The acting US Army chief of staff stressed the need to integrate “space, cyber, electronic warfare, and artificial intelligence”—but is planning to eliminate the Army’s first dedicated drone unit. 

Acting US Army Chief of Staff General Christopher LaNeve, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s pick to lead the United States Army, plans to disband the US Army’s new “Unmanned Assault Battalion” and seek a return to the “basics.”

The drone battalion, numbering about 600 soldiers, is part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Germany. It had been established in January and was tasked with studying and developing drone warfare, including drawing lessons from the ongoing war in Ukraine.

However, LaNeve has called for the battalion to “refocus” away from unmanned warfare and back to its core role as an airborne infantry battalion, The Wall Street Journal first reported this week.

The Unmanned Assault Battalion will still participate at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Germany, which will kick off later this month. However, at the conclusion of the event, the unit will return to its former role.

The Army’s New Leadership Is Setting Its Own Priorities

It is unclear why Gen. LaNeve is ordering the sudden reserve course, but the drone warfare unit was championed by former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, as well as by Gen. Chris Donahue, the former commander of US Army Europe and Africa (USAREUR-AF). Hegseth ousted both earlier this year, and there has been speculation the unit was simply tied too closely to the former high-ranking officers.

In a memorandum titled “The Army Aziumuth,” LaNeve offered what he believes is the best direction for the Army. It didn’t completely dismiss the use of unmanned systems or drones, but did seem to downplay their significance.

“America’s Army applies violence decisively on battlefields marked by unrelenting speed, precision lethality, and persistent observation. We dominate from the outset to control escalation, prevent prolonged war and counter enemies who employ stand-off weapons, including unmanned systems and WMD,” wrote LaNeve—echoing the phraseology often employed by Hegseth, who has called for a return to the “warrior ethos” within the US military.

LaNeve also noted the evolution of the US Army and how it has become “a force organized for multidomain operations at all echelons” that includes “new units integrating space, cyber, electronic warfare, and artificial intelligence into command and control.” Even so, the commanding general seemed to call for the Army to go back to its roots.

While LaNeve acknowledged that the “next war will not look like our last,” he emphasized that there were “timeless truths in war,” and that “land combat in the modern era will demand every ounce of rigor, endurance, and courage we possess.”

While this is all true, mastery of drone warfare would probably help, too!

Many Generals Have Viewed New Innovations with Suspicion

It may not be clear entirely how LaNeve views drones, but it should be noted that military officers throughout history have been skeptical of change.

Before World War I, many military leaders viewed new military inventions with skepticism. In one widely-recounted incident in 1906, Austro-Hungarian military leaders watched maneuvers involving an early armored vehicle, but declined to adopt it after it frightened their horses. In 1911, French general Ferdinand Foch, later to become the overall commander of all Allied forces on the Western Front, quipped after an aerial demonstration that airplanes were “interesting toys, but of no military value.” (Ironically, the French Navy would later name an aircraft carrier for him.)

At the outset of the war, the same generals tended to view machine guns with serious skepticism, considering them expensive, heavy, and wasteful of ammunition rather than tools for winning major wars. The traditional view was that fast movement, cavalry charges, and infantry rifles were better suited to “modern” combat than bulky machine guns. Leaders feared soldiers would run out of ammunition, and that carefully aimed shots would win the day.

Of course, during World War I, both sides deployed the guns anyway, believing the other side wouldn’t see the benefit. Once employed in mass numbers, machine guns became infamously devastating—leading to soldiers “digging in,” which in turn resulted in the trench warfare that became a key feature of the conflict.

Two years into the horrible conflict, many traditional leaders initially resisted or doubted that tanks—armored vehicles built to break the deadlock that machine guns had created—would make any difference. The armored behemoths were viewed as slow, unreliable mechanical novelties rather than the battlefield essentials they were to become.

What is different now is that the lessons of drone warfare aren’t hypothetical or theoretical.

“Our adversaries are learning from the war in Ukraine and are applying them to how they fight,” technology industry analyst Roger Entner, founder of Recon Analytics, told The National Interest. “This is how Iran has fought back against US forces in the Middle East. Going back to basics is a bet that the next conflict will be against an opponent oblivious to these lessons.”

Yet history is repeating itself.

“While a part of the US Army leadership may believe it prudent to refocus the existing drone assault battalion ‘on its core warfighting tasks as an airborne infantry battalion,’ it would seem to be rather short-sighted,” added military vehicle historian John Adams-Graf, editor of History in Motion, the official publication of the Military Vehicle Preservation Association.

“Simply put, drone warfare reduces cost in both material and risk of soldiers’ lives,” Adams-Graf told The National Interest via email. “To reject or regard this new, cost-effective method of conducting land warfare as a ‘fad’ without in-depth study is just bad business.”

About the Author: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu has contributed to dozens of newspapers, magazines and websites over a 30-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a contributing writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.

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