America doesn’t lack combat experience with small drones. > The fighting in Ukraine has provided "reinforcement and validation" of what US troops have learned

America doesn’t lack combat experience with small drones. > The fighting in Ukraine has provided "reinforcement and validation" of what US troops have learned about drones in the Middle East, Gainey said at the conference, echoing Army leaders who say the drone war in Ukraine is influencing their planning — particularly for how to counter the one-way attack drones that Russia has used widely. > "In some cases, yes, what we're sending to Ukraine are also going to fit into our future plans," Douglas Bush, the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics, and technology, said at a press conference in early August. Further: > "There's no one silver bullet. There's no one system that we can call out and say, 'This is a system that's going to defeat every threat,'" Parent told Insider. Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-ukraine-fighting-drone-war-us-military-was-waiting-for-2023-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-ukraine-fighting-dron... The truth is that there is no “drone warfare” only a new class of military tools that resemble drones and are built on drone-esque platforms. They come on the sea, they come by land and they come by air, and they can be millions of dollars or 3500-5000 bucks (which is utterly nothing for US military spending) and built of cardboard like this one: https://www.defensenews.com/air/2023/09/13/cardboard-drone-vendor-retools-software-based-on-ukraine-war-hacks/ https://www.defensenews.com/air/2023/09/13/cardboard-drone-v... They are using Ukraine as a providing ground for anti-drone technology for sure as there have been many reports of directed energy weapons in Ukraine and Israel as of late. There are also sea-based systems: https://www.newsweek.com/taiwan-drone-sea-china-attack-laser-war-1840662 https://www.newsweek.com/taiwan-drone-sea-china-attack-laser... So definitely we are in the drone warfare period and those lessons are getting learned. Have been since 2013 to 2016 when we had initial reports of drones on the battlefield and reactions in military planning discussions. With regards to the idea, that experience is the sole predictor of Battlefield success, I would urge the original poster of that comment to read a few history books.