“From 2025 on, ground forces without drones will be walking corpses…
— Lt. Col. Antonio Salinas, U.S. Army

He’s not writing fiction. He’s writing doctrine.

My friend, Lt. Col. Antonio Salinas, a U.S. Army officer with Marine Corps experience, just co-authored one of the most sobering assessments I’ve read about the future of infantry warfare. He doesn’t mince words. In the drone age, if your unit can’t fly, it’s already dead.

For centuries, infantry fights began with rifle fire. Now they begin with a whirring buzz from a drone overhead. A drone that might be scouting your position. Or targeting you. Or detonating in your lap.

Salinas and his co-authors lay out the framework of this at War on the Rocks article The Meaning of Drone-Enabled Beyond Line of Site: the air littoral—the contested space from ground level up to 1,000 feet. In Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, and elsewhere, whoever controls this space controls the battlefield. Victory no longer goes to the strongest fire team. It goes to the team that flies first, sees furthest, and strikes fastest.

And yet, our infantry manuals still read like it’s 2004.

Take Battle Drill 1A: React to Contact While Dismounted. It’s all about getting shot at by rifles and machine guns—seek cover, return fire, maneuver. But what do you do when contact comes from above? The manual goes quiet. The drone does not.

This isn’t some futuristic fantasy. It’s already happening—from the trenches of Ukraine to the deserts of Syria to the alleys of Gaza. Small drones—cheap, fast, fearless—are scanning rooftops, diving into bunkers, and dropping grenades into hatches. First-Person-View drones are now what the bayonet used to be: close, personal, and deadly. Only this time, the attacker doesn’t bleed.

Ukraine: The FPV Bloodlands

The Ukrainian front is the crucible where the modern infantry fight is being rewritten in real time.

In Bakhmut and Avdiivka, $500 FPV drones are taking out $5 million tanks. Drone teams in trench networks launch daily kamikaze raids using off-the-shelf quadcopters and 3D-printed stabilizers. A drone operator with a GoPro feed and a joystick now has the power of a helicopter pilot—without ever leaving the ground.

Russians are being driven from tree lines not by mortar fire, but by drones that dive, detonate, and return zero heat signatures. Ukrainian squads don’t move until they’ve launched reconnaissance drones. And they don’t assault unless they’ve cleared the path with FPVs. It’s not combined arms anymore—it’s combined swarm.

Gaza: Urban Death from Above

In Gaza, Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters are using modified quadcopters to drop munitions through ventilation shafts, into parked vehicles, and onto Israel Defense Force observation posts. Drones have become airborne snipers, capable of hiding in alleyways, waiting for a soldier to peek out.

The IDF, for its part, deploys its own quadcopters to mark tunnels, scout rooftop ambushes, and track squads in real-time. The most lethal zone in Gaza isn’t the ground—it’s the 30 to 80 feet above it, where neither side has permanent dominance, and every movement risks exposure.

The drone war isn’t theoretical there—it’s personal. It’s your chow tent. Your ammo dump. Your squad on foot. All targeted from above by actors who never need to risk a soldier in the field first.

So What’s the U.S. Doing?

The Marine Corps’ Force Design tries to answer that. It reimagines the Corps as lighter, more agile, more distributed—great. It includes drones, counter-drone gear, and loitering munitions. All necessary.

Where Force Design evolves the structure of the Corps, Salinas wants to tear out the doctrinal roots and replant the entire forest. He’s saying the problem isn’t just what we’re building—it’s how we’re fighting.

Because the enemy doesn’t care if you’re FD compliant.

He’s not talking about 2030. He’s talking about today’s patrol. He’s trying to keep the next generation alive.

Salinas wants battle drills rewritten, platoons restructured, and every rifleman trained as a drone operator. He doesn’t want drone capability delegated to specialists. He wants it in the DNA of every squad.

Control the Sky, or Die on the Ground

The air littoral—the contested space up to 1,000 feet—has become the new terrain feature that determines tactical success.

In Ukraine, squads live or die based on whether they can launch a drone faster than the enemy can.

In Gaza, drones are used to force enemy squads into exposure, then strike them mid-run.

In Syria, even static bases face constant aerial harassment—delivered by machines and monitored from afar.

If that’s not the definition of new terrain, I don’t know what is.

Rewriting the Manual Isn’t Optional

Salinas isn’t suggesting we add a chapter. He’s saying we need a new book.

One where every fire team is paired with sensor-strike drones, where drone overwatch is as common as machine-gun suppression, and where vertical maneuver becomes muscle memory.

That means every squad becomes a drone formation.

Every platoon becomes its own sensor-to-shooter network.

Every grunt becomes a pilot with a payload.

And every manual, from the FM to the war college handbooks, needs to be burned and rewritten with this truth: If you don’t control the air littoral, you don’t control anything.

Salinas isn’t whispering into the void. He’s yelling into a war that’s already begun.

So if you’re a general still clinging to legacy doctrine…

If you’re a colonel writing next year’s training plan…

If you’re a young lieutenant learning your first infantry tactics…

Ask yourself: Are you preparing your troops to fight in the next war?
Or to die in it?

Because the drones are already here.
And they’re not waiting for you to catch up.

“From 2025 on, ground forces without drones will be walking corpses.”

Let’s not make them prove him right.