In the late 1950s, when everyone expected World War III to go nuclear, the U.S. Army had to contemplate operating on a battlefield sprouting atomic fireballs.

This put Army planners in a dilemma. Military theory said that forces had to be concentrated to overwhelm the enemy and achieve decisive results. Common sense said that massing troops would only present a juicy target for nuclear weapons. The Army ultimately settled on the Pentomic Division, which consisted of self-contained battalions that would assemble for operations and then disperse. Yet the idea proved so unwieldy that the Army soon discarded it.

But 70 years later, the Army faces a similar dilemma. Instead of atomic bombs, the threat now comes from drones, as vividly demonstrated in the Ukraine war. To survive, Ukrainian and

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