On a trip to Ukraine in the beginning of 2023, a group of White House and State Department officials were shown how Ukrainian soldiers brought a 3D printer to the rear lines of the battlefield to replace worn-out parts for an artillery battery, rather than send the whole battery back to Poland for repair. The Ukrainians designed a tank-killing drone that cost roughly five thousand dollars each and then worked on swarms of far cheaper ones meant to overwhelm Russian air defenses. “Ukraine is, in a very rapid environment, in two to three years, inventing stuff that will take thirty years to be
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