U.S. Army Gen. Xavier Brunson, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, speaks at the Land Forces Pacific symposium in Waikiki Beach, Hawaii, May 12, 2026. (Wyatt Olson/Stars and Stripes)
WAIKIKI BEACH, Hawaii — The commander of U.S. troops in South Korea on Tuesday cautioned against fixating on Ukraine’s successful use of drones to the point of failing to anticipate the next evolution of warfare.
“We can’t just be stuck in saying, drones, drones, drones, drones,” Gen. Xavier Brunson, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, said during the opening keynote address for the three-day Land Forces Pacific, of LANPAC, symposium in Waikiki Beach held by the Association of the United States Army.
Brunson also leads United Nations Command and Combined Forces Command.
“I don’t know if anybody’s looking at the next thing because oftentimes, we learn the wrong lessons and we get stuck with them because it’s easy and we just stay there,” he said.
In its ongoing defense against the 2022 Russian invasion, Ukraine has used commercially available drones to offset its foe’s edge in conventional weaponry. Ukraine has deftly used cheap drones to kill Russian troops and destroy tanks, airfields and production facilities, among other targets.
During an afternoon keynote speech, Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, underscored the sweeping change inexpensive drones have brought by describing their rise as a mega-trend in the nature of war.
“Proliferated unmanned systems have made cheap kill at scale more possible, more probable,” he said. “All things being equal, these systems can be the vanguard of an assaulting force.”
Simple, commercially available drones — along with some produced with 3D printers — are one of the key elements of the Army’s ongoing transformation into a lighter, more mobile force.
That agility is considered essential for the type of island-hopping warfare that would unfold in a conflict in the Indo-Pacific, where China and its growing military are the greatest potential adversary.
Brunson’s comments came in response to a question from the audience about what keeps him awake at night as one of the Army’s top leaders.
“We have to keep thinking about the next thing — and that keeps me awake,” he said.
Consider, Brunson said, if military minds had not looked beyond the initial use of tanks during World War I as simply a means of shielding troop movement.
“There was no tank gunnery,” he said. “It was, get behind this tank and let’s go to the next trench line.
“I worry that we might get stuck into going to the next trench line without going further to the objective.”
Brunson suggested that what lies beyond drones is “commercial space.”
“Think about this,” he said. “There are in low-Earth orbit tons of commercial satellites. Everybody wants to watch TV and be on the internet, so that’ll be the last thing to get attacked.
“If you can find a way to leverage commercial space, then you maybe have assured positioning and navigation and … the ability to see, sense and understand faster than our adversaries,” he said.
