The Distributed Bet

In April and May 2026, about 3,500 US soldiers, mostly from the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, faced a Ukrainian-reinforced opposing force during Combined Resolve at Hohenfels, Germany, and the Ukrainian drone operators won, per DroneXL citing the Wall Street Journal. Army Recognition identifies the Ukrainian unit as the 412th Regiment of Unmanned Systems, which employed reconnaissance, explosive and FPV aircraft against the brigade over roughly two weeks. At Hedgehog 2025 in Estonia, roughly ten Ukrainian operators playing the adversary mock-destroyed 17 armoured vehicles and effectively eliminated two NATO battalions in about half a day, per DroneXL.

Saber Junction 26 at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels was the 3-504 PIR's last exercise in the drone role. The resident opposing force turned 1,900 autonomous systems on the 173rd, including Skydio X10 and Neros Archer drones, per DroneXL; Military Times reports the exercise used 2,000 drones, half of them consumable, citing Brig. Gen. Terry R. Tillis. An Army official told DefenseScoop the battalion 'will deliver what it learned there, together with the past year's findings, to the Army to inform force design and future experimentation.' As of publication, none of the cited reports records a published findings report from the exercise.

The September 1 letter is bipartisan and bicameral: Shaheen is a New Hampshire Democrat, Tillis a North Carolina Republican, King an independent from Maine, and Turner an Ohio Republican, per DefenseScoop. The lawmakers quoted LaNeve's own message to the force, which tells soldiers to 'learn, innovate, and adapt faster', and wrote that eliminating the battalion 'without announcing a new home for this specialized drone capability runs counter to that.' They said they had 'deep concerns that eliminating this specialized drone unit will limit our ability to learn from allies, particularly the Ukrainian Armed Forces.'

The leadership context is unsettled. Hegseth removed George in April; more than five months later, President Trump has yet to nominate LaNeve as chief of staff, and DefenseScoop notes LaNeve would face questions about the drone unit and about Driscoll's resignation at any confirmation hearing. The White House accepted Driscoll's resignation on August 31, per DroneXL citing NBC News. LaNeve's statement that the decision predated his tenure contradicts weeks of reporting that attributed it to him, per DefenseScoop, and shifts the question to who made the decision and on what evidence.

Russia is moving toward a specialised structure: a planned Unmanned Systems Forces establishment reaching 78,800 personnel by the end of 2026, organised as seven separate brigades, 15 regiments and 70 battalions, plus 12 Rubikon units, 12 heavy-UAV companies and 12 UGV companies, per Army Recognition. Army Recognition notes that 78,800 personnel is numerically equivalent to more than 130 US battalions of 600 soldiers each. Ukraine established its own Unmanned Systems Forces branch first, and Russia answered with dedicated units such as Rubikon, per DroneXL.

The US Army's counter-position is that drones are already distributed. Col. Gregory J. Merkl, who leads the drone dominance programme at Headquarters, Department of the Army, told a briefing that the Army had fielded 10,000 drones and is fielding a further 30,000, enough to supply the squad level, and that the constraint is training: 'Right now, if you look across the force, you have that capability in every platoon. We still have a little bit of work to do in terms of getting qualified pilots down to the squad level,' per Military Times. The 3-504 PIR was the only US Army formation structured around drone assault as its primary mission.