Karina Bovsunovskaya10:21, 07.08.25

The military man noted that the way war is waged is changing at an incredible rate.

American soldiers would suffer “horrible casualties” in a conflict as of now because the United States has not provided them with the necessary equipment to wage war using drones, the head of the Army’s Futures Command , Gen. James E. Rainey, told The Times .

He said the way war is waged is changing at “hyperspeed,” but the United States is not keeping up.

Despite three years of rapid advances in drone technology during the war in Ukraine, the Pentagon has yet to acquire critical information and equipment needed to combat future threats.

“Young men and women will pay the price for our failure to quickly get what we know needs to be delivered to these soldiers,” Rainey said.

The general added that he does not expect the “unprecedented” pace of change in the digital age to slow down, and therefore believes that combat robots will be an inevitable revolution on the battlefield.

“There is technology that we will certainly need the next time we go to war – to counter the electronic warfare of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), we need to get more and better UAVs at the echelon level. It’s really a shame because the technology exists. It’s not like we need to invent some program, build a new tank, build a new helicopter. It’s literally about buying things that already exist,” Rainey said.

He said the United States was still losing the race against time to see its troops fight again.

“[Our deadline] is not 2040, 2035. The standard is the next war. We must definitely change the situation,” the military man urged.

He also said that he sees videos on social media that are filmed by drone cameras on the battlefields in Ukraine.

“A TikTok video of a Russian soldier trying to surrender to a drone being chased and killed, helpless… That horrifies me as a professional. And the idea that a U.S. soldier could be in a helpless position. I can’t even imagine that. We will never accept that a U.S. soldier doesn’t have the inherent right to defend himself, doesn’t have a fighting chance,” the general said.

At the same time, Rainey assured that there are three elements of war that will remain unchanged, namely:

• they will be led by people;
• wars will continue for land and control over it;
• Conflicts will still involve close combat.

“It’s not about replacing humans, that’s a pointless task. The art will be figuring out: How do you optimize humans and machines to get the best, most lethal combination? How do you shift risk to machines at the right time and optimize humans to do what only humans can do?” explained the head of the US Army Futures Command.

Despite China’s rapid technological advances and the reform of its military over the past 20 years, Rainey is confident the United States can maintain its advantage.

“I would bet on America, on our sense of urgency, on our understanding. We could lose that now. It would be a mistake to rest on our laurels. It will be a race like the space race or the nuclear race – and we must continue,” the general concluded.

(C)UNIAN 2025