US Army to phase out unit tasked with adapting drone lessons from Russia-Ukraine war: Here's why
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "US Army to phase out unit tasked with adapting drone lessons from Russia-Ukraine war: Here's why")
Representational Image. Photograph: (Wikimedia commons)
The official confirmed that the battalion will “refocus on its core warfighting tasks as an airborne infantry battalion assigned to a Mobile Brigade Combat Team (Airborne),” after the exercises.
The US Army has decided to phase out a drone unit that was studying and incorporating lessons from foreign wars. The move also includes the use of uncrewed systems in the Russia-Ukraine war. The infantry battalion, known as the Unmanned Assault Battalion, is set to participate in the Joint Multinational Readiness Centre in the coming days in Germany.
In response, the official confirmed that the battalion will “refocus on its core warfighting tasks as an airborne infantry battalion assigned to a Mobile Brigade Combat Team (Airborne),” after the exercises. It also said that the US Army Europe and Africa, with the Army and U.S. European Command's backup, tasked the infantry battalion to prototype an employment concept for a tactical unmanned systems battalion.
The unit had also been backed by Gen. Chris Donahue, former commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, whose ouster by Hegseth in July split opinion among Republican lawmakers in Congress. The Army declined to respond to The Hill's request for comment. Military experts criticised the move to phase out the unit, noting that Ukraine serves as a live "battle lab" for understanding how drone warfare is reshaping modern combat, home to some of the world's most seasoned drone operators, who continue refining their tactics under constant Russian assault.
“The U.S. is behind in adopting and fielding small drones. While the Pentagon is planning a massive investment in small drones, procurement is not enough to close this gap. There is a risk that the U.S. Army invests in the wrong types of drones or obsolete technology and doesn’t learn how to employ them effectively on a highly contested battlefield,” Stacie Pettyjohn, a senior fellow and director of the defence program at the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS), said on Thursday.
“The experience of a recent exercise in Europe … in which the Ukrainians beat U.S. Army forces, shows that the U.S. has a lot to learn,” added Pettyjohn, a US defence strategy expert. “The Pentagon should be taking every opportunity to learn from the Ukraine war. The Russians, Chinese and North Koreans certainly are.”
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‘Confusing moves’
Cameron McMillan, who previously served as a counter-rocket, artillery and mortar battle captain in Iraq, described the phaseout as one of several confusing moves by the Army in recent months, also citing the relocation or withdrawal of units and commands built for large-scale ground combat in Europe to regions where such capabilities are less critical.
“As the Iran war has demonstrated, the U.S. Army has a significant gap in drone defence capability, capacity and doctrine. In the Middle East, that challenge is largely defending static bases against long-range one-way-attack … drones. But in Europe, the counterdrone challenge is much greater,” and includes defending against smaller first-person view drones, McMillan, now a senior research analyst at the Centre on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said on Thursday.
“This drone unit was designed to incorporate and apply desperately needed lessons learned from Ukraine to help the U.S. Army adapt to this challenge, "McMillan added. After the war between the US and Iran started in late February, the importance of drone warfare in modern conflicts was noted as Iran was launching scores of one-way attack drones, striking US bases in the Persian Gulf region.
