CNAS Insights | America Isn’t Ready for a Drone War

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In their latest CNAS article, “America Isn’t Ready for a Drone War,” Stacie Pettyjohn and Molly Campbell argue that the United States lacks the defenses, doctrine, and urgency required to counter the growing threat posed by adversary drone capabilities. The authors show how recent operational experiences in the Middle East and at the U.S. border reveal critical gaps in detection, response time, and cost-effective interception.

Drones have, in fact, been used in combat for decades—so why is the U.S. military so unprepared to meet this threat? After the Cold War, American forces became accustomed to overwhelming dominance of the air and over-indexed on lopsided fights in which they had a monopoly on long-range attacks. Thus, the U.S. Army largely divested its short-range air defenses, creating a significant vulnerability that is exacerbated by drones…

They explain that decades of air dominance led the U.S. military to neglect short-range air defense, which now leaves forces vulnerable to mass drone attacks. The article warns that future conflicts, particularly involving China, will strain U.S. defenses beyond current limits.

While current air defenses can manage a few of today’s drones, they would be quickly overwhelmed by autonomous drone swarms or large, complex raids that pair low-cost drones with advanced missiles…There is no easy answer to this problem, and no one technology offers a silver bullet solution. The Pentagon must prioritize resilience with multiple layers of defenses rather than reliance on any single system.

The article calls for layered defensive systems and rapid adoption of both emerging and legacy technologies to build resilience.

“Adapting the Combat Training Centers for the Drone Battlefield” at Small Wars Journal similarly argues that U.S. Combat Training Centers must integrate drones into both offensive and defensive training as a core skill rather than a niche capability. It contends that preparing for future conflicts requires embedding drone use in base defense and fire support training so that leaders and soldiers can operate effectively in drone-saturated battlefields.

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