In the early twentieth century, airplanes transformed warfare. In the twenty-first century, drones are doing the same. My study, “The Children of Aphrodite,” published in 2011, argued that drones represent a technological shift comparable to the emergence of airpower during World War I. The proliferation of these systems, once limited to major military powers, is now spreading to states and non-state actors alike.
Few modern operations demonstrate this transformation more clearly than Operation Epic Fury and the Russia/Ukraine war. Both conflicts rely on conventional air support, but they also illustrate how drones have become indispensable to modern combat—providing persistent surveillance, target identification, and precision-strike capability that have reshaped tactical, operational, and strategic decision-making.
Early drones, such as America’s Pioneer and Predator systems, were designed primarily to observe the battlefield and relay intelligence to commanders. Over time, however, their role expanded dramatically. Drones evolved into platforms capable of laser designation, communications relays, lethal strike missions, and air-to-air combat.
This evolution mirrors the trajectory of early aviation. During World War I, aircraft began as reconnaissance tools but quickly expanded into bombing, strafing, and air-to-air combat once commanders realized their potential. The same pattern occurred with drones: a technology initially used to observe the battlefield became a decisive combat instrument.
In 2026, Operation Epic Fury represents not simply a continuation of drone warfare but its maturation. Persistent surveillance, AI-assisted targeting, and drone swarms now form the backbone of battlefield awareness and tactical maneuver.
The implications go far beyond Ukraine and Iran. My research began in 2007, when I started training U.S. forces to use drones. Now, over the last twenty years, the warnings I provided the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security have become a reality. The same technological advantages initially enjoyed by the United States inevitably spread to adversaries and made drones a threat to deployed U.S. forces and the American homeland. Many countries now operate drone programs, and numerous non-state actors experiment with similar systems.
This proliferation presents a growing strategic challenge. Just as early airpower eventually reshaped warfare across the globe, drone technology is rapidly becoming accessible to actors with far fewer resources than traditional military powers. Drones are inexpensive and are often as lethal as more expensive systems. When Hamas invaded Israel, multi-million-dollar Merkava tanks were destroyed by overhead drones costing tens of thousands at the most. One strategic challenge facing industrial nations like the United States is one of cost. How much longer can we invest billions in piloted platforms when we could invest millions instead? A large part of the investment in aircraft is in the systems necessary to keep pilots operational. Drones remove not only the need for oxygen systems, but g force suits, ejection seats, and much more. They also greatly reduce the need for multi-layered down pilot recovery plans that require a variety of expensive systems and specially trained personnel.
The lesson is clear: unmanned systems are no longer experimental tools or niche capabilities. They are the modern battlefield’s equivalent of the airplane in 1914—an innovation whose true strategic consequences are only beginning to emerge, often limited only by the imagination of the user.
Today, the nations that adapt fastest to the reality of drones on land, at sea, and in the air will shape and win the wars of the future.
The consequences and opportunities I first warned about over twenty years ago are here.
(See below for a selection of my previous work)
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The Drone Wars
Based on current events and some requests from a variety of sources, I am reposting this Substack about drones in modern warfare.
https://www.hsdl.org/c/abstract?docid=697903
http://armedforcesjournal.com/unready-to-stop-uavs/
https://havokjournal.com/national-security/quick-hits-on-drones/
https://armedforces.press/the-drone-wars/
https://rumble.com/v5xqay2-fox-news-dec-9-2024-syria-and-drones-in-nj.html?e9s=src_v1_upp
https://rumble.com/v4phpf3-darin-gaub-fox-and-friends-april-14-2024-iran-drone-strike-on-israel.html
https://rumble.com/v60wbht-newsmax-dec-18-2024-iran-drones-china.html?e9s=src_v1_upp
https://rumble.com/v5yskcq-oan-dec-12-2024-drone-wars.html?e9s=src_v1_upp
I’m still engaged in media and public speaking. I’ve traveled the country speaking to many organizations, churches, and other groups. I’ll give you the best I can without having any kind of celebrity status.
Below is my book. It’s not a profit-making adventure. What little I made since I published in June of last year went to the feds in taxes, since it was royalties.
Good Afternoon, and Good Article, Sir.
I wasn't aware that you are a SAMS alumnus. That knowledge brings even more clarity to whatever fuzziness remains of you in my sight picture. 😉
Your approach to things and your perspective now makes a little more sense to me, and that's never a bad thing. 😁
Manned or unmanned air superiority, adds the Third Dimension to the battlefield. Banging away at an enemy from above the battlefield and underground transit routes are decisive debilitating tactics. The Russians proved this around Kursk, traveling through kilometers of underground pipeline to appear in the rear of the Ukrainians. Chaos and defeat for the Ukrainians.
My Fire Force unit in Africa, using close air support (Cessna C337 with dual .303 machine guns, 2.75” rockets and Frantan-Napalm canisters) and a K-Car gunship (with a thermal sighting surgical Quad .303 Vickers M1919 guns or a 20mm Bofors), coordinating with vertical envelopment by G-Car helicopters putting troops on the ground like moving chess pieces, all coordinated by the Fire Force Commander in the K-Car, proved to be far superior to what any previous Counter Insurgency (now called Irregular Warfare to give a new name to Guerilla Warfare) anywhere in the world had for success. Even Special Force “Mike Force” units in Vietnam, who tried the similar tactics.
The British SAS killed 108 guerilla terrorists in 9 years in Malaya… I have no numbers on Mike Force from Vietnam. However, we killed 1690 guerilla terrorists in 9 months. I was a consultant to a brilliant maverick Marine Corps officer in a Naval Special Warfare study done on Vertical Envelopment in 1999 and published in the March 2000 Marine Corp Gazette. That after the disaster in Somalia.
That being said… what Colonel Gaub says here echoes my conversation with a Friend and former Navy SEAL Officer. There are NO “Front Lines” with drones. They are deadly and they are a game changer. I do not want my grand children in a ground pounder status or even at a desk job as a POGUE. The Infantry is DEAD. Warfare has entered a new stage.
Termini…
Jack Lawson
Member, Sully H. deFontaine Special Forces Association Chapter 51, Las Vegas, Nevada
Author of the “Civil Defense Manual,” “The Slaver’s Wheel,” “A Failure of Civility,” “And We Hide From The Devil” and “In Defense.” Go to www.JackLawsonBooks.comand JackLawsonBooks.Substack.com
“What difference does it make to the dead, the maimed, the orphans, and the homeless whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?” - Gandhi
From Jack Lawson… an American in 1RLI Support Commando and attached to Rhodesian “C Squadron” SAS Africa 1976-79