In this essay for The Wall Street Journal, co-written with Admiral James Stavridis, Elliot Ackerman argues that cheap drones, once directed by AI into coordinated swarms, will overwhelm the expensive, high-value weapons platforms that have defined military power for decades.

A New Sarissa on Today's Battlefield

Ackerman and Stavridis trace a $20,000 Shahed drone that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan and the sinking of a $70 million Russian warship, comparing today's cheap, ubiquitous drones to the sarissa, the long spear that let Alexander the Great's phalanxes overwhelm larger, costlier forces.

From Platforms to Systems

The authors argue that the future of warfare will be decided not by individual weapons platforms like aircraft carriers but by AI-directed systems of cheap, expendable drones capable of overwhelming even the most advanced defenses at scale.

A War of OODA Loops

Drawing on Air Force strategist John Boyd's OODA loop, Ackerman and Stavridis contend that the decisive edge in this new era of warfare will belong to whichever side's AI can observe, orient, decide, and act fastest, raising urgent questions about how much autonomy militaries are willing to hand to machines.

Read the Original Essay

This essay originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

Read “Drone Swarms Are About to Change the Balance of Military Power” at The Wall Street Journal →