“While the future of warfare is being invented in places like Ukraine, U.S. officials are looking on with a growing sense of urgency.” A report on the new technology of global conflict. And, then, Vinson Cunningham on the “Love Island USA” finale (warning: spoilers ahead). Plus:
As new ways of fighting are being invented in Ukraine, Israel, and Silicon Valley, the Pentagon is trying to remake itself. “We’re not moving fast enough,” one expert says.Photo illustration by Timo Lenzen
Dexter Filkins
A staff writer covering global conflicts and foreign policy.
Earlier this year, on a lonely stretch of Texas chaparral, I watched a small rocket blast out of a wooden crate, climb about three hundred feet, turn on its side, and go hunting for an enemy drone to intercept.
The test flight foretold much about the future of warfare, now in the throes of epochal change, which I explore in a piece published in the magazine today. For decades, the generals at the Pentagon deciding which weapons to buy typically followed one mantra: big, exotic, and expensive. They’re now galloping in the other direction.
The device that took off in Texas, called the Roadrunner, was made by the Silicon Valley defense startup Anduril. By Pentagon standards, the Roadrunner is cheap (around a hundred thousand dollars apiece), and, if it fails to strike its target, it returns to base, ready to try again. It is one of several Anduril weapons that the Pentagon is rushing to buy, which are built around a new philosophy currently gripping the defense industry: instead of building small numbers of weapons that are super sophisticated and super expensive—a single F-22 stealth fighter, the world’s best, costs three hundred and fifty million dollars—the focus is now on precision-guided drones and anti-drones whose main feature is the software that guides them to their targets. In the air, underwater, on the ground: the abiding feature of these weapons is that they operate far from the American soldiers, sailors, and airmen who control them, putting fewer service members at risk. The U.S. military is buying them by the thousands.
The models for the wars of tomorrow are being fought in Ukraine and the Middle East today. In Ukraine, the invading Russian Army has been battled to a standstill by its much smaller enemy, largely through Ukraine’s mass deployment of drones, which, since 2024, have accounted for eighty per cent of Russian losses in men and matériel. In just three years, the Ukrainians have built an entire industry, which last year turned out more than three million drones—for surveillance, dropping mines, and attacking oncoming tanks.
The other laboratory is Israel, whose military has pioneered the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence to help them target suspected militants in Hamas and Hezbollah, and also in Iran. In Israel, military officers feed computers huge amounts of data gathered from an array of sources—telephone intercepts, social media, and video feeds from drones—and the computers suggest targets to strike. The new tools have helped the Israelis kill tens of thousands of militants, but tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, too.
As potential conflicts loom—for example, with China, which by some measures has surpassed the U.S. as a military force—American officials are studying the tactics and technology being used in Ukraine and the Middle East, gaining insight for wars of the future that they hope to deter.
Read the story »
This Week’s Issue
My Criminal Great-Grandparents
Jessica Winter on buried family histories and the stories that shape us
Break Point Britain
Sam Knight on the U.K.’s eternal hope for a homegrown Wimbledon champion
A Family Doctor’s Search for Salvation
Joshua Rothman on how a physician who accidentally killed his own son found renewed purpose
Plus: Paul Bloom on A.I. and the loneliness crisis; Amanda Petrusich on the singer-songwriter Ryan Davis; and more.
Explore the issue »
Editor’s Pick
Source photograph by Kevin Carter / Getty
How Much More “TACO” Madness Can the U.S. Economy Take?
The stock market’s record-setting run suggests Wall Street isn’t taking Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats seriously—but they are already harming the economy. Read John Cassidy’s latest column »
More Top Stories
How Bad Is It?
The dating show “Love Island USA” ended its seventh season last night, with Amaya Espinal and Bryan Arenales taking home the hundred-thousand-dollar prize as top couple. This summer, the reality show has exploded in popularity.
Why did this season cause such a stir—and did it actually find any good couples?
“It felt old school to me. Maybe it had something to do with people yearning for a kind of shared experience,” Vinson Cunningham, a critic for the magazine and a watcher of the series, told us over the phone.
About The Author
