The above picture from 2012 of Norfolk is what I want you to think about.

We talked about the superbly executed Ukrainian attack on Russian bomber bases for most of yesterday’s Midrats, and what keeps coming to mind for me is not the details of that attack, but the stark warning it is giving us.

The threat of drone strikes isn’t a new warning, but in my mind it intersect almost perfectly with the self-inflicted vulnerability of the US Navy’s fleet—its concentration.

The growing utility of attack drones isn’t an insight that is unique to the Russo-Ukrainian War. The topic has come up here and on Midrats for almost two decades. We’re not alone. Heck, broad thinking people like our friend Matt Hipple was pondering it over at CIMSEC thirteen years ago a few months before the picture at the top of the post was made.

I’ll tie in the picture a bit, but let’s take a moment to give the Ukrainians credit where credit is due. They executed precision strikes against the RUS bomber fleet across the entire two-thirds of the Euro-Asian landmass.