Why the US military must learn from Ukraine and Israel

In a compelling deep dive into the evolution of modern warfare, Foreign Affairs charts how two asymmetric operations—Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Web and Israel’s Operation Rising Lion—have signalled the dawn of a new battlefield logic: one in which cheap, AI-enabled uncrewed systems can paralyse superior military assets with surgical precision and overwhelming mass. The implication is clear: militaries that fail to embrace this transformation risk strategic irrelevance.

In June 2025, Ukraine deployed hundreds of low-cost, short-range drones across more than 2,000 kilometres of Russian territory, reportedly crippling at least 11 strategic bombers—at a cost of only tens of thousands of dollars. Less than two weeks later, Israel smuggled drone components into Iran, reassembled them on-site, and took down Tehran’s air defences. The target? Air superiority to facilitate manned jet strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The lesson: cheap doesn’t mean weak—when paired with ingenuity, “precise mass” can defeat complexity.

These operations expose a growing imbalance in military thinking. As Ukraine and Israel scale up drone production and operational deployment, the U.S. Department of Defence continues to pour vast sums into legacy platforms—F-35s, B-2 bombers, aircraft carriers—that, while powerful, are vulnerable to attritional warfare and lack the scalable resilience of uncrewed systems. The Pentagon’s $500 million investment in the Replicator Initiative, a programme to deploy low-cost drones at scale, pales in comparison to the $112 billion overall defence budget.

Critically, Foreign Affairs doesn’t argue for abandoning traditional weaponry. Rather, it advocates for a strategic "high-low mix": combining hard-to-replace, high-end systems with vast fleets of expendable yet lethal drones. Israel’s success in Iran rested on this exact principle—low-cost drones first cleared the skies; then stealth bombers and precision munitions followed. Likewise, U.S. B-2s carried out Operation Midnight Hammer using ordnance only they can deliver—but only after drones degraded Iranian defences.

At the heart of the article lies a call for urgent reform. The U.S. military must overcome institutional inertia and rethink procurement, development, and doctrine. This means building rapid production lines for cheap systems, integrating AI for autonomy and targeting, and developing tactics that blend uncrewed and crewed assets across domains.

The consequences of inaction are historically well-established. Foreign Affairs invokes the demise of medieval cavalry at Crécy, the sinking of British warships by Japanese airpower in WWII, and reminds readers that technological inflexibility often precedes strategic collapse. If the U.S. fails to scale its drone capabilities, it risks entering future wars with the wrong tools—and at the wrong price.

Ultimately, modern war is no longer defined by who has the most expensive arsenal, but by who can deploy mass, precision, and adaptability at speed. Ukraine and Israel have adapted. America, the article warns, must do the same—or risk being outmanoeuvred by adversaries who already are.

By Vugar Khalilov