Nathan Ecelbarger of War on the Rocks reports that the U.S. military’s drone acquisition process is failing to keep pace with battlefield demands, hindered by outdated regulations and bureaucratic gatekeeping. In response, veterans and active-duty personnel launched the U.S. National Drone Association to drive innovation through open drone competitions, echoing how the National Rifle Association once spurred rifle reform. These competitions aim to push military and civilian teams to rapidly test and adopt effective drone systems, ensuring U.S. troops are equipped to meet modern threats like those seen in Ukraine. The effort calls for urgent policy changes and more responsive acquisition systems. He writes:

Two years ago, I represented the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab at the Defense Innovation Unit summit in Warsaw. A Ukrainian commander there poked me in the chest and said, “Stop sending us your American drones. They’re shit. They don’t work on the modern battlefield.” He wasn’t talking about some baby start-up. He was talking about one of America’s top drone manufacturers — a well-known brand in the halls of the Pentagon with a long-standing program of record, a spot on the “blue list,” retired generals on its advisory board, and a bank account packed with hundreds of millions from venture capital.

It doesn’t have to be this way, but it’s a natural result of the incentives of Pentagon processes as they exist today.

Despite the Defense Innovation Unit’s best efforts to sharpen the blunt instrument of the Department of Defense’s drone acquisitions, the system remains deeply flawed, overly bureaucratic, and resistant to innovation. As a result, American warfighters lag behind in crucial drone capabilities. The United States needs a competitive, real-world evaluation model. With humble but urgent intent, I, alongside other key veterans and servicemembers, founded the  U.S. National Drone Association to deliver the solutions we believe are desperately needed. […]

It is time to openly challenge industry innovators and military drone teams to face off head-to-head, using real-world competitions to objectively measure drone effectiveness. If commercially available drones outperform current military systems, leaders can identify exactly who or what allowed obsolete technologies to reach U.S. troops and make swift corrections. Bureaucrats need to become facilitators, backed by resources from offices designed explicitly for rapid innovation, ensuring successful systems get quickly into the hands of servicemembers.

Warfighters deserve reliable equipment, clear-eyed policies, and the tools they need to win the wars we ask them to fight.

Read more here.