The Future of Drone Tech: Mid-Range Drones || June 1, 2026

The Terra A1 anti-aircraft joint drone company with Japan fascinates me.

Command and control is dead in the new drone world and Ukraine is THE premier drone tech nation.

Hopefully China is making notes on the cost of a land grab

When will the Iranians have this gear??? Do they get this type of chip from China?

Peter has forecast two likely outcomes for Russia, 4 to 5 generations if Russia wins in Ukraine (with follow ons in the Baltics, Poland and Romania) and 1 to 2 if Russia loses. After 4 years of unsuccessful war and Ukraine gaining edges operational and innovative (likely to continue) does he have a revised forecast?

What we are witnessing is the evolution of 21st century warfare from a "for-profit model" to an "efficiency model". The days of multi-billion dollar weapons platform is over as it's been proven cheap drone swarm attacks can defeat/exhaust/destroy expensive missiles and military assets/platforms. The US/global national defense industrial complex "for profit" model is now reaching towards point of obsolescence.

This is simply the deflation of military success. You no longer need trillions and the likes of Lockheed Martin for defense or offense. This deflation means the old rules no longer apply; the post-WW2 world is over. The West's ability to project and protect power is quickly fading, but then again, so is the economic dividend of that. (Some guy wrote a good book about this.) To me, the interesting aspect is that this also means our relationship with power and violence will change as well. We have had 4 generations in the West grow up in a world where real high-level violence was seen as not needed and passe. My grandfather carpet-bombed German cities without a care and then nuked the Japanese to make sure fewer of his countrymen died. My generation fires million-dollar missiles at single-target leadership, into the perfect apartment window, so there is zero collateral damage. The older generations' use of that high-level violence gave birth to the moral luxury that future generations lived in. That is going away. Our moral future will look just as different as our technological future.

Every time either Ukraine or Russia innovates, it is weeks to months until the other side duplicates that effort. At the moment the Ukrainians are hitting the Russians hard, but what happens when Russia starts spamming 100km drones? Does the front line turn even more static than it has been? And what about the population centers front-adjacent in Ukraine such as Kherson or Kharkiv?

Heh, I do like the irony of that Ukraine might have better cards then Trump's pair of 2's vs Iran. If I was a gulf state, I might well be looking to Ukraine to put the Iranian genie back in the bottle now that it's clear that Trump can't.

Peter, can you address the elephant in the room? What is the point of having 1.5 Trillion defense budgets anymore?

Is Peter starting a new career as a tour guide in Italy?

This puts the lie to Russia’s entire concept of expanding its territory to defensible ground positions. When defensible barriers can be flown over, they become useless logistical liabilities.

Peter, maybe a childish question, but is there a way Russia would turn ... amicable? "Why can´t weeeee be fiends" and stuff? ;) I figure there is far more to win by creating constructive alliances with Europe rather than being the biggest dicks in the area, right? There is plenty of historic precedent for such changes from other countries, and in this modern day and age.... again, maybe just a childish question

It seems that this war is rapidly expanding the technology of drone warfare. It is much like WWI when airplanes, tanks, dirigibles, and other technology was first used. The dirigibles came and went, the airplanes quickly modified, then the machineguns were modified to shoot through the propellers. They started making "bombs" by putting hand grenades into mayonnaise jars with the pins pulled and dropping them. Glass breaks, handle flies open, boom. Then real bombs designed for being attached to the wings. All very fast and in one (1) war. With Russian oil production now down about 40% I wonder how long Russia can sustain such damage.

The old concept of a “front” from an invading force has been replaced by confused groups of invaders who must feel isolated and vulnerable because they suddenly are. This completely changes the concept of war as we know it. How adaptable militaries are will determine the outcome of all future conflicts. Slava Ukraine!

No sound for the final 40 seconds. Can you re-post, please?

I'm just here for the Italian views.

This element is actually pretty fascinating: initially the tech was used in 2024 with a cheap $15 smartphone camera and wholesale processor board (think Raspberry pi but cheaper and slower) but it still required the analog link to a drone mothership which could be jammed during its terminal fire and forget phase. Now they have so much fpv data (millions of hours) they've been able to pare down the tracking and telemetry logic from using Jetson Orin models enough (advanced Nvidia AI hardware, $500 a pop), that they can now take a $50-75 board and make it about 95% effective compared to the expensive option. IMAGINE what happens when they start shopping around JUST the data so that anyone can emulate this? You might be able to sell it to a country like Taiwan and then just let them handle their own defense confidently. Or...you might get the nightmare scenario I've worried about for the past 3 years: Mexican cartel organizations figure this out and coordinate understanding the existential threat the US administration poses and builds 100,000 of these with "consumer" shipments of parts courtesy of China in retaliation. Crazy times.

Ukraine's drone operators used to have to be at the front also, made them rusky targets. Now they can sit on momma's couch 100's of miles away, safe, and operate drones. This also expands their combatant pool. If a 16 year old gamer-grl wants to earn game points for blowing up rusky trucks well go for it

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What a waste of human potential: war and the useless UN

Vitality and adaptability of the industrial base is becoming the differentiator in the drone age. That requires deep intimacy between manufacturer and the warfighter and agile acquisition, but Peter's comment about drones negating the advantages of depth struck a chord: drone tech is cheap and plentiful enough to negate the advantages of scale to the benefit of the little guy. Ukraine, Iran are holding up remarkably well. Does that ported good things for Taiwan, too?

Peter, you’re in Italy. Obviously? no worries about an impending jet-A shortage. Yet a shortage is apparently arriving. Just wondering what your thoughts are on this?

It seems we are quickly approaching the absence of humanity. A never ending flow of drones and counter measures by either side of a dispute. Drones built en masse by automated means only limited by the commodity and material resources to create. To what end if so? Are borders now set in the stone? Maybe not today, but…

Are you going to bring up how Wembanyana individually is changing the game? I mean he blows up the post. There’s like 3 mid range spots he makes the league look silly from, and you wanna talk about from outside the arch, HE IS THAT FRENCH ARTILLERY. Sorry, I forgot where I am again.