It’s hard to exaggerate the impact one technology can have on the battlefield—and today, small drones are making just that kind of impact. Once dismissed as hobby toys or sci-fi gizmos, small unmanned aerial vehicles are secretly transforming infantry warfare. But the U.S. military is taking it slow, facing resistance and bureaucracy that echo past slowdowns in the adoption of game-changing technology.
History holds a grim warning. By the start of World War I, the British Army marched into combat with just two machine guns per battalion. A few commanders did not grasp the weapon’s potential, and historian John Ellis has vividly noted that to them, the machine gun “simply did not exist.” The result was ghastly casualties on the Somme battlefields. Today, small drones are spreading rapidly across modern wars—but in several ways, the style of the U.S. military sounds too eerily familiar: slow, gradual, and tradition-bound.
So why the restraint? Part of it is cultural. The military likes well-proven tools rather than untested ones, and small drones remain manned aircraft, with strict regulation and centralized control. The impact is fewer drones in the hands of troops who could potentially use them and fewer opportunities for troops to try out new tactics or figure out how best to use them.
This isn’t a small inconvenience—it’s a strategic deficit. When troops can’t experiment, they’re missing out on ways to become more creative in their tactics, countermeasures, and strategies that could save lives. Take Ukraine, where small drones are ubiquitous.
They rely on them for scouting, targeting, and even direct attack. President Volodymyr Zelensky has called aerial drone flights necessary to counterattacks against attacks on the ground, and the technology is widespread enough that schools are now teaching it and producing it in mass quantities.
Meanwhile, U.S. soldiers are facing policy hurdles. Controls on cybersecurity and systems of foreign origin have slowed the adoption of commercial drones, stalling efforts such as the Marine Corps’ “Quads for Squads.”
Even when exceptions are granted, authorizations are queued, and the options available to choose from are meager, typically lagging behind the current offerings in consumer markets. As experts have cautioned, the military risks lagging even behind primitive, low-tech technologies that would provide a real edge.
There are signs of it, though. At Camp Lejeune, Marines recently test-flown small unmanned aerial vehicles carrying live ordnance aboard—a first for a program-of-record system. The SkyRaider quadcopter successfully deployed the Mjolnir, an explosive charge equipped with sensors capable of distributing ball bearings with devastating impact.
This was not just a tech demo; it was an experiment in policy, safety, and tactical integration into infantry operations. Capt. Maj. Jessica Del Castillo, commander of the Small Unmanned Aircraft School, explained that these drills were intended to push the limits of what someday might change infantry operations.
The experiment also proved the usefulness of integration between new and existing tools. Drones were used in conjunction with mortars, Javelins, and Stalker UAS aircraft, giving the units both a combined-arms view from the ground and in the air. This kind of integration is exactly what the contemporary infantry needs: flexibility, speed, and the chances for survival to be greater on congested battlefields.
But every success story has its hurdles. In order truly to modernize, the military must redefine how drones are acquired, trained on, and employed, and give more room for frontline soldiers to experiment and improve. The consequences are great. As in Ukraine and other conflicts have shown, tiny drones are not a nice-to-have extra—they are shaping the future of war. Falling behind in their adoption could have consequences that resound deep into the future.
