-cost defenses against mass drone attacks. New generations of counter-drone technologies may exploit the vulnerabilities of lightweight unmanned aircraft.
Already, several countries are developing interceptor drones designed specifically to destroy incoming drones without relying on expensive missile systems.
While these technologies remain works in progress, they demonstrate an important point: drones are not invulnerable.
Like every major military innovation before them, they will eventually face countermeasures.
History suggests that warfare evolves through a continuous cycle of innovation and adaptation. New weapons create advantages, opponents develop responses, and military doctrine evolves accordingly.
The machine gun did not end maneuver warfare. The tank did not make infantry irrelevant. Airpower did not eliminate the need for ground forces.
Likewise, drones are unlikely to render soldiers obsolete.
They have undoubtedly transformed modern battlefields and will remain an essential component of future military operations. But their emergence does not necessarily signal the end of traditional warfare.
Instead, as Wesley argues, drones represent the latest chapter in a centuries-long contest between offensive and defensive technologies.
“The drone is a remarkable and lethal tool,” he concludes. “But remarkable and lethal tools have always been the prelude to the next problem, not the solution to the last one.”
