In America: Drone Warfare Reveals Vulnerabilities In U.S. Military & Defense Systems
Alessio Soggetti
Over a decade ago, ISIS used quadcopters to bomb U.S. forces in Iraq. This exemplified a new chapter of technological advancements in modern warfare tactics. Drone technology has since been developed extensively to be used in a variety of measures. Drones have transformed military and defense capabilities providing surveillance, reconnaissance, targeted strikes, artillery guidance, and swarm tactics. American adversaries are developing military drone technology at an overwhelming rate. Analysts say the U.S. needs to step up its drone development so that defenses and warfare capabilities are able to handle threats domestically and internationally.
U.S. Military Capabilities Are Behind Foreign Drone Technology
The collapse of the Soviet Union marked the end of the Cold War. At the time, this left the United States as the only superpower in the world. As a result, the U.S. military was able to enjoy uncontested air dominance and allocated military spending elsewhere. This would create vulnerabilities seen today. The United States is facing drone threats from Mexican cartels, foreign terrorist organizations, and new emerging superpowers.
Mexican cartels have been using drones on the U.S. - Mexico Border. In 2025, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed border patrol agents detected tens of thousands of drone flights probing American airspace from the southern border. A recent CSIS report indicates cartel drone usage is steadily increasing. Cartels have used drones to monitor law enforcement, study patrolling patterns, and identify weaknesses to develop new routes for their smuggling operations. Drones are beginning to be used to transport and airdrop drugs across the border. There have even been reports of cartels using drone technology for explosive attacks against rival gangs and law enforcement. The United States has developed anti-UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) technology to combat cartel drone operations.
The U.S. has increased its presence in the Middle East to deter rising tensions with Iran, protect regional stability, and safeguard U.S. interests. Iran has launched hundreds of drone attacks against U.S. forces in the last three years. Iran is actively supplying drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to pro-Iranian militias throughout Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and the Red Sea. While U.S. forces have counter-drone capabilities, they are limited, unevenly distributed, and often inefficient in combating the scale and level of development of current threats. From between 2023 to 2025, the CNAS claims U.S. forces were successful in destroying an approximate 80% of drones in attacks. Nevertheless, enemy drone systems are well-developed and capable of inflicting tremendous harm. In 2024, U.S. forces faced a Shahed drone attack in Jordan resulting in the death of three U.S. soldiers, wounding 34 others, and injuring 13 Jordan civilians. Various other attacks have been responsible for wounding hundreds of U.S. service members.
U.S. adversaries have developed dominant drone technology that could outpace U.S. countermeasures.
CNAS Analysts have stated, “the drone threat in the Middle East, while serious and deadly, is negligible when compared to the capabilities of China, whose People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will soon have the largest and most advanced drone force in the world.”
Chinese aerospace engineers have developed upgrades to PLA drone swarms, claiming to make them autonomous, resilient, and harder to intercept. As of last year, the engineers were able to achieve a 60% survival rate of swarm drones in countermeasure exercises. They intend to increase its score to 87% to overwhelm enemy sensors and interceptors. The PLA have made their drone swarms needing minimal human assistance. China demonstrated the use of swarm warfare where only one soldier was needed to control more than 200 drones. The Pentagon has emphasized concern for China’s rapid growth in large-scale UAS expansion and mass-production capabilities of military drones. Analysts explain that current U.S. systems are not built to counter such massed attacks that China could impose.
Russia has developed its drone combat abilities throughout its conflict with Ukraine. It has used UAVs for artillery support, surveillance, and strikes daily against Ukraine. Although Russia has not achieved China’s production scale, Russia’s ability to support its warfare with drone technology at the ready exemplifies the potential threat adversaries’ rapid manufacturing of drone technology could be to the United States.
What The U.S. Can Do To Evolve
Analysts believe the United States needs to urgently develop its countermeasures and drone capabilities. Creating well-established U.S. defense architecture, enhancing drone systems, and expanding legal authority to the military rapidly is vital for the United States to handle threats.
The unification of integrated detect-and-defeat mechanisms with proven layered combat/defense systems would provide assurance that U.S. forces will have anti-drone systems with the architecture necessary to defeat threats. Direct-energy laser weapons are cheap per shot and efficient but have limited range and are weather-dependent. Kinetic interceptors are reliable to destroy drone systems weighing over 1,000 lbs but are expensive per shot, have limited magazine depths, and are currently underemployed. The Center for a New American Security reports that U.S. forces do not have technicological capabilities to detect inbound drone attacks beyond a few miles away. Congressional Research Services has noted that small drones flying at low altitudes are challenging to detect. This leaves soldiers with as little as minutes to prepare for incoming attacks. Because of this, the Department of War (DOW) is investing billions of dollars in detect-and-defeat tracking systems. An active defense system used by the DOW is interceptor drones. Interceptor drones are used to shoot down small drones and other unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) but are costly, limited in numbers, and not ideal for handling threats such as mass-swarm attacks. Although limited and not widespread, U.S. forces are experimenting with AI-enabled counter-drone systems to identify enemy drones and ram them with low-cost inceptor drones of their own. Continuing the urgent development of counter-drone sensors in the U.S. and across seas is necessary to handle the issue of small drone operations. The Defense Innovation Unit is actively seeking vendors that can rapidly provide new prototype sensors that can detect threats.
Bureaucratic and legal barriers withhold the military’s ability to respond quickly to drone sightings. To quickly react to potential drone attacks, the Pentagon has provided broadened counter-drone authority to the military. This authority expands base commanders’ defensive area surrounding facilities, distinguishes any unauthorized drone surveillance over military installations as threats, allows UAS sensor data sharing between federal agencies, and provides military leaders the authority to classify military facilities the necessary classification for drone defense.
