for Future U.S. Force Development 2 Beyond Attrition: Interpreting the Limits of Lessons in Ukraine for Future U.S. Force Development
Overview
Beyond Attrition: Interpreting the Limits of Lessons in Ukraine for Future U.S. Force Development 1
Interpreting the Limits of Lessons in Ukraine
for Future U.S. Force Development 2 Beyond Attrition: Interpreting the Limits of Lessons in Ukraine for Future U.S. Force Development
March 2026
First published in 2026 by NDIA’s affiliate, the Emerging Technologies Institute. 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 700, Arlington, VA 22201, United States of America. (703) 522-1820. © 2026 by the National Defense Industrial Association. All rights reserved. This report is made possible by general support to NDIA and the Emerging Technologies Institute. No direct sponsorship contributed to this report. This report is produced by NDIA, a non-partisan, non-profit, educational association that has been designated by the IRS as a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization and was founded to educate its constituencies on all aspects of national security. Its research is nonpartisan. DISCLAIMER: The ideas and findings in this report should not be construed to be official positions of either NDIA or any of the organizations listed as contributors or the membership of NDIA. It is published in the interest of an information exchange between government and industry, pursuant to its mission to bring industry and government together to engage in discussions of important topics. For more information please visit our website: EmergingTechnologiesInstitute.org
MEDIA QUERIES: Rachel Sutherland, NDIA Director of Public Affairs & Communications at
rsutherland@NDIA.org Beyond Attrition: Interpreting the Limits of Lessons in Ukraine for Future U.S. Force Development 3
NDIA ETI Executive Director
Dr. Arun Seraphin
Chairman:
The Honorable William “Mac” Thornberry
Armed Services Committee
General John Hyten, USAF (Ret)
Co-Founder at Meritech Capital Partners
Theresa S. Mayer
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Dr. Arun
Logan Whitehair for their editorial work and the
Hon. Ellen Lord, the Hon. Bruce Jette, and George
Dougherty for their valuable feedback on earlier
drafts of this report. 4 Beyond Attrition: Interpreting the Limits of Lessons in Ukraine for Future U.S. Force Development
Introduction
1 See for example, Zagorodnyuk, Andriy. “Ukraine’s New Theory of Victory Should be Strategic Neutralization.” Carnegie Endowment. June 18, 2025. https:// carnegieendowment.org/research/2025/06/ukraines-new-theory-of-victory-should-be-strategic-neutralization?lang=en 2 Lowe, Matthew and Epstein, Jake “Ukraine's cheap interceptor drones are rewriting the air war playbook.” Business Insider. October 18, 2025. https://www. businessinsider.com/ukraine-interceptor-drones-air-defense-2025-10; Kirichenko, David. “Drone superpower Ukraine is teaching NATO how to defend against Russia.” Atlantic Council. October 2, 2025. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/drone-superpower-ukraine-is-teaching-nato-how-to-defend- against-russia/; Newton, Michael. “How are Drones Changing War? The Future of the Battlefield.” CEPA. November 3, 2025. https://cepa.org/article/how-are- drones-changing-war-the-future-of-the-battlefield/