“You can’t use it without becoming like me” by Martin Sustrik

A Ukrainian fibre-optic drone — copied from Russians. (АрміяІнформ, CC-BY 4.0)<p> Mick Ryan describes the fast following loop in war. </p><p> Ukraine pioneered mobile teams to hunt drones. Russia copied it and incorporated it into its own defense. Russia came with unjammable fibre-optic drones but Ukraine quickly followed. After Ukraine developed uncrewed naval drones, Russia built its own.</p><p> The wheel of action and counteraction turns ever faster:</p><p> The most consequential fast following, though, has been institutional. Ukraine built the world's first Unmanned Systems Forces branch in 2024. Russia's Rubicon Center was established as a response to Ukrainian drone innovation and in November 2025 Moscow stood up its own Unmanned Systems Forces. Fast following has moved from copying a weapon to copying tactics to copying an entire force structure.</p><p> Extend that logic further, and eventually you’ll get to the level of grand strategy: If a particular type of state is better at waging war, maybe you want to become that kind of state rather than lose the war.</p><p> If meat waves confer an advantage on the battlefield, maybe Ukraine wants to become more like Russia, with a prostrate population easy to use as cannon fodder.</p><p> If Ukraine's decentralized Brave1 kill market [...]</p> <p>---</p>

<p><b>First published:</b><br/>

October 3rd, 2026 </p>

<p><b>Source:</b><br/>

<a href="https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WyeYJ7cmeiSrXeCnM/you-can-t-use-it-without-becoming-like-me?utm_source=TYPE_III_AUDIO&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_content=Source+URL+in+episode+description&utm_campaign=ai_narration" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WyeYJ7cmeiSrXeCnM/you-can-t-use-it-without-becoming-like-me</a> </p>

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<p>Narrated by <a href="https://type3.audio/?utm_source=TYPE_III_AUDIO&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_content=Narrated+by+TYPE+III+AUDIO&utm_term=lesswrong&utm_campaign=ai_narration" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">TYPE III AUDIO</a>.</p>

<p>---</p><div style="max-width: 100%";><p><strong>Images from the article:</strong></p><a href="https://res.cloudinary.com/lesswrong-2-0/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/mirroredImages/WyeYJ7cmeiSrXeCnM/qwlfgcqllwaolnch0zie" target="_blank"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/lesswrong-2-0/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/mirroredImages/WyeYJ7cmeiSrXeCnM/qwlfgcqllwaolnch0zie" alt="A Ukrainian fibre-optic drone — copied from Russians. (АрміяІнформ, CC-BY 4.0)" style="max-widt