longer.blue

via Aaron Parnas.. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Army is phasing out a cutting-edge drone assault battalion it established in Europe just this past January, a unit created to absorb lessons from Ukraine’s drone warfare against Russia, as part of a broader “back-to-basics” push by acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve, who is closely aligned with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. After participating in a major exercise in Germany this August and September, the roughly 600-soldier battalion will report its findings and then “refocus on its core warfighting tasks as an airborne infantry battalion” rather than continuing its drone-focused mission, reversing a signature initiative of LaNeve’s predecessor Gen. Randy George, whom Hegseth ousted in April. Military experts like Brookings’ Michael O’Hanlon criticized the move, warning that “Ukraine has essentially revolutionized the close fight” and that any setback to the drone program would be “deeply regretful and dangerous,” while the Army declined to specify how it plans to accelerate drone capabilities going forward. The decision is one of several moves by LaNeve that have drawn friction, including shifting a specialized Multi-Domain Task Force from Europe to South Korea, reassigning a Texas-based armored corps to a new Western Hemisphere Command, rewriting Army fitness standards over Army Secretary Dan Driscoll’s objections, and canceling a planned speech by senior Ukrainian officers at Fort Benning.