What a Drone War in Ukraine Means for American Power

TL:DR; 50 of the Ukrainian suicide drones can take the U.S. Grid down. For years.

Everything discussed here is public information. Our enemies are well aware of our situation. What’s key is for the DHS, every state PUC, etc. to be aware. And act - quickly.

It’s tempting to see the war in Ukraine as a distant conflict - grim, yes, but remote. Yet the battlefield innovations there are a crystal ball for the rest of us. This week’s successful Ukrainian drone strike deep into Russian airspace, damaging strategic bombers, isn’t just a tactical win. It’s a wake-up call for the United States, because the same technology used to disable a $100 million aircraft could, with far less effort, disable the beating heart of modern American life: our electric grid.

AI generated - not a real substation!

Issue 1

Let’s be blunt. Our grid is astonishingly vulnerable. Substations, the nodes where high-voltage transmission is stepped down for local use, are typically protected by nothing more than a chain-link fence.

Issue 2

Transformers - the critical equipment inside - are massive, expensive, custom-built, and irreplaceable in the short term.¹ The average wait for a replacement is four to five years. Not because of bureaucracy, but because we no longer manufacture most of them here, and the supply chain is so brittle it might as well be made of glass.

Fifty Suicide Drones is all it Takes

The National Academies of Sciences warned us back in 2012. A classified report, later unsealed, laid out just how easy it would be for a small, informed group to cause cascading blackouts across entire regions. The takeaway was stark: “The power grid is inherently vulnerable to terrorist attacks.”² ³ ⁴ ⁵ ⁶

That was over a decade ago. Little has changed since, except that now, consumer-grade drones with precise GPS targeting and AI-assisted flight control are readily available to anyone with a credit card and a grudge.

The Dry Run - That Worked

The Moore County substation attack in North Carolina in 2022 is a chilling case study. Unknown assailants used simple gunfire to knock out power to 40,000 people.⁷ They knew what to hit, and how to hit it. No bombs. No drones. No special training. Just knowledge, motivation, and access. Imagine that same attack carried out by a drone swarm - not just at one substation, but across a metro area. No power. No internet. No refrigeration. No pumps moving water. And no quick fix.

The book Lights Out describing this problem was written about it over 10 years ago. We remain undefended.

It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when.
— General Lloyd Austin

Here’s the worst part: there’s no real plan to stop it. Utility companies are required to harden their systems against “credible threats,” but drones are still seen as novel, not credible.⁸ The Department of Homeland Security has issued warnings, yes, but warnings without mandates are just paper. And while there’s money in the new infrastructure bill for grid modernization, most of it is earmarked for clean energy integration, not physical security.

So what can be done?

We have choices. One is hardening substations with physical barriers—blast walls, metal enclosures, even simple roofing that protects from airborne explosives. Another is deploying active drone defense systems like radar-linked jammers or kinetic interceptors. These exist. They’re used today to protect airports and VIPs. But they aren’t cheap, and utilities have no incentive to install them unless required.

A third approach is distributed resilience. Microgrids and local storage can cushion the blow if part of the grid goes down. But we are nowhere near having enough of those to matter in a serious attack.

There’s also the long view: bring transformer manufacturing back to the U.S., build a strategic reserve of key components,⁹ and treat the electric grid not just as infrastructure, but as national security infrastructure. Because that’s what it is.

Some will say this is alarmism. That attacks on the grid are rare, and that no one would dare try it on a large scale. But that’s the same thinking that left Colonial Pipeline wide open to ransomware.¹⁰ It’s the thinking that left Moore County in the dark. And it’s exactly the kind of complacency that warfare innovation exploits.

The drone war in Ukraine isn’t just about borders. It’s about the future of asymmetric conflict. The message is simple: soft targets are going to get hit. If we don’t act now, the next battlefield could be all three of our grids¹¹ - not because we’re at war, but because our enemies will know we’ve left the lights on, unguarded.

And if the above does not worry you enough, there’s also the danger of cyber attacks and solar storms.¹²

1. Transformer supply bottleneck threatens power system stability as load grows

2. Cyber Threat and Vulnerability Analysis of the U.S. Electric Sector

3. National Academies report finds grid vulnerable to cyber, physical attacks

4. Resilience of the U.S. Electric Grid

5. Academy Report on Electric Grid Withheld for Five Years

6. Electric Power Grid 'Inherently Vulnerable' to Terrorist Attacks

7. Power may be back for thousands on Wednesday night as authorities continue to go through tips on electric substation attack

8. I am not aware of any discussion of this by the Colorado PUC.

9. One giant problem - there are not a small number of standard transformers. Most large transformers are custom ordered to unique specifications for the input and output voltages.

10. The Attack on Colonial Pipeline

11. Western, Eastern, & Texas

12. Miyake Event