Pentagon Keeps Focus on Warplanes, Ships --- In age of drones, the U.S. has relied on using traditional military hardware.

 

 

There is a small problem though: Warplanes and ships can’t take and hold territory. To do that you need many glass fiber controlled drones and many people willing to move into drone killing zones and get killed there with extremely high chances. You need also a nation to support such way of fighting. That is rare combination these days.

 

“Despite the excitement about how drones have revolutionized warfare, U.S. strikes on Iran show how jet fighters and naval ships are the Pentagon's primary tools.

 

Drones have dominated the battlefield in Ukraine, leading some commentators -- including Elon Musk -- to predict the demise of expensive manned aircraft, helicopters and ships. Drones can do the job of regular aircraft for a fraction of the price with no risk to life, or so the argument goes, while traditional naval vessels are too vulnerable to attacks.

 

Yet in strikes on Iran and Venezuela, the U.S. has relied on traditional air and naval power. Hundreds of aircraft have attacked Iran, while destroyers have showered the country with missiles and intercepted counter attacks.

 

"More traditional military power has not gone away, and if anything has got more important," said Eric Rosenbach, a senior lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School who was chief of staff to the defense secretary during the Obama administration. "There is a lot of overlearning from Ukraine."

 

To be sure, unmanned aerial vehicles have played an important role in the Iran conflict. The U.S. has used its first one-way attack drones and Tehran has bombarded neighboring states with UAVs.

 

Moreover, if the U.S. was drawn into a large-scale land war, defense analysts say it would likely need more than air and naval power to hold territory. Achieving air supremacy would also be harder against a more sophisticated foe like China, they add.

 

But for now, the U.S. has relied on manned aircraft and naval vessels for strikes against Iran as well as in Venezuela earlier this year.

 

For the assault in the Middle East, the U.S. assembled its largest fleet of ships and aircraft in decades. That included two aircraft carriers and 13 destroyers with over 200 aircraft, including F-35s, F-15s, F-16s and their support planes. B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers have also attacked Iran from overseas bases.

 

When the U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January, it used aircraft and attack helicopters -- a military asset dismissed as largely ineffective in Ukraine.

 

Manned aircraft have executed strikes against Iran in ways that current drones would struggle to match.

 

"There are classes of UAV that have the same range, but very few that are as difficult to detect or that carry the kinds of sensors and weapons to that of a F-35," said Douglas Barrie, a specialist in military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank.

 

Bombers, jet fighters and ships have delivered munitions that pack a far bigger punch than those carried by drones. Tomahawk missiles being fired from U.S. ships have a warhead of 1,000 pounds. By contrast, a warhead on one of Iran's Shahed drones is about 88 pounds. Many drones used in Ukraine carry just a 1-pound warhead.

 

There is no drone that can carry the sort of bomb weighing 30,000 pounds that the B-2 bomber uses to penetrate missile silos and weapons-storage facilities, said Mark Gunzinger, a former B-52 pilot now with the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

 

Nevertheless, drone technology is moving fast. In Ukraine, some UAVs use artificial intelligence to guide and attack in swarms.

 

In the long run, AI-powered drones likely represent the future of warfare, said Eliot Cohen, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

 

"But how fast that future is coming and what exactly it looks like, is anybody's guess," he said.” [1]

 

Based on developments in early 2026, the U.S. Department of War is aggressively pivoting away from sole reliance on traditional, high-cost hardware to counter threats in an era dominated by drones. While the Pentagon has long relied on aircraft carriers and fighter jets, defense officials are now actively pushing a "Drone Dominance" initiative, spurred by the lessons of the Ukraine conflict

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Key, up-to-date findings regarding this shift include:

 

    Pivoting to Drone Dominance: The Pentagon has initiated a "Drone Dominance" program aimed at producing and deploying tens of thousands of low-cost attack drones by 2026 and hundreds of thousands by 2027.

    Arming Soldiers: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has directed that every Army unit be outfitted with small, lethal, one-way attack drones by the end of fiscal 2026.

    The "Kill Zone" Problem: The U.S. military recognizes that the modern battlefield is a "kill zone" dominated by pervasive aerial surveillance and FPV (first-person view) drones, necessitating a move toward decentralized, unmanned, and autonomous systems.  To protect personnel in the drone kill zone is impossible though.

    Limitations of Traditional Hardware: Despite the focus on new technology, reports acknowledge that traditional platforms are still needed alongside, but not in place of, new capabilities.

 

However, intercepting swarms of low-cost drones with expensive, traditional missiles is currently straining U.S. arsenals.

 

    The Need for Speed: Critics have pointed out that the U.S. procurement cycle—even with accelerated schedules—struggles to keep up with the rapid, "every two weeks" innovation cycles seen on the front lines in Ukraine.

 

The 2026 National Defense Strategy acknowledges the shift to autonomous systems across land, sea, and air, allocating billions for, for example, medium-sized drone boats and "digital architecture" for unmanned system.

 

There is a lot of hot talk about drones in the West. There are no Western rare earths to produce them in bulk and no reasonable action to take and hold territory anywhere.

 

The analysis that the West faces severe challenges in drone production due to a lack of domestic rare earth processing and difficulty in holding territory with drone technology is supported by current industrial and battlefield data. China currently dominates 90–95% of global rare earth processing, creating a significant bottleneck for Western defense manufacturing

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Rare Earth and Drone Production Constraints

 

    China's Monopoly: Nearly all rare earth magnets used in Western missiles, fighter jets, and drones can be traced back to Chinese processing, creating a potential "kill switch" for Western defense capabilities.

    Dependency on Imports: Even when mining occurs in the West (e.g., Mountain Pass, CA), the materials are often sent to China for processing into usable magnets and metals.

    Mass Production Lag: While startups like Neros and established firms are trying to scale up to 100,000+ drones per year, they face higher costs and lower volume compared to Chinese-manufactured alternatives, with only a limited number of non-Chinese drones qualifying for U.S. "Blue List" (authorized) status.

    2027 Deadline: U.S. law bans Chinese-sourced rare earths in defense systems starting in 2027, forcing rush to build independent supply chains, such as the REalloys/Saskatchewan Research Council project.

 

Limitations in Holding Territory

 

    "Kill Zones" vs. Control: Drones have turned front lines into "kill zones" or "zones of continuous death," preventing large unit movements.

 

    Reconnaissance over Occupation: While drones are excellent for surveillance and attacking targets, they cannot occupy terrain, manage populations, or secure borders, which still require traditional ground forces that are killed by drones in mass.

    Vulnerability to Electronic Warfare: The high volume of drones, particularly in the Ukraine conflict, has led to intense jamming, with 70–90% of some types being intercepted, limiting their sustained effectiveness for holding ground. Glass fiber controlled drones solved this problem though.

 

Conclusion on "Hot Talk"

The urgency in the West is driven by the reality that the current, mostly Chinese-dependent, drone supply chain is highly vulnerable. While significant investments are flowing into North American, European, and Australian projects to break this dependence, the West currently lacks the domestic, high-volume capacity to match China's output of finished rare earth components, and no ability to take and control any territory protected by glass fiber controlled drones. Rest of it is just talk. Talk is cheap.

 

1. World News: Pentagon Keeps Focus on Warplanes, Ships --- In age of drones, the U.S. has relied on using traditional military hardware. MacDonald, Alistair.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 06 Mar 2026: A6.