Logistics Wins Wars. Drones Can Help.
Cargo drones can usher in an age of decentralized supply.
Rooted in North Carolina’s “First in Flight” heritage, Kevin King is the Founder and CEO of Anatra, building dual-use cargo UAVs for defense and logistics. Previously, he led manufacturing and product ecosystem growth at a global hardware company, driving scalable revenue and long-term industrial capability.
War has always been a contest of logistics. Armies march on their stomachs, fleets sail only as long as their fuel lasts, and modern militaries are defined as much by their ability to sustain themselves as by their ability to fight. Drones are the latest tool to revolutionize military logistics. What began as niche reconnaissance tools and strike platforms has evolved into something much larger: the scaffolding for how twenty-first century militaries will move, fight, and endure.
The Drone Moment
We are living in a drone moment. Russia’s war in Ukraine has demonstrated what happens when unmanned systems proliferate on both sides of the battlefield. Small quadcopters are dropping grenades through tank hatches. Long-range strike drones are hitting air bases hundreds of miles behind the front. At the same time, Chinese drone dominance looms over every theater. China is producing uncrewed systems at a speed and scale that dwarfs anything in the West.
It’s not just China. Russia, Iran, and their proxies are rapidly scaling cost effective, weaponized drones—Shaheds in Ukraine, swarms in the Middle East—that threaten
U.S. forces, allies, and global commerce. In aggregate, the “Axis of Upheaval” is outproducing and outpacing the United States.
This is not just about consumer drones or export sales. It is about building a supply chain and manufacturing base capable of flooding a battlespace with attritable platforms—drones cost-effective enough to lose, but effective enough to matter. That industrial base is itself a weapon.
For NATO, the stakes are clear. Recent Russian drone incursions into alliance airspace highlight the challenges and complexities of safeguarding military assets, critical infrastructure, and populations from drone threats. The question is no longer whether drones are critical to militaries’ success in modern conflict. The question is: can Western democracies adapt their doctrine, revitalize and refocus industry, and develop new operational concepts fast enough?
Beyond Strike: The Rise of Cargo Drones
Much of the public conversation has focused on drones as flying weapons. But the quiet revolution is happening in logistics. Moving supplies in contested environments—food, fuel, ammunition, medical kits—has always been among the riskiest and most costly missions. Helicopters are vulnerable. Trucks are slow and exposed. Large fixed-wing cargo aircraft need runways that adversaries will target first. Cargo drones flip the equation. They are small enough to disperse, cost-effective enough to deploy in large numbers, and rugged enough to operate from improvised sites.
They can keep distributed units sustained without risking a helicopter or its crew. And because they are uncrewed, they are attritable in the truest sense: commanders can send multiple aircraft knowing some may not return, and the mission can still succeed.
The future of war is not just about precision strikes or high-end stealth. It is about whether dispersed forces can stay fed, fueled, and supplied when adversaries are trying to choke them off. Cargo drones—less about size and more about persistence—are the connective tissue that makes distributed maneuver possible.
Distributed Forces, Distributed Logistics
Modern operational concepts like Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) and Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) assume that forces will be spread across islands, coastlines, and austere outposts. The logic is survivability: small, dispersed units are harder to target. But dispersion creates its own problems—how to keep those units supplied without betraying their positions or exposing large, vulnerable assets.
Drones are uniquely suited to this challenge. A swarm of cargo UAVs can take off from multiple launch points, bound for dozens of destinations. Some may carry ammunition, others batteries, others medical supplies. Some may be decoys, launched solely to confuse enemy targeting or saturate radars. In aggregate, they turn logistics into a dynamic, resilient system rather than a brittle one.
Additionally, cargo drones can provide mission flexibility. A platform used to distribute cargo today could disperse sensors tomorrow. A drone that brings water in one sortie could bring out a wounded service member the next. This flexibility is what allows distributed forces to fight and maneuver without waiting on traditional supply chains.
The Northern Flank: Lessons from Finland and Ukraine
Nowhere is this logic clearer than in Europe’s far north. In August, a delegation of defense technology companies (including Anatra, the cargo drone company I founded in 2023) and government officials from North Carolina visited Finland to forge partnerships. We saw and learned first-hand how cargo drones can and will play a critical role in national defense and military operations.
Finland, NATO’s newest member, sits on a roughly 800-mile border with Russia. Its terrain is unforgiving: forests, lakes, and Arctic conditions that punish traditional supply chains. In that environment, drones are not a luxury—they are a modern necessity. Moving fuel and food across frozen lakes, resupplying dispersed units in forests, or shuttling spare parts to hard-to-reach airstrips are all missions tailor-made for uncrewed systems. The Finnish concept of “security of supply” extends beyond the military; it is about ensuring the nation’s economy and society can function even under attack. Drones capable of both military resupply and civilian logistics become part of that national resilience.
From the moment we arrived, it was clear that Finland saw immediate alignment between their national defense goals and our capabilities. Anatra’s UAVs are uniquely aligned with what Finland is seeking: rugged, dual-use, and capable of operating from both land and water. Our LC-500 runway-to-runway and AC-500 amphibious UAVs can provide critical capability options to perform in the Arctic, austere, and contested environments that define Finland’s defense posture. Anatra is now actively planning coordinated test operations in both North Carolina and Finland—linking two ecosystems united by innovation, manufacturing excellence, and a shared commitment to security of supply. Above all, we are focused on setting up our warfighters and allies for success in the new domain of drone logistics.
The Manufacturing Race
All of this circles back to industry. The decisive factor in the next war may not be exquisite platforms, but the ability to manufacture good-enough drones at scale. This is where China’s advantage is most dangerous. China has the supply chains, the labor force, and the political will to produce an endless stream of drones, for commercial and defense purposes.
For the United States and its allies, the challenge is to rebuild a defense industrial base that can do the same—without the long lead times and fragile supply chains that characterize traditional aerospace programs. Manufacturing agility will matter as much as technological superiority. Attritable means not just cost-effective enough to lose, but fast enough to replace. Meeting the moment means three things: putting drones where we once put crews in dangerous logistics roles, reestablishing the United States as the partner the world trusts for growth-driving technologies, and anchoring allied manufacturing networks so that when crisis comes, scale is not a promise but a fact.
This requires a cultural shift. Western defense programs often aim for perfection: a gold-plated system that meets every requirement, fielded years too late. The drone era rewards speed, adaptability, and iteration. It rewards governments and companies willing to accept good-enough today in order to scale tomorrow.
Integration, Not Isolation
Finally, drones must be seen not as stand-alone novelties but as integrated elements of larger warfighting functions. Cargo drones tie into command and control networks, ISR systems, and even strike complexes. The same mesh network that coordinates sensors and shooters can also route resupply drones to where they are needed most.
This is where the future lies: a decentralized but highly integrated battlespace where drones of all sizes—loitering munitions, ISR platforms, cargo haulers—work together. A future where logistics is no longer a vulnerable afterthought but an active part of combat power.
The Drone Future
History tells us that wars are won not by those with the most advanced single platform, but by those who can adapt technology to strategy and manufacture at scale. Drones are the next test of that truth.
The coming years will decide whether the United States and its allies and partners can match China’s manufacturing base, harness autonomy for contested logistics, and build resilient systems that sustain distributed forces. Cargo drones are not glamorous. They will not make the front page like a stealth fighter or a hypersonic missile. But they may prove just as decisive.
Because in the end, victory belongs not just to the side that strikes hardest, but to the side that endures longest. Drones—especially those that carry the implements of war—are how we will endure.
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