Drone arms race transforms war in Ukraine, with U.S. now learning lessons | 60 M [10:07-13:05]

The forge is one of dozens of drone innovation labs set up by the US military around the world. Offset good. Any service member with an idea or just an interest can request to spend time in one of the labs. The legs slide out and just add a space here. It's adding a culture of innovation, and that's new. That's not something that we've really seen in the last 20 years. Is it possible that a soldier will walk into one of those innovation labs with an idea that could be a breakthrough in drone technology? It's entirely possible. The thing with drones and innovation is what I would describe is unlimited innovation potential. If you can think of it, you can make a drone do it. Expedited basic training. Captain Ronan Sefton was first deployed to Germany with the Army's second cavalry regiment, not long after Russia launched its invasion in 2022. His job was to give basic training to over 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers. But he told us almost immediately the Americans began learning from the Ukrainians. The first really poignant lesson for us was there needs to be more drones. They need to be everywhere involved in the training to add to the realism. So the Ukrainian soldiers were giving that to you as feedback? Absolutely. Did you then talk to your commanding officers about it? We went to every senior commander we could. The thing that we wanted to communicate was, this is important, it's changing warfare, and here's how we can actually implement it now. We're already doing it, we should scale this. The message got through, and now Sefton's joined the Army's Ukraine lessons learned task force. It has the job of translating experience from Ukraine's scrappy fighting force to America's sprawling military. He told us the new technology does not make the U.S. military's traditional firepower obsolete. But it needs to adapt urgently, countering the drones developed by America's adversaries. You still need how it's is. You still need Abrams, but you have to figure out how to get the drones to work with the how it's is in Abrams. Exactly, and that's the challenge, but also the goal to become ready for the next conflict. We see it with the Armed Forces of Ukraine. They have learned these lessons through blood. There will of course be additional lessons that we will learn, perhaps through blood. But it will only make us better at what we already are. The day after that interview, the United States went to war. And the Iranian drones began flying. The first Americans killed in the conflict were targeted with a drone. The U.S. military is now learning its lessons in blood, just as Ukraine did.