Anders Puck Nielsen: 'NATO Has Missed The Drone Revolution'

In which I am right, again

Cap. Anders Puck Nielsen of the Royal Danish Defence College and Navy has a website called Logic of War. He also has a YouTube channel where he discusses grand strategy and current topics in military affairs.

In a video released on Thursday, Nielsen opined that western militaries have not kept up with the drone revolution. An “arrogant attitude towards the Russian Army” is setting up the “technological incumbent” (NATO) to fail against Russia, which remains the world’s second best military after Ukraine.

Nielsen advises that the new way of war requires a large number of drone pilots and electronic warfare specialists, with units up to brigade level, so as to deliver these capablities at scale on the battlefield. Experienced pilots and operators are the most valuable assets in any 21st century land force. I have been making these same arguments myself for a while, now.

Nielsen was reacting to this recent article at Defense One by Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi. It was published while I already was working on my piece published this week about the topic. I withheld comment on it in my essay because I wanted to use Zaluzhnyi’s thoughts as a springboard for a future piece on how the electronic battle underlies the network of sensors and drones on the modern battlefield. I’ve been reading a classic text on military revolution in preparation for that.

I’m still going to take it as a win, though, so here is a flash sale on premium annual subscriptions through Wednesday. If you are a monthly premium subscriber, consider upgrading to lock in the savings.

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