It’s important to remember drones are the consumables, not the Crown Jewels of modern warfare.
That being said to add to this debate is understanding what has shaped doctrine in technological adoption. One of the factors has been TRL. Increasingly, we are seeing a school of thought recently adopted by the DoD which will adopt HRL (human-readiness level). This is implicit to what you are saying, that technology needs to be tested and validated before a doctrine is set, and in this case- how humans (even highly trained ones) interact with a technology. I believe this will eventually explicitly change how doctrine is set in new warfare technologies
Broadly agree. Put attritable, open-architecture UAS in units now, instrument the trials, and let doctrine follow the data. However, I wonder about the scalability of this argument. Ukraine shows rapid adaptation, but also that drones achieve decisive effects only when integrated with fires, air defense, and C2. I think integration scales faster when experimentation feeds a living doctrine rather than bypasses it.
I think you are right and that “combined” doctrine is the most ideal. That is the only way we will get to a useful capability. The issue I have with the approach to drones is similar to the issue I have with AGI nihilism, it stops the development of integrated systems when some argue “drones will do it.” It’s similar to the attrition numbers we see in Ukraine. While drones are impactful, standard artillery is still the most casualty producing weapon system on the battlefield. That gets lost in some of the discussions.
It’s important to remember drones are the consumables, not the Crown Jewels of modern warfare.
That being said to add to this debate is understanding what has shaped doctrine in technological adoption. One of the factors has been TRL. Increasingly, we are seeing a school of thought recently adopted by the DoD which will adopt HRL (human-readiness level). This is implicit to what you are saying, that technology needs to be tested and validated before a doctrine is set, and in this case- how humans (even highly trained ones) interact with a technology. I believe this will eventually explicitly change how doctrine is set in new warfare technologies
Broadly agree. Put attritable, open-architecture UAS in units now, instrument the trials, and let doctrine follow the data. However, I wonder about the scalability of this argument. Ukraine shows rapid adaptation, but also that drones achieve decisive effects only when integrated with fires, air defense, and C2. I think integration scales faster when experimentation feeds a living doctrine rather than bypasses it.
I think you are right and that “combined” doctrine is the most ideal. That is the only way we will get to a useful capability. The issue I have with the approach to drones is similar to the issue I have with AGI nihilism, it stops the development of integrated systems when some argue “drones will do it.” It’s similar to the attrition numbers we see in Ukraine. While drones are impactful, standard artillery is still the most casualty producing weapon system on the battlefield. That gets lost in some of the discussions.