🤯 That shocking statement begs the question: what happened, and how could we have gone so dangerously wrong?
Was it shortsightedness, a lack of knowledge of technology’s part in the history of warfare, or perhaps damning evidence of a military-industrial complex benefiting from the preservation of the status quo?
A very expensive and profitable status quo.
Today, cheap drones and drone swarms are challenging tanks, warships, and even air defense systems that cost thousands of times more, which is exactly the historical pattern repeating with Ukraine’s $400–$2,000 drones against multi-million-dollar Russian hardware.
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Bronze weapons replaced by iron weapons, c. 1200–1000 BCE, as the Bronze Age collapse spread ironworking across the eastern Mediterranean and beyond.
Phalanx/massed infantry formations gave way to Roman legion tactics and the gladius, flexibility beat rigid formations, roughly 3rd–2nd century BCE, as Rome’s legions defeated the Macedonian phalanx (decisively at Pydna, 168 BCE).
Stirrup-equipped heavy cavalry (knights) dominated infantry-heavy armies, through the early medieval period, before pikemen and disciplined infantry formations (Swiss pikes, English longbowmen) began beating them, dominance from roughly the 8th century, unraveling in the 1300s–1400s (Crécy 1346, Sempach 1386, Agincourt 1415).
The longbow replaced the short bow, adopted by the English and Welsh through the 13th–14th centuries, proven decisively at Crécy (1346).
Composite/crossbow dominance, in siege warfare gave way to early gunpowder cannons, making traditional stone castle walls obsolete by the late 1400s (Fall of Constantinople 1453; French siege trains of the 1450s–1490s).
Gunpowder weapons replaced bows and armored knights, through the 1500s–1600s, as muskets and pike-and-shot formations made both the longbow and the armored knight obsolete.
Wooden sailing warships were made obsolete almost overnight by steam-powered ironclads, the March 1862 Battle of Hampton Roads between USS Monitor and CSS Virginia is the classic turning point.
Muzzle-loading muskets gave way to breech-loading, repeating rifles, Civil War-era Spencer and Henry rifles (widely fielded 1863–1865), massively increasing the rate of fire.
Massed infantry charges were made suicidal by the machine gun, which is why WWI trench warfare ground to a stalemate (1914–1918).
Tanks replaced horse cavalry, introduced in WWI (1917), proven decisive by the Battle of France (1940), with the last true cavalry charges petering out by 1942–1945.
Battleships, long the measure of naval power, were dethroned by the aircraft carrier, Pearl Harbor (December 1941) and especially the Battle of Midway (June 1942) proved carrier-based airpower could sink battleships before they ever got in gun range.
Piston-engine fighters were replaced by jet aircraft, almost overnight after WWII made this starkly visible in Korea (1950–1953), when American F-86s met Soviet MiG-15s.
Stealth technology (F-117, B-2) neutralized traditional radar-based air defenses, starting in the 1980s (F-117 operational 1983), proven in combat in Panama (1989) and the Gulf War (1991).
Unguided “dumb” bombs gave way to precision-guided munitions, the 1991 Gulf War was the first conflict broadcast live showing “smart bombs” hitting single buildings instead of city blocks.
Lt. Gen. Joseph Jarrard, deputy commander of U.S. Northern Command and vice commander of the U.S. element of NORAD, said at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, on August 14, 2026, that the U.S. is “ill-equipped” to stop a domestic drone swarm attack.
Asked directly whether NORAD has the sensors, authority, and decision speed to respond to a swarm, he answered: “No,” adding: “We don’t have the sensors… and also whether we’ve got any effectors to go after that problem” (DefenseScoop, Fox News).
This echoed NORTHCOM commander Gen. Gregory Guillot, who told Congress the command “defeats only about a quarter” of the drones it even detects.
This isn’t hyperbole, it’s a three-star general on the record.
(👇What follows is where the money actually went. Every number is sourced.)
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