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Opinion

Glimmers of a Drone Solution

Glimmers of a Drone Solution
Ukrainian Defense Intelligence officers prepare to launch an An-196 Liutyi long-rang drone at an undisclosed location in Ukraine on Feb. 28, 2025. Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
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Commentary

Given an hour to solve a problem, Albert Einstein quipped, “I’d spend fifty-five minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” When mass-produced drones proliferated in Ukraine, the Pentagon inverted this theory. The problem was immediately identified: Our defense bureaucracy could not keep up with offshore production. Year after year, we dithered over solutions while adversarial advantage grew.

Owen West served with the Marines in Iraq and as an assistant secretary of defense from 2017–2019.