Defense Express reported the information.The Pentagon is fundamentally rethinking its approach to electronic warfare and unmanned systems after Ukraine's frontline combat revealed significant vulnerabilities in U.S. military technology that conventional testing failed to detect.American defense contractors and military officials now openly acknowledge that their electronic warfare capabilities have fallen dangerously behind, with legacy systems proving ineffective against modern threats. Ukrainian forces testing U.S.-made equipment in combat conditions have uncovered flaws that years of peacetime evaluations missed entirely.Defense contractors frequently approach Ukrainian units to field-test their systems on the front lines, though cooperation remains uneven, according to Defense One. One prominent example involved the Skydio drone, which underperformed significantly when Ukrainian operators deployed it against Russian jamming systems. The failure prompted Skydio to partner with Armada to redesign its platform.Ukraine's experience has also demonstrated the fatal weakness of large, centralized electronic warfare systems—they're too easy for adversaries to detect and destroy. In response, the U.S. recently announced it would scrap its troubled Modular Force Electronic Warfare (MFEW) program in favor of distributed, open-architecture systems that allow rapid component upgrades using commercial technology.The new approach separates operators from transmission sources and disperses capabilities across drones, ground-based antennas, and individual jamming units. This prevents a single strike from crippling the entire system—a lesson learned directly from Ukrainian combat operations.American soldiers are now receiving assignments from commanders specifically focused on studying Ukrainian innovations, including drone interceptors designed to down Iranian Shahed attack drones. Foreign intelligence officials indicate that European allies are also increasingly recognizing the strategic value of defense partnerships with Kyiv.The collaboration extends beyond testing. Ukrainian engineers have made significant advances in 3D-printed drone manufacturing near the front lines, demonstrating rapid adaptation capabilities that traditional defense industries struggle to match. Military analysts suggest that expanded intelligence sharing and equipment exchanges would accelerate the identification of systemic weaknesses in Western military hardware.