The Next Drone Won't Have a Radio Link, Our Intelligence Enterprise Needs to Plan for That Now

On the last day of the 2026 World Cup, NORAD F-16s fired flares over northern New Jersey to warn off civilian pilots who had flown into restricted airspace. During the tournament, federal agencies seized more than 700 drones across 11 host cities. The counter-drone effort worked.That's what worries me.In less than two years, Los Angeles will open the 2028 Olympic Games, a National Special Security Event spread across dozens of venues followed weeks later by the Paralympics. The threat there won't be the one we just beat, and this summer's solutions won't be the ones we need.I've seen this before. From 2010 to 2013 I ran the Army's Rapid Equipping Force in the middle of the counter-IED fight. Congress authorized roughly $21 billion for JIEDDO, and we spent nearly $50 billion more on MRAPs. We still lost the adaptation race. The enemy learned and changed faster than our institutions could. Drones have the same traits that made IEDs so hard to beat: cheap dual-use parts, know-how that spreads through informal networks, and changes that cost the adversary almost nothing. Drones are IEDs that fly.The next drone won't have a radio linkWe don't lack counter-drone technology. But every ans...