The current Middle Eastern and Ukrainian have borne some salient lessons for us today:
1.) Large, expensive traditional weapons platforms such as tanks and larger armored fighting vehicles have proven vulnerable to cheap drones. Compare it to the expensive cavalry forces marshaled during WW1, only to have horse and rider slaughtered by both machine gun fire and artillery. Similarly, maritime drone vessels have devastated Russian merchant and naval assets in the Black Sea.
2.)Rapid dispersal of assets, rapid movement to concentrate fire and the ability to hide or remain in concealment is a feature of the current battlefield. One of the vehicles Russian soldiers are using is the cheap 4WD Lada sedan to move around the area of combat operations.
3.) Electronic countermeasures/spoofing and jamming of guidance signals will be a key to success in countering drones.
4.) Robot vehicles performing heavy machine gun duty, evacuating casualties and re-supplying front line soldiers with vital supplies:


5.) Legacy artillery platforms become targets due to the ability to monitor and use counterbattery fire. Does that mean that they are replaced by weapons which can perform similar roles but deploy much more rapidly? I am thinking of rapid fire 57mm (naval-style) weapons which have a range out to 8500 meters (effective) and have dual anti-air/surface strike capability?



6.) Do new aircraft technologies mean we can replace the expensive helicopter platforms we have now for medevac/SAR and attack duties? I am referring to new hybrid/electric aircraft coming online now like the Cavorite X7 and the Beta aircraft debuting in a NATO exercise recently.





Your thoughts about the budget and political effects of the emerging technology? Cheaper defense?

As far as budgeting goes, I think this evolution in tech will eventually go a long way toward keeping personnel out of harms way. That's great for our troops, but it also means less money spent on medical care, surgeries, and overall less payouts for disability compensation in the future.

It's such a massive topic. Drone warfare proliferation is absolutely the new revolution. Drones have the lead currently and likely will for quite a while. Especially with evidence that Russia has started initiating terminal closed loop AI targeting in some models. Can't jam those. Overall though, absolutely arrow vs armor race again.

One way to look at this though, is how the parity of the battlefield will play out. We are seeing the drone butchery of the Ukes and Russians happen real time but that is because they have been essentially gridlocked since the after the first few months in the more conventional sense. Would we, the US, have to worry about such a thing from say, Belarus? If we into a full conflict with them? I think it unlikely as our conventional military, backed by our own drone forces would probably be able to beat them into submission or near enough before they could do any real particular damage with their own drones. At least enough to stop us before we achieved our aims. This is by current standards though. Who knows what the future brings.

As far as what may become obsolete, the only thing I can see may become truly sidelined by first world militaries is towed artillery. The vulnerabilities are just too much to bridge I believe as we move forward when compared to the results. Everything else can probably be upgraded with their own tech in time to remain functional and valuable on the battlefield in the future. Unless something comes along that can do it better of course, as you mention.

For the budget, our priorities have always been horribly skewed IMHO. We love the shiniest, newest, most expensive, bespoke tools in the world. They are great and fantastic and horrendously expensive and as a result tend to remain few in number. I can go on and on about this particular topic alone but I'll just say that I hope the lessons from Ukraine continue to sink in to our higher levels of command and procurement. Fingers crossed.
With that though, you get the other side of the coin. Actual procurement and development. We suck so much ass in that regard. It's the double edged sword of having a privatized MIC. We get the best. It's slow and expensive as all hell though. Pretty much on purpose. We do NOT move quickly unless the enemy is at the gates and that has real world consequences on our troops and it sucks to see.

What frustrates me is the apparent loss of field skills for deployed troops. We cannot put those troops in housing pods and expect they will survive a drone attack. They have got to learn to better use field expedient shelters and learn concealment better as well.