The Pentagon could be about to make a $55 billion mistake

The Pentagon’s $54.6 billion investment in the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group is the largest single commitment to autonomous warfare in history. Its scale should be applauded.

For years, the U.S. military acknowledged the transformative potential of unmanned and autonomous systems while underinvesting in them. At $55 billion, this dramatic shift approaches the scale of an entire military service.

But the magnitude of the commitment also raises the stakes of getting it wrong. And early indicators suggest the Pentagon may risk repeating a mistake it has made before — one that cost lives, delayed operational effectiveness, and squandered years of strategic advantage.

In the early years of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, the military began acquiring large numbers of Predator drones. The focus of procurement was almost entirely on the platform itself — the airframe, the sensors, and the communications links that enabled remote operation. The implicit assumption was that technology, by itself, entailed capability. It did not.

Each Predator combat air patrol of continuous surveillance required nearly 150 personnel, including pilots, sensor operators, communications technicians, armaments experts, imagery analysts, maintenance crews, operations planners, linguists, and additional intelligence professionals. As demand for drone coverage surged, the limiting factor was not the number of aircraft but of the trained personnel and the organizational structure to enable them.

As Secretary of Defense Bob Gates observed, the biggest challenge with unmanned systems was manning them.

Eventually, the Air Force created an entire career field, training pipeline, and institutional framework to support remotely piloted aircraft operations. But this took years to accomplish, and the delay was costly to our capabilities.

The lesson was clear: A drone without doctrinal concepts for employment, substantial force structure changes, trained operators and units, educated leaders, maintenance systems, intelligence integration, and personnel policies is not a weapons system at all — it is an asset on a spreadsheet.

Today’s investment in autonomous warfare shows three signs of the same imbalance.

First, no joint U.S. military doctrine exists for the scaled employment of autonomous formations — units that can coordinate at machine speed and execute a commander’s intent when communications are degraded or severed. Without such a joint doctrine, “autonomous” is just a label, not a capability.

Second, autonomous warfare demands entirely new organizations and a fundamentally different form of command. Substantial force structure changes need to be made, and leaders will need extensive training and education on how the new capabilities will be employed. Commanders will need to learn how to encode intent in advance — translating objectives, constraints, and priorities into parameters that machines can execute independently. Current training and education pipelines are not yet aligned to produce leaders capable of commanding the anticipated autonomous formations at scale.

Third, autonomous systems require continuous iteration and therefore rapid feedback. Ukraine’s success stems not from any single platform, but from the rapid feedback loop between operators, engineers, and commanders. The U.S. cannot replicate Ukraine’s model exactly, but it must build an equivalent system — one that translates operational experience into adaptation at speed. At present, the U.S. system is structurally slower.

Ukrainian forces — along with their Russian adversaries — are redefining the very nature of warfare on the ground, at sea, and in the air, both over the battlefield and deep within each country’s interior. They have already undertaken sweeping changes in their operational concepts, force structure, training and development of leaders, and feedback loops that drive continuous adaptation.

The U.S. has not yet made similar changes to reflect the lessons already being learned in Ukraine with remotely piloted systems. The result is a widening gap — not in technology, but in the ability to employ it as part of a coherent and evolving way of war. And the advent of truly autonomous systems and formations (and, eventually, systems of autonomous systems) will represent even greater changes to warfare than what we are seeing in Ukraine.

Less than two percent of the new investment in autonomous warfare is being directed toward doctrine and integration — the elements that will determine whether the remaining investment produces a fighting force or an expensive inventory. There are few signs of the kind of organizational changes required for the new way of war seen in Ukraine, much less that which will be required for truly autonomous capabilities.

The U.S. will outspend its competitors on remotely piloted and autonomous hardware, but the decisive asymmetry may lie in how quickly operational experience translates into adaptation. Russia is already adapting under combat conditions, and China is studying intently and learning from Russia’s experience. There is no time to lose — unlike in previous military transitions, early advantages in autonomous warfare will create persistent asymmetries that grow harder to close over time.

Congress can take concrete actions to ensure that its investment in autonomous warfare achieves its intended effect. First, it should direct and fence at least 5 percent of the funding for doctrine, training, and force design. Second, it should include continuous feedback in acquisition processes, rather than relying on static contractual requirements. Third, it should require periodic reporting on adaptation cycles — how quickly operational lessons are incorporated into doctrine, training, and procurement.

The U.S. has navigated major military transitions before, but often only after costly delays. Autonomous warfare may not afford that margin. Congress is committing the resources to lead; it must now ensure that the institutions required to employ them are built at the same pace. Otherwise, this investment risks producing not a decisive advantage, but a very expensive inventory.

General David Petraeus, U.S. Army (Ret.) commanded U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and subsequently served as CIA director. He is chairman of the KKR Global Institute and the Kissinger Fellow at Yale University’s Jackson School. Isaac C. Flanagan is an American tech entrepreneur and co-founder of Zero Line, a nonprofit supporting the military defense of Ukraine.

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