BLUF: Send the Drones

This week offered a powerful display of what America’s advanced technologies can do when it matters most. To quickly catch you up: a Saronic Corsair autonomous surface vessel — operated by the U.S. Navy’s Task Force 59 — located and rescued the two American crew members from a downed AH-64 Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz. Within roughly two hours, the 24-foot drone boat reached the pilots, who climbed aboard and were transported to a safer pickup point for helicopter extraction. No additional manned rescue assets had to linger in a high-risk area.

It’s a reminder of a fundamental truth behind the Pentagon’s push to expand America’s unmanned arsenal: these systems should exist first and foremost to save lives.

Yes, the rhetoric often centers on “lethality.” But the operational reality is about reducing the human cost on our side. Persistent ISR from drones keeps troops out of unnecessary danger. Uncrewed boats, ground vehicles, and aircraft handle the dull, dirty, and dangerous work — extending reach while bringing people home when things go wrong. Every refined platform means fewer Americans are left exposed.

A simultaneously heart-wrenching and heartwarming scene circulated this April of an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) successfully rescuing an elderly woman once a Ukrainian brigade spotted her. While the exact definition of “human on the loop” evolves, this would certainly count: the soldiers navigating the UGV wrote “Grandma, sit down” to avoid scaring her. 

At its best, this technology protects the young and the old, the soldier and the civilian alike. It’s all hands on deck: engineers, operators, policymakers, funders, and, ultimately, warfighters, need to work together to build a future where fewer people have to pay the ultimate price. A sophisticated drone arsenal cannot eliminate the horrors of conflict, but it steadily shrinks the circle of those who must bear them.

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