> a country that has never invented anything … managed to fly a few low-tech drones into US military assets

And de-facto won the war as a result. That is reality. That is the power of that weaponry, and that is the falling behind. And that after 4 years of such a war in Ukraine.

I agree it is very possible that US would be at some point able to build up those capabilities. Though, limited to established players, it most probably would be very expensive and thus go against the key feature - cheapness - which in itself allows for the other key feature- mass scale of the drone weapons.