At *Time*, Lorenz Meier and Niall Ferguson argue that the United States needs to take a page from the Ukrainian military and institutionalize a combat drone force. Ferguson’s historical and geopolitical expertise is complemented by Meier’s experience as Chairman of the DroneCode Foundation, founder and CEO of Auterion, and completion of a PhD in computer vision and drone engineering. The authors frame the problem as one of scale. As they write:
“This year, for the first time in history, Ukraine and Russia are building drones on an industrial scale. The evolution is from one operator directing a single drone to one operator directing whole flocks. By the end of 2024, we shall see for the first time what we call autonomous mass—swarms of drones in the thousands being directed by a handful of operators, relying less and less on ground control.
The shift to unmanned warfare is unstoppable. That is the lesson we have learned from Ukraine. For the United States, however, the Replicator Initiative and hellscape plan are just a start. What we need now is to build the Unmanned Systems of America.
The alternative could be a catastrophic failure of deterrence on the watch of the next President.”
Do you agree that, for the US and its allies, the stakes of building massive quantities of military drones are this high? Why or why not?
1 Comment
At *Time*, Lorenz Meier and Niall Ferguson argue that the United States needs to take a page from the Ukrainian military and institutionalize a combat drone force. Ferguson’s historical and geopolitical expertise is complemented by Meier’s experience as Chairman of the DroneCode Foundation, founder and CEO of Auterion, and completion of a PhD in computer vision and drone engineering. The authors frame the problem as one of scale. As they write:
“This year, for the first time in history, Ukraine and Russia are building drones on an industrial scale. The evolution is from one operator directing a single drone to one operator directing whole flocks. By the end of 2024, we shall see for the first time what we call autonomous mass—swarms of drones in the thousands being directed by a handful of operators, relying less and less on ground control.
The shift to unmanned warfare is unstoppable. That is the lesson we have learned from Ukraine. For the United States, however, the Replicator Initiative and hellscape plan are just a start. What we need now is to build the Unmanned Systems of America.
The alternative could be a catastrophic failure of deterrence on the watch of the next President.”
Do you agree that, for the US and its allies, the stakes of building massive quantities of military drones are this high? Why or why not?