Trump’s ballroom drone port is no joke
When Donald Trump unveiled plans for a counter-drone installation on the roof of the new White House ballroom, critics called it theater. They may be right about the installation. But they are wrong about the threat. I have watched the character of warfare change faster in the past four years than in the previous forty. In Ukraine, a one-way attack drone that costs a few hundred dollars routinely destroys Russian armored vehicles worth millions. Both sides now field these systems by the hundreds of thousands. Entire stretches of the front are governed not by artillery or air superiority in the traditional sense, but by small, expendable aircraft that soldiers can carry in rucksacks and launch from tree lines.
