Wesley Clark: Drones are changing warfare. Look at Iran, Ukraine.
As conflicts between the United States and Iran and between Russia and Ukraine have demonstrated, the technology of modern warfare is changing. On every battle front, drones seem to be taking over.
The overwhelming majority of Russian casualties are now inflicted by Ukrainian drones. Ukrainian "sea baby" drones attack Russian ships in the Black Sea. Hezbollah fighters use fiber-optic drones to destroy Israeli tanks in southern Lebanon. Iranian drones attack ships and petroleum infrastructure in the Persian Gulf.
But has the nature of war changed? Can small nations now defeat large nations? Can high tech win over low tech? What are the implications for our own forces in the face of these new technologies?
The rise of drones since World War II
The first operational cruise missiles were actually German V-1 unguided rockets, which were inaccurate terror weapons in World War II. In the 1970s, the use of unmanned aircraft, or drones, for aerial reconnaissance and electronic warfare became more popular.
In the 1990s, the United States began developing Predator drones ‒ large, prop-driven airplanes with cameras. "If it flies, it belongs to the Air Force" was often heard in Pentagon discussions. Slowly, the Army and Navy began developing their own unmanned systems. Many systems were as large as airplanes and cost tens of millions of dollars.
In contrast, the drones that seem to be revolutionizing warfare today are mostly a different class: hobby-sized quadcopters enabled by a fusion of new technologies, including micro-miniaturized chips and lithium batteries driving small engines, electric servo-motors, tiny cameras, agile radio transmitters and GPS guidance. Inexpensive, very thin fiber-optic cable has contributed to their effectiveness.
Some of the same technologies have enabled Jet Ski-size sea drones. And now grocery-cart-size armed robot vehicles are clearing minefields and sweeping some battlefields in Ukraine.
This shift requires adjustments on the battlefield. Armored vehicles have to be protected by anti-drone cages and nets. Ships have to be able to detect and destroy fast-moving unmanned sea drones.
Maybe, as an F-15 pilot observed over Iran, there will be swarms of small drones flying in formation to impede or strike high-performance aircraft.
Ukrainians are now experimenting with very high-altitude balloons to carry drones deep into Russia.
As warfighting technology evolves, nations respond
Nations everywhere are watching, studying performance and worrying that they cannot keep up. In Ukraine, there is almost daily collaboration between warfighters and weapons developers.
Indeed, some developers are warfighting from hundreds of miles behind the lines, using remote guidance. Thus far, Ukraine is winning the technology race, but the Russians aren't far behind.
The combatants are engaged in a race ‒ a series of action-reaction-counteraction cycles ‒ with sometimes as little as six weeks between fielding a new technology and the other side fielding the same or a comparable technology to defeat it.
For Ukraine, its technical superiority has enabled the country to fend off a numerically superior force. In South Lebanon, the sudden appearance of fiber-optic drones caught the Israelis somewhat unprepared, just as Iran's Shahed drones caught the United States and Gulf states unprepared in the first days of that conflict.
Battlefield surprise and technical superiority have always provided advantages in warfare. In World War I, poison gas and tanks made their first appearance and at first carried tactical advantage, but neither was strategically decisive. In World War II, Germany produced the first jet airplanes and rocket-propelled fighter planes, as well as the first ballistic missiles, but none were decisive.
For the United States, in particular, keeping up technically with modern drone warfare is a challenge because, too often, we are not present on the battlefield. The first drones we sent to Ukraine in 2022 couldn't operate through intense jamming.
Even today, as America frantically holds "drone dominance" competitions and recognizes the crucial importance of drones in almost every training exercise, we still risk being a cycle or two out of date.
Technology alone doesn't win wars
Yet drones are but one element of combat power ‒ and combat power is only a portion of the national power that wins wars and keeps nations safe.
In the nuclear age, nuclear weapons serve a vital deterrent function and must be updated and held ready at all times. As more nations acquire nuclear weapons, strategic defense is increasingly important to maintaining deterrence.
And in every case, well-led and highly motivated warfighters, with superior logistics and execution of clear and attainable objectives, remain critical to strategic success.
Ukrainians understand tactical failure could mean strategic defeat ‒ ultimately, the destruction of their state, their language, their culture and the deaths of millions of innocent people.
They are proving that the human factor remains perhaps the most important single factor in warfare.
While we try to adapt to the new realities of drone warfare, we need to take Ukraine's lessons of reliance and resourcefulness to heart. This is more than a military challenge.
Wesley Clark is a retired U.S. Army general and former NATO Supreme Allied commander in Europe.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Wesley Clark: Drones are changing warfare. Look at Iran, Ukraine.
Reporting by Wesley Clark, Opinion contributor / USA TODAY
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This story was originally published July 4, 2026 at 2:03 AM.