The US is too proud to admit that Ukraine is the world expert on drone warfare and that Americans should learn from Ukrainians.
"Ukraine's homegrown drones have become increasingly lethal, critical tools in war with Russia" https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-fedorov-drones-war-rus...
"Poland turns to Ukraine for drone warfare expertise after Russian weapons enter airspace" https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/poland-turns-to-ukraine-f...
The US needs Ukraine to exist and not be annexed by Russia.
That is a really silly take. The US has had "advisors" embedded with Ukraine forces since the beginning of the war. Multiple high level Pentagon officials (think multi-star generals) have mentioned in interviews over the years how valuable is the intel they have been learning and collecting from the war. I can guarantee you that somewhere in Langley there are many analysts constantly churning out reports about battlefield lessons and techniques from the Ukrainian war.
I like to think that there is core of career public servants inside the US government who take their jobs seriously and they perform it well. Whether decision makers take their inputs into account is a different matter.
> I like to think that there is core of career public servants inside the US government who take their jobs seriously and they perform it well.
That could have been taken for granted in every administration before this one.
Two points here. (1) A lot of technology that Ukraine uses is based on what the Western countries have provided them. (2) Ukraine struggles with AI as well, in fact, according to some sources, Ukraine is already behind Russia in drone technology. One of the reasons cited is that they invested heavily into AI and it did not yield viable drones. On the other hand, Russians decided to invest into manually controlled drones controlled via optic cables and they are very effective.
I trust very few "sources", especially these days. And even more especially, in the middle of a war between two former USSR states that have deep histories in manipulating public opinion and weaponizing that against their adversaries.
> weaponizing that against their adversaries
I understand your skepticism, but here is an interview from April 2025 with the founder of VYRIY, a Ukrainian drone company: https://militarnyi.com/en/news/vyriy-founder-compares-accura... According to him, Russian drones are far superior. "In terms of [Ukrainian drone vs Russian drone] quality, well, like 10% vs. 80%. It’s not even comparable,” Oleksii Babenko sums up.
That article suggests that the difference is due to economics & possibly intended use, not technological advances.
Manufacturing is a technology.
Again, I don’t trust sources that are random quotes on the interwebs during a conflict where people are dying (or corporate PR speak) but maybe that’s a me problem?
1. Did you read the first link? Virtually all of Ukraine's FPV (first-person view) attack drones are domestically produced.
2. If that's the case, why is the US trying to invest heavily into AI as well if we learned from Ukraine that AI controlled drones are shittier than human controlled drones?
> If that's the case, why is the US trying to invest heavily into AI as well if we learned from Ukraine that AI controlled drones are shittier than human controlled drones?
What is according to your estimates the ratio for research funding for human-controlled and AI-controlled weapons in the US nowadays?
What if their drones weren't good? Just a country being attacked, with no strategic war technology transfer. Then, what should the US position be?
Call me an idealist, but I think the priority in this conflict should be their sovereignty and the well being of the people over there. Otherwise it's just weird.
>The US is too proud to admit that Ukraine is the world expert on drone warfare and that Americans should learn from Ukrainians.
there is literally nobody in America who nurses that type of pride, quite the opposite, Americans have been unusually open to integrating foreign ideas from the beginning.
Broad statement.
i took a peek, you didn't reply "broad statment<period>" to the comment I was replying to... hmmm, pov masquerading as logic/grammar nazi?
Huh?
[dead]
This is what happens when you only talk to like-minded people and live in a bubble. There are still plenty of people I know who would reject foreign ideas simply because "pshaw. We can [do that/do it] better."
I mean I literally worked with a guy who got annoyed at the harmonized power cord I bought because it used IEC wire colors and "This is America where we use American wire colors, not that European shit. I taped the leads red white and blue!"
Can we not use examples from the bottom 5% of the population and extrapolate that to the entire population?
Also 99.99% chance the guy was making a joke.
> bottom 5% of the population
Where did that number come from?
> Also 99.99% chance the guy was making a joke.
If you have no idea who this person is how can you even begin to make such an assumption? You are in fact 100% wrong.
Not getting jokes is a skill issue, what can I say.
You can say you are wrong because you don't know the person at all.
I will say I have very low confidence that your perception of reality and actual reality match.
The US and EU/NATO are facing growing technological obsolescence. They lack the capability to effectively counter modern threats and appear disconnected from the realities of contemporary warfare.
A clear example is NATO’s struggle to respond to Russian drone incursions. Recently, over 20 drones were launched into Polish airspace—yet only four were intercepted, at a cost of millions of dollars. The remainder crashed across Polish territory, highlighting serious gaps in air defense systems.
Weren’t there well over 100 launched, most of which were intercepted by Ukraine, and 20 made it into Polish airspace?
Oh, totally, I'm so glad you have all the facts and can enlighten us.
I think NATO is more important now than it has been in decades.
NATO can't decide if they should try and shoot down Russian missiles and drones over their territory because they are afraid to escalate and don't want to anger Russia. Did you know they only agreed to shoot down Russian war planes flying over NATO territory after Trump okayed it? Unbelievable that they would let an adversary fly their bombers over their territory in the first place. Did you know that NATO has member countries that are aligned with Russia? I encourage you not to take my word for it but investigate it for yourself, there are plenty of trustworthy Western Analysts that support what I have said.
Trump said that Russia is a paper tiger/bear, but Russia exposed that the West/EU is just as incompetent and NATO is basically useless without the support of the USA which is questionable. But I'm sure 100% NATO will get a chance to prove its worth, it will be interesting to see if it can meet the coming challenges.
Hey, I didn't say NATO was effective (they should be shooting down anything Russian that violates their NATO airspace, just like Turkey did).
I just said NATO is really important at the moment. It's a tool - an important tool - but that doesn't mean it's being wielded correctly. Is that the fault of the hammer or the fault of the Trump supporter holding it?
:)
"Warm water ports"