Drones have key war role, but US makes hardly any

A four-day test in the Alaska wilderness shows how far the US military and American drone companies lag behind China in the technology, writes Farah Stockman from Fairbanks, Alaska

- Farah Stockman

On a patch of dirt in the vast wilderness in Alaska, a long-range drone roared like a lawn mower as it shot into the sky. It scanned the ground for a target it had been programmed to recognise, and then dived, attempting to destroy it by crashing into it. But it missed, landing about 80 feet away.

On another attempt, a drone nosedived at launch. On a subsequent try, a drone crashed into a mountain.

These drones weren't flown by amateur hobbyists. They were launched by drone manufacturers paid by a special unit of the Department of Defense as part of an urgent effort to update US capabilities. For four days last month, they tested prototypes of one-way drones by trying to crash them into programmed targets, while soldiers tried to stop the drones with special electronic equipment.

The exercise aimed to help US defence contractors and soldiers get better at drone warfare. But it illustrated some of the ways in which the US military could be unprepared for such a conflict. The nation lags behind Russia and China in manufacturing drones, training soldiers to use them and defending against them, according to interviews with more than a dozen US military officials and drone industry experts.

"We all know the same thing. We aren't giving the American war fighter what they need to survive warfare today," said Trent Emeneker, project manager of the Autonomy Portfolio at the military's Defense Innovation Unit, which organised the exercise in Alaska and paid for the development of the drone prototypes that flew there. "If we had to go to war tomorrow, do we have what we need? No. What we are trying to do is fix that."