The Future of High-Tech Warfare: Drones, Robots and a Shifting U.S. Military Paradigm

War has moved from medieval cavalry to the atomic bombs dropped by President Harry Truman in World War II. The United States fields the world’s largest military, yet New York Times columnist Ross Douthat says U.S. forces remain overly dependent on 20th-century platforms. In a late-May Times podcast, Douthat explored how “drones and robots and autonomous weapons are remaking battlefields” with Christian Brose, president and chief strategy officer of Anduril.

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Douthat asked whether combat could render infantry obsolete in favor of unmanned systems. Brose said current U.S. assumptions are “almost the opposite of what we’ve built our military around,” warning that peer competitors are adapting to disrupt the “American way of war” and that fights could lose “a lot of planes, ships, satellites and other things.” He stressed the United States is not prepared for a prolonged production cycle to replace such losses.

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Brose highlighted qualitative data—the expectation of “shooting a lot of weapons” and the need for sustained production to replace them—citing the wars in Iran and the Ukraine-Russia conflict as examples of autonomous tools reshaping combat and suggesting a shift toward “lower-cost systems” resembling commercial technology. If rivals continue fielding disruptive autonomous capabilities, the United States could face contested air, sea and space domains, eroding an advantage long assumed after the Cold War and straining defense budgets.

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Douthat framed the conversation around the “future of high-tech warfare.” Brose argued that U.S. assumptions are outdated, that competitors are eroding American military superiority, and that a future dominated by autonomous weapons is not yet feasible, especially for holding ground.

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Douthat’s critique positions the U.S. military as “behind the times,” relying on legacy platforms. This view challenges the prevailing belief in unassailable U.S. dominance and calls for urgent modernization.

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• “ "When you look at the future," Brose told Douthat, "I would argue that the assumptions that are now very evident to us in the present are almost the opposite of what we've built our military around.” — Christian Brose, Anduril

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• “We have peer competitors and rivals in the world who are adapting to and really disrupting the American way of war.” — Christian Brose, Anduril

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• “ The defense expert continued, "We're going to shoot a lot of weapons, and we're going to have to replace that as an act of production over a long period of time.” — Christian Brose, Anduril

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Brose’s remarks suggest that while autonomous systems will increasingly shape combat, fully non-human ground control remains uncertain. The discussion points to continued analysis of production capacity, doctrinal shifts, and the balance between human troops and unmanned platforms.

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