WASHINGTON—The Army took a major step to prepare for wars of the future in January when it established a new battalion in Europe to master the art of fighting with drones and ground robots.

The idea was to learn the lessons of the conflict in Ukraine that has been raging on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s doorstep and develop cutting-edge military systems and tactics to counter the Russian threat.

But the much touted drone assault battalion is being phased out. After participating in a major exercise in Germany in August and September, the unit will report its findings to the Army to guide future experimentation, shed its drone assault role and “refocus on its core warfighting tasks as an airborne infantry battalion,” an Army official told The Wall Street Journal in a statement.

The elimination of a futuristic drone battalion is part of a broader “back-to-basics” approach ordered up by Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the acting chief of staff of the Army who is closely aligned with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The battalion was a signature initiative of LaNeve’s predecessor, Gen. Randy George, whom Hegseth ousted in April.

The decision to wind down the drone assault unit is drawing criticism from several military experts who say it will slow down the Army’s push to excel in the kind of drone warfare that has transformed the battlefield in Ukraine and the Middle East.

“Ukraine has essentially revolutionized the close fight,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a defense expert at the Brookings Institution. “Gen. George was starting to get that, and any setback in what he was doing would be deeply regretful and dangerous.”

The Army didn’t say how it plans to speed the service’s abilities in drone warfare after the drone-assault battalion is phased out.

A spokesman for the Army said the service “is committed to accelerating U.S. military drone dominance to meet the demands of large-scale combat operations,” but declined to comment on future plans.

“We rigorously test a wide variety of unmanned and counter-unmanned technologies in the field. Ultimately, these aerial systems are enablers that support our soldiers,” the spokesman said.

A spokesman for LaNeve declined to comment.

In a memo to the force Wednesday, LaNeve outlined his plans for the direction of the service.

“U.S. Army forces must be prepared to overcome the most complex challenges our adversaries can impose and master an operational environment that looks fundamentally different from the battlefields of yesterday,” LaNeve wrote in the memo, which was obtained by the Journal.

In an attached document dubbed the “Army Azimuth” and viewed by the Journal, LaNeve vowed the Army would continue to change and establish units with advanced cyber, electronic-warfare and artificial-intelligence technologies.

Since George’s ouster, Hegseth has thrown his support behind LaNeve, who served as his senior military aide in 2025 before assuming the role of Army vice chief in February. But the prospect of LaNeve serving as Army chief of staff has run into opposition from both Republicans and Democrats, the Journal previously reported.

LaNeve’s temporary status hasn’t precluded the four-star general from putting his stamp on the Army. Legal experts say LaNeve can serve indefinitely in an acting capacity because he is confirmed as the Army’s vice chief, which isn’t subject to limitations on how long government officials can serve in an acting role.

Since LaNeve assumed the helm, the Army has made a series of decisions that go beyond drones. Some of LaNeve’s most significant decisions have affected the U.S. military posture in Europe, where American combat brigades have already been reduced under President Trump.

Under LaNeve, the Army is moving a “Multi-Domain Task Force” from Europe to South Korea, Army officials said. That specialized unit integrates cyber, intelligence and modern warfighting systems and has been an important component of the Army’s military capabilities on the continent.

LaNeve has also reassigned III Armored Corps, based out of Fort Hood in Texas and which had been focused on bolstering Army forces in Europe, to the new Western Hemisphere Command.

Some of LaNeve’s orders have caused friction with Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who worked closely with George. Driscoll and Hegseth have been at odds for months over the dismissal of senior Army leaders, changes to the service and other issues.

LaNeve and Driscoll clashed this summer over LaNeve’s effort to rewrite the Army’s physical-fitness standards, U.S. officials said. Under LaNeve’s direction, the service replaced traditional height-to-weight tables and circumference-based tape tests with a “waist-to-height ratio” of less than 0.55 as its new body-composition standard.

Driscoll pushed to keep a performance exemption for soldiers who score highly on the Army Fitness Test, arguing that under the new system stocky but strong soldiers would be unfairly punished. But LaNeve dug in his heels, and a performance exemption was excluded, U.S. officials said. Exemptions for pregnant and postpartum soldiers remain in effect, according to Army officials.

More recently, the Army canceled plans to have senior Ukrainian officers speak at the service’s center for maneuver warfare at Fort Benning in Georgia, U.S. officials said.

Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served in the first and second Trump administrations, praised the general. “LaNeve is hard over pushing standards. That is his strength. He is uncompromising for the good of the force,” said Kellogg, who recommended LaNeve to Hegseth.

Critics inside and outside the administration say they see an acting Army chief who is keen to dispense with initiatives developed by George and his team, even though some current and former officers say they are needed.

Hegseth has vowed to break China’s lead in drone development with a $1.1 billion investment program that goes beyond the Army, looking to equip the Marine Corps and Special Operations Command with new drone technology as well.

The establishment of the Army drone unit followed an intensive effort by Army leaders to mine the lessons of Russia’s war against Ukraine. George, Driscoll and Gen. Chris Donahue, then the top Army commander in Europe, traveled to Kyiv in November to meet with Ukrainian drone commanders.

George had already moved to transform Army infantry brigades into maneuver forces that had units equipped with reconnaissance and strike drones.

But in an age of drone and ground robotic warfare, George’s concern was that the service needed to go bigger and faster. Both Russia and Ukraine have drone combat units and military branches dedicated to drone and robotic warfare.

The Army in November decided to establish a “tactical unmanned systems battalion” that would study the lessons from Ukraine and develop new concepts for fighting with drones and robots in support of a larger Army brigade combat team, the Army official’s statement said. The hope was that the new unit would spur innovations that could be applied across the service.

The battalion, with around 600 soldiers, was formally established in January, using troops from the 173rd Airborne Brigade. It was given a moniker, the “3rd battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment,” which recalled the Army’s storied history in World War II. No end date for the battalion’s drone-assault role was specified when it was established.

A small number of the drone unit’s personnel quietly rotated through Kyiv where they met with their Ukrainian counterparts. The battalion also interacted with Ukrainian drone operators in NATO training areas, including last spring when Ukrainian troops played the role of a mock adversary that bested a U.S. brigade combat team that was rotating through Europe.

The role of the battalion was part of a broader push that George called “transformation in contact.” The idea was to accelerate change by giving troops a role in evaluating emerging technology and devising tactics instead of having those decisions made personnel away from the battlefield. But that concept was developed before LaNeve’s emphasis on fundamentals.

The Army official said in his statement that the drone battalion would participate in a major exercise called Saber Junction at Hohenfels, Germany, this month and next and then present its findings “to inform force design and future experimentation.”

“Following the exercise, the battalion will refocus on its core warfighting tasks as an airborne infantry battalion,” the statement added.

Write to Michael R. Gordon at [email protected] and Lara Seligman at [email protected]