Counter-drone overhaul: Marines rush new team after stress tests exposed gaps
US Marines are standing up a dedicated counter-drone team as training stress tests show how difficult it is to defend against swarms—especially when electronic warfare cuts both ways.
The Pentagon’s drone push has reached a new inflection point for the Marines: defending against drones is proving harder than expected.
During a demanding pre-deployment training exercise. a highly proficient Marine unit struggled when confronted with the kind of drone threat that is increasingly common in modern conflicts—persistent surveillance mixed with drones that can shift from observation to attack.. Maj.. Gen.. Mark Clingan. who oversees Marine Air Ground Task Force Training Command. described the moment as exactly what planners needed to see: units “went about as expected. ” but still “had a really difficult time going downrange and dealing with the drones.”
Those drills also surfaced a second, more troublesome reality.. Electronic warfare and jamming—often described as counter-drone tools—can behave like a double-edged sword.. The same interference meant to disrupt an enemy’s links or sensors can also complicate communications and targeting for friendly systems.. Clingan linked the problem to a broader need for adjustment as Marines face emerging battlefield threats that don’t fit neatly into older playbooks.
To close the gap. the Marine Corps is reshaping training now. with counter-drone training lanes planned for Marines deploying later this summer.. The goal isn’t only to teach detection and response. but to prepare units for what drone warfare increasingly looks like in the real world: fast-moving. layered threats where sensors. software. and electromagnetic conditions all change faster than a traditional training cycle can absorb.
Misryoum sees the Marines’ response as part of a wider arms-and-adaptation race.. The US military has pressed for cheaper. attritable small drones at scale. with plans to field hundreds of thousands of uncrewed systems—an approach designed for mass and resilience when losses are expected.. Yet defense against drones has struggled to keep up with the pace of offensive innovation.. Even when individual counter-drone tools exist, the operational challenge is combining them into an effective system that works under pressure.
That is one reason the Corps is standing up a counter-drone team—mirroring how it previously organized around offensive drone capability.. Lt.. Gen.. Benjamin Watson. overseeing Training and Education Command. said the service is forming a “counter-attack drone team” to accelerate learning of counter-drone tactics. techniques. and technology.. The intent is to create a small group of highly qualified specialists dedicated to moving quickly. similar to the central “braintrust” role the Marines’ attack drone team took on last year for drone operations and training policy.
Why it matters is not just battlefield readiness, but the economics of training and procurement.. Counter-drone systems often involve multiple components—sensors. communications. defeat mechanisms. and software—each with its own reliability limits and cost pressures.. When platforms are scarce, training time gets even more valuable.. Misryoum notes that the industry side is also moving: drones and counter-drone solutions are both growing areas of defense development. which can mean faster product cycles—but also more uncertainty about what will work consistently across environments.
The Marines’ approach also runs into a regulatory constraint that most civilians never think about: spectrum access.. Training Marines to operate effectively across the electromagnetic spectrum is difficult in the US because spectrum availability in training areas is federally regulated.. That can restrict how realistically units can test jamming and electronic warfare effects without affecting civilian communications or air safety.. It’s one reason the Corps is experimenting with fiber-optic drones as a workaround.
Fiber-optic drones are designed to reduce reliance on contested wireless links. making them more resistant to electronic warfare—an idea that has gained traction in Ukraine. where wide areas were littered with discarded cables.. Watson described the concept with a simple analogy: “It’s a bird on a wire. ” essentially pointing to a different path around the most difficult part of modern counter-drone work—operating in an environment where the spectrum itself may not be friendly.
For Marines preparing to deploy, the near-term takeaway is clear: counter-drone capability can’t be treated as a narrow specialty.. It has to be integrated into how forces fight. alongside machine guns. aviation. mortars. and other parts of what the military calls combined arms.. Misryoum expects this will be the real long-term test—how quickly the Corps can convert new counter-drone learning into repeatable. scalable unit-level practice. even when drones. jamming conditions. and defeat options evolve.
In the bigger picture. the Marines are signaling that “learning as fast as we can” is becoming a core operational requirement. not just a training slogan.. As offensive drones proliferate. defense must adapt at the same speed—otherwise stress tests will keep finding the same vulnerabilities. only with higher stakes.