Reducing that dependence on China must involve finding an alternate supply chain for the rare earths needed in drone manufacturing.

If anyone had any remaining doubts (how could they?) that drones have changed how wars will be fought, the extraordinary success recorded by Ukraine in using a fleet of them to destroy planes in a coordinated attack on various air bases across Russia (from its far north to eastern Siberia) should have dispelled them once and for all. The drones launched were from the trucks on Russian territory, in which they had been concealed.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal (June 10), the CEO of Fortem Technologies, a manufacturer of systems designed to counter drone attacks, writes of the need (some of which requires legislation) to provide adequate defenses against such attacks. America’s defenses, he writes:

 remain focused on traditional threats like ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and hostile aircraft—platforms designed for speed, altitude and range. Today’s most immediate threats fly much lower. The skies above our stadiums, airports and substations are essentially undefended at ground level.

Apart from anything else, the U.S. does not have the capacity to make enough drones itself. Writing in the WSJ a couple of months ago, Heather Somerville:

The U.S. has the capacity to build up to 100,000 drones a year, according to one Defense Department estimate. Last year, Ukraine built more than two million drones…

U.S. startups have spent billions of venture-capital dollars in hopes of developing the small drones that the Pentagon says it needs for future conflicts, but many have produced only expensive aircraft that don’t fly very well. Ukrainian drone makers, meanwhile, have mastered mass-producing drones despite limited resources and are looking for new customers and capital.

Now, the two sides are coming together, and the unlikely pairing is getting attention from the Defense Department.

Southern California startup CX2 last year struck a deal to put its software and sensors on Ukrainian drones, a matchup that has received approval from a branch of the U.S. military and might soon arm American forces.

One reason why a Ukrainian tie-up matters is that drone technology is moving very rapidly as Russia and Ukraine each try to gain a lead over the other (updating a drone is quick, nothing like working, say, on an ICBM). Can the Pentagon’s procurement protocols keep up with that, and, for that matter, can U.S. drone manufacturers?

Somerville:

American startups are slower to build, deliver and update their drones, which also have often failed to weather severe electronic warfare. Many U.S. companies that brought their drones to Ukraine watched them fall out of the sky or fail to complete missions.

Liaising with Ukrainian companies and taking advantage of their pricing and direct experience of how the constantly evolving drone war is being fought makes sense.

And so does this:

The Defense Innovation Unit, or DIU, an arm of the Defense Department that sources new technology for the military, for the first time awarded contracts in recent weeks to two Ukrainian-American partnerships. The companies will test their long-range attack drones this spring in Ukraine, where the drones are manufactured, and then have an opportunity to compete for production contracts with the Pentagon.

For obvious reasons, the U.S. also needs home-grown drones that can be manufactured in large numbers but are capable of being upgraded as rival technology evolves. The private sector, working with the Pentagon, ought to be able to cope with the logistical challenge and, in some cases, is doing so (as is explained in this article by Patrick Tucker in Defense One (from June 2), but there is still a long way to go, as the Pentagon recognizes.

Tucker:

The Defense Innovation Unit’s [new] Project GI initiative aims to embed frontline insights into a perpetual loop of design, testing, and deployment. It’s a deliberate effort to mimic how the Ukrainian military has out-innovated Russian forces by rapidly fielding and iterating drone technology under fire.

That’s good, but there is something else. Tucker quotes Trent Emeneker from the DIU as saying that:

 producing drones in sufficient quantity depends on reducing U.S. dependence on Chinese control over key components in the drone supply chain—items like magnets for actuators, lenses and other critical parts.

Apart from anything else, reducing that dependence on China must involve finding an alternate supply chain for the rare earths needed in drone manufacturing. That’s no small task. China dominates the production and processing of rare earths, and is, as it has recently demonstrated, ready to use that position for leverage against the U.S. Large-scale mining and processing of rare earths needs to return to the U.S., but that will take time. What to do until then?

Oh yes, there’s this, via CSIS:

The DJI Technology Company, a Chinese company and the world’s largest commercial drone manufacturer, holds a remarkable 90 percent share of the U.S. commercial drone market and 80 percent of the global consumer drone market. China also leads in the production of essential drone components, such as small lithium-ion batteries, with Contemporary Amperex Technology Company, Limited, being the largest battery maker by capacity.

Not ideal.