Pete Hegseth, the Battle for Troy, and Remote Drone Operations
Uncrewed systems, battlefield experimentation, & institutional agility are giving two nations the edge — while Western militaries struggle to keep pace. A guest post by Samuel Burrell, Expeditions VC
I recently watched Pete Hegseth’s viral video, posted on X, in which he announces a Pentagon memo ‘Unleashing US Military Drone Dominance’. Although he stumbles through the delivery, the video is worth a watch - not least for its fusion of news anchor showmanship with government process.
It got me thinking about the future of drone warfare. That, in turn, got me thinking about the history of the Royal Air Force.
In 1918 the United Kingdom was the first country in the world to create an independent air force, the RAF. It was born at the end of the First World War as rapid technological progress, iterated in the skies above the battlefield, turned a civilian curiosity into a devastating military capability. Air superiority would go on to be a decisive factor in all subsequent conflicts.
In June 2024 Ukraine created the Unmanned Systems Force (USF), a separate branch of the armed forces dedicated to unmanned systems. Hegseth’s video is a nod to the realisation the Ukrainians had a year ago – that we are on the cusp of a new technological era.
But if we wind the clock forwards, what does such an era look like? The remote drone operations recently carried out by Ukraine and Israel could be a window into that future.
Last month, Ukraine and Israel carried out impressive long-range drone operations deep inside enemy territory. In both cases, they concealed fleets of drones inside modified trucks before activating them and piloting them to their targets - modern-day Trojan Horses.
The Trojan template
Most people are familiar with the story of the Trojan Horse. After a decade of failed attempts to breach Troy’s defences, the Greeks changed their strategy. They constructed a massive wooden horse, hollowed out to hold a small group of elite soldiers, and then appeared to retreat.
Believing the war was over, the Trojans brought the horse inside the city as a trophy. That night the hidden soldiers emerged, opened the city gates for the secretly returned Greek army and sacked the city. It was not brute strength that ended the war, but deception and creativity.
What Ukraine and Israel demonstrated was a contemporary version of the same logic. But to understand why only they could do it, we need to examine how they fight and how they build.
The institutionalisation of experimentation
The ancient Greeks had a culture of military innovation which enabled them to experiment with new technology. They famously developed the torsion catapult; a first of its kind, long-range precision weapon. They also designed the trireme; a new type of highly manoeuvrable ship designed for ramming attacks.
Both Ukraine and Israel have embedded similar experimentation directly into their military frameworks. In Ukraine, this is driven by necessity. In Israel, it is a matter of long-term strategic culture.
Ukraine has been fighting Russia for more than three years. Throughout that time it has contended with inferior resources and limited access to conventional firepower. Rather than match Russia gun for gun, it chose to innovate its way around the problem.
Instead of dedicating itself to increased production of artillery munitions, it invested heavily in unmanned systems. The country built a domestic drone industry almost from scratch, producing 300,000 drones in 2023, then 2.2 million in 2024. It aims to produce 4.5 million in 2025.
Israel, by contrast, is not constrained by limited resources but driven by its unique security environment. It has existential threats on multiple fronts and a longstanding doctrine of pre-emption. Its defence and technology ecosystems are tightly intertwined. Programs like Talpiot and Unit 8200 recruit young people with exceptional technical ability and give them both academic education and military responsibility.
These programs serve not only to develop military technologies but also to seed entire industries. Israel’s ability to carry out advanced drone operations is supported by a continuous supply of top-drawer technical talent that can build and operationalise concepts quickly.
Conflict begets innovation
The Greeks only considered the Trojan Horse after ten years of frustration. It was desperation, not brilliance, that gave rise to the strategy that finally ended the war.
The same is true for Ukraine. Facing a resource-rich enemy, Ukrainians have become exceptionally inventive. Amongst other achievements, they have developed uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) which have been so successful at destroying enemy ships that the Russian Black Sea fleet is now effectively confined to port. The war has created a proclivity to experiment that would be difficult to replicate in peacetime.
Israel faces a different kind of pressure. It has been in open conflict with Iranian-backed groups since 7th October 2023 and has lived with the threat of annihilation since its creation in 1948. This has shaped a defence establishment which values speed and first-mover advantage. For decades, it has approached conflict as a testing ground for new technologies, not as a deviation from normal conditions.
Why Western militaries struggle with this
In Ukraine and Israel, there is a tight feedback loop between battlefield experience and technical execution. If a new system works, it is used. If it fails, it is replaced. Success is measured in battlefield victories, not project management green ticks.
By contrast, in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, procurement cycles can last longer than some wars. Risk aversion, complex chains of command, and strict acquisition protocols all work to slow down innovation. These militaries certainly have the technical capability to build Trojan Horse-style drone systems. What they lack is the institutional flexibility to deploy them in time to matter.
No other government could have pulled off these attacks. Because they haven’t had to. Ukraine and Israel’s systems are designed to adapt quickly and deliver results. The ancient Greeks knew that the willingness to act on a new idea is just as important as the idea itself - something that the Pentagon seems to be starting to understand.
Samuel Burrell is a Partner at Expeditions. He started his career in the military, where he was an officer in the Royal Marines. After leaving the military he joined a startup called ZipJet, before studying for an MBA at INSEAD. He has since been in venture capital, at Octopus Ventures, NKB Group and the National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF), a UK government fund focused on investing in national security and defence technologies. He joined Expeditions at the beginning of 2025 and is the lead for UK and US investments.
