Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 7-3 – Erik A. Davis – Drones and the Changing Character of War

On that note, let's wrap it up.

Do you have any concluding thoughts that you would like to share?

More than anything, I think the Army used to be really good at trying and we kind of lost it.

We kind of went back to let's just solve the math problem.

And I think we got to go back to nobody knows the answer is like, hey, let's go innovate.

Let's go try some stuff.

I would say again, the drone is not the thing.

It is a symptom of the thing.

So when people say that the drones are going to fight everything in the future, I think they're naive.

But I also recognize that you have to look at how we can incorporate this technology into the existing formations and leverage it.

The drone will not replace a tank because a drone can't do a tank's job, in my opinion.

Like a tank does things you just can't get without that kind of stuff.

But it's hard to keep it on the battlefield.

So how do you complement the two? I think field artillery and drones are like the best friends ever.

But you take a forward observer and you give them a bunch of these capabilities.

And again, when we say drones, a lot of times we think just like the flying quadcopters.

There's so many different tools out there that can sit and wait.

And they are acoustic sensors, they're visual sensors, they're heat sensors, they're electromagnetic.

If there's definitely one thing I would say, everybody needs to get a lot smarter with the electromagnetic footprint of their organization looks like.

I had my team in JRTC years ago.

They showed us what we'd look like on the EM spectrum, and it was daunting.

And that was an SF company, which is very small and very tiny.

We look like a brigade when you turn on all of our radios.

Anybody who's looking can see that.

We have a lot of forces who think, oh, the lasers are going to save us or jamming is going to save us.

On that note, let's wrap it up.

Do you have any concluding thoughts that you would like to share?

More than anything, I think the Army used to be really good at trying and we kind of lost it.

We kind of went back to let's just solve the math problem.

And I think we got to go back to nobody knows the answer is like, hey, let's go innovate.

Let's go try some stuff.

I would say again, the drone is not the thing.

It is a symptom of the thing.

So when people say that the drones are going to fight everything in the future, I think they're naive.

But I also recognize that you have to look at how we can incorporate this technology into the existing formations and leverage it.

The drone will not replace a tank because a drone can't do a tank's job, in my opinion.

Like a tank does things you just can't get without that kind of stuff.

But it's hard to keep it on the battlefield.

So how do you complement the two? I think field artillery and drones are like the best friends ever.

But you take a forward observer and you give them a bunch of these capabilities.

And again, when we say drones, a lot of times we think just like the flying quadcopters.

There's so many different tools out there that can sit and wait.

And they are acoustic sensors, they're visual sensors, they're heat sensors, they're electromagnetic.

If there's definitely one thing I would say, everybody needs to get a lot smarter with the electromagnetic footprint of their organization looks like.

I had my team in JRTC years ago.

They showed us what we'd look like on the EM spectrum, and it was daunting.

And that was an SF company, which is very small and very tiny.

We look like a brigade when you turn on all of our radios.

Anybody who's looking can see that.

We have a lot of forces who think, oh, the lasers are going to save us or jamming is going to save us.