Smaller budget, better weapons: Ukrainian drones impressed former US Army Secretary
Ден Дрісколл
Former US Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll said that Ukraine, with a much smaller defense budget, was able to create better weapons for modern warfare. He was particularly impressed by the pace of development of Ukrainian drones.
Driscoll said this in an interview with Rolling Stone.
According to him, the experience of Ukraine has become for the American military a vivid example of how quickly the defense system can change under the pressure of a real war.
“In a way, it was humbling to see how quickly a country can change when it needs to. When you saw what Ukraine’s budget was and how small it was compared to ours, and yet they had better weapons to wage war with, it was a wake-up call,” Driscoll said.
He separately noted the pace of development of Ukrainian unmanned systems.
After that, Driscoll initiated the creation of an experimental “drones first” assault battalion in the US Army.
The unit was deployed to Italy, where the military worked independently in laboratories to develop and test unmanned systems.
Driscoll headed the US Department of the Army since February 2025 and left office in September 2026. Reuters reported that his resignation came amid long-standing disagreements with Pentagon leadership.
It was previously reported that the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine has codified 650 unmanned systems since the beginning of the year . Most of them are produced by Ukrainian companies.
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