America’s Maginot lines of defense The drone attacks on Barksdale Air Force shows we must learn from Israel and Ukraine in developing counter-drone technology. But at home, there are worrying signs that the nation is ill-prepared for wars of the future. The American homeland is unprecedentedly vulnerable to threats of sabotage, and aerial and biological warfare. . To deter and combat these growing dangers, the U.S. must first recognize them, which it is currently failing to do. It must shake off its status quo slumber.penetrated Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana. Barksdale is no ordinary military base. It is home to the Air Force Global Strike Command and is central to the U.S.’s nuclear bombing capability. Yet drones cut through its air defenses, threatening national security. The drone swarm reportedly delayed bombers taking off to strike targets in Iran.Worse, there seem to have been no repercussions. The perpetrators haven’t been publicly identified, but the drone swarm was premeditated and highly organized, with advanced signal capabilities. The incident at Barksdale is but the latest in a series of events that indicate a lack of American preparedness at home. In mid-March, unidentified drones were spotted over a Washington, D.C., Army base where both Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth live. Several drones were spotted over Fort Lesley J. McNair, reportedly leading to discussions about moving the two Cabinet members. That incursion occurred when the U.S. had issued security alerts for overseas diplomatic posts because of the war against Iran. So, while the U.S. has been able to project tremendous military power and sophistication abroad and carried out the largest decapitation in modern military history, drone interference by an unidentified enemy temporarily grounded American bombers and jeopardized the security of its Cabinet members. An emerging drone threat isn’t the only storm gathering over the American homeland. On March 26, the Department of Justice announced that it had indicted a man named Alen Zheng for attempting to detonate a bomb at MacDill Air Force Base Visitor’s Center in Tampa, Florida. Zheng fled to China before he was captured, but his sister, Ann Mary Zheng, was captured and charged with destroying evidence and helping him escape. While the nation was at war with Iran, two people set up a bomb in a vehicle outside of a base, before fleeing to China, an ally of Iran. Thankfully, the bomb didn’t go off. But the vulnerabilities remain. Indeed, several Chinese Communist Party-linked biolabs have been discovered in the U.S. They have been found manufacturing deadly viruses, including Ebola, malaria, HIV, and others. Some labs, notably one in Reedley, California, and another in Las Vegas, Nevada, were near important U.S. military bases. The lesson should be clear: The U.S. can successfully wage wars abroad but is leaving itself vulnerable on the home front. In an era of new technologies, including drones, a free and open society is uniquely vulnerable to threats from enemies. Open borders policies championed by Democrats and embraced by the Biden administration heighten that danger. The U.S. is in a new era of war. It must act accordingly. History is clear on what happens to those who fail to adapt. After World War I, France built the Maginot Line of fortresses to protect itself against Germany. Their recent experience in battles such as those of the Somme and Ypres led them to believe that future wars would be based on defense, not rapid maneuvering offense. Behind the wall of the Maginot Line, officials fell into complacency, believing that its construction would deter Germany from starting another war. But the Germans pioneered the Blitzkrieg and overran France in less than a month.As the French statesman Georges Clemenceau observed: “Generals are always preparing to fight the last war.” But with new technology and rising threats, that mindset guarantees failure. In war, as in other matters of intelligence and national security, most failures are failures of imagination. American military might has been on full display abroad, with successes in Venezuela and Iran, but at home, U.S. policy must also reflect newfound realities. The U.S. should learn from Israel and Ukraine in developing counter-drone technology, and it must recognize that enemies are willing and able to wage wars on American soil in ghastly, and heretofore unimagined, ways.