Unleashing U.S. military drone dominance: What the United States can learn from Ukraine

US Marine Corps Cpl. Brian Vile, an intelligence specialist with Marine Rotational Force – Darwin 24.3, operates a Skydio drone as part of a counter-unmanned aircraft systems field test at Mount Bundey Training Area, NT, Australia, July 11, 2024. (US Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Migel A. Reynosa)

By Kateryna Bondar • Jul 21, 2025

In the wake of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s military and political leadership faced the grim reality that its Soviet-inherited defense industrial base was riddled with corruption, institutional inertia, and a closed culture. Yet this legacy sector, despite its dysfunction, remained indispensable to Ukraine’s survival in the face of an existential threat.

What followed was not a slow reform but a wartime transformation. In just three years, Ukraine has cultivated a defense technology ecosystem focused on unmanned systems that is agile and competitive.

A new Center for Strategic and International Studies report, based on dozens of interviews with Ukrainian officials, entrepreneurs, and military officers, tells the story of how this shift occurred under the extreme pressures of war. More importantly, it draws out the central lesson for the United States and its allies: Any serious effort to prepare for the wars of the future must incorporate options for radical decentralization, bottom-up innovation, and competitive dynamism within the defense industrial base. The Ukrainian case is not conclusive, but it is a crucial example of how free societies should adapt their defense sectors to meet modern threats with speed, agility, and technological ingenuity.