> Ukraine has a hugely inventive and effective drone industry because it has to work.

Well yes, that and the fact that cheap drone guerilla tactics have fairly recently become a technological possibility. Remember that Ukraine is actually a bit late to the party here, with Hezbollah and ISIS having used cheap drones with cameras and/or explosives tied to them years before Ukraine or Russia did. The asymmetry in cost between those cheap drones and the existing "more hightech = more better" militaries were (and are!) used to was already established. That a party such as Ukraine faced with a more advanced and much larger opponent would lean towards such an approach makes a lot of sense. Ukraine did not (and does not really) have significant amounts of the traditional stuff.

Now given that they chose that path, they have been very effective recently, but note that the tethered fiber-optic drones were a Russian invention. So even that deeply corrupt, large dinosaur of an institution innovated significantly. It is also important to note that a significant part of the recent successes of Ukraine are due to them having Starlink access and Russia no longer having it.

I'm not saying the sheer will to survive or the inventive organisation of the Ukranians did nothing (far from it), but I do think it is a mistake to think that their success should only be viewed through that lens.

> if the US products fail, there's no real negative effect on the mainland United States

It's even worse than that. Schedules slipping and cost overruns are good things for the manufacturer, because they can charge more on top of their initial contract. Cost-plus ftw.

They can pop out defects and if things go wrong and there's friendly fire or civilian loss, it's chalked up to scrappy efforts in war. The USA does not get the same amount of leeway, saving our people is a top priority and the media harps on any mistake.

To add that Ukraine was also USSR's drone research center; not to detract from what you are saying.

Yeah, their tech development in drones is really impressive. An invading army has a way of focusing the mind and bureaucracy.

To be fair, I know plenty of people there. Drones are important, but they aren't the only reason the front is holding. Both sides rely heavily on drones.

Not sure if you're alluding to this but it's analogous to the same differences between startups and big tech companies.

Startups = have few resources, product has to work or company dies

Big tech = minimal cost of failure, instead minimizing risk

And yet this mechanic is also why startups are able to innovate and bring new products to market so much faster.

Well there's long term impact but yea that doesn't create enough political pressure to make process efficient

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