Ex-Google top manager calls on US army to swap tanks for drones
Photo: Eric Schmidt (Getty Images)
The war in Ukraine has shown that cheap drones have changed the battlefield. The US army needs to replace its fleet of "unnecessary" and expensive tanks with artificial intelligence-based drones, believes former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, according to Bloomberg.
"I read somewhere that the US had thousands and thousands of tanks stored somewhere. Give them away. Buy a drone instead," he said at the Future Investment Initiative in Saudi Arabia.
Schmidt, who founded a startup for creating autonomous kamikaze drones for Ukraine, told attendees that the war between Russia and Ukraine has demonstrated how a drone costing $5,000 can destroy a tank worth $5 million.
Schmidt says the tactics of using drones by Ukraine and Russia change every three to six weeks as both opponents rush to innovate.
"The cost of autonomy is falling so quickly that the drone war, which is the future of conflict, will get rid of eventually tanks, artillery, mortars," he added.
Nonetheless, Schmidt made it clear that, in his opinion, governments and armed forces in the West are adapting slowly.
"The system is precisely wrong for this kind of a scenario," he said, adding that despite radical changes on the battlefield, organizational and political structures do not change.
Schmidt, who left his position at Google Alphabet in 2019, has long served as a bridge between Silicon Valley and the US government. He was the first chairman of the US Defense Innovation Board, advising senior defense officials on new technologies in 2016-2020. He also chaired the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, which in 2021 presented recommendations to Congress on how best to utilize AI for national security and defense.
Not so obvious
Ukraine has used cheap drones to counter Russia's military advantage, but tanks have also been central to its struggle. The war between Israel and Hamas has also shown that Israel, which possesses dozens of advanced drones, relied on ground forces and sent thousands of tanks into the Gaza Strip alongside airstrikes.
Earlier, former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi stated that technology would be crucial in the war. The general expressed enthusiasm about discussions with former Google director Eric Schmidt and emphasized the critical role of drones and electronic warfare tools that can disrupt their flight. However, Zaluzhnyi's assessment is rather premature: there are no signs that a revolutionary technological breakthrough in drones or electronic warfare is on the horizon.
