From muskets to drones: The US military in 1776 vs. 2026

The Continental Army soldiers and militiamen making up what passed for America’s armed forces in 1776 would likely gape, open-mouthed, at the U.S. military of today.

Kitted out in non-standard uniforms modeled on the British troops they were fighting, army recruits wielded British-designed muskets firing just a handful of lead balls a minute.

The artillery systems supporting them were a patchwork of British and French cannons and siege guns, with a range—at most—of several hundred meters.

The U.S. Navy was nascent, and the Air Force not yet conceived. Dedicated cyber and space forces were not even on the horizon, and nuclear weapons would be birthed nearly 170 years later.

But as the 250th anniversary of the U.S.’ Declaration of Independence from Great Britain approaches, Newsweek has taken a look back at the major military developments that transformed a haphazard militias into the world’s dominant military powerhouse.

Revolutionary War

The very first American soldiers were pulled from local communities. But by the time 1775 rolled around, it was obvious to the revolutionary commanders that a trained, professional army was what was needed to win the war and secure independence, said Charles Bowery, a retired U.S. Army colonel now heading up the branch’s Center of Military History.

George Washington, commanding the Continental Army, as it was then known, decided to model the early American forces on European militaries, Bowery told Newsweek. The tactics, training regimes and makeup of this early force and its accompanying militias were lifted from European blueprints.

By the closing days of the struggle for independence, discipline across the Continental Army ranks was on the up, although it still leaned heavily on foreign support, from the French, for example.

The Continental Navy sprung into being in 1775, followed less than a month later by the U.S. Marine Corps. By the next year, the colonies’ forces had 27 warships; about a tenth of what the British navy had at its disposal. Many merchant ships had been converted and kitted out with guns, and by the end of the war, American fighters had seized around 1,500 British ships.

The foundations were laid for the U.S. military’s long road to 2026, but many changes were still to come.

Civil War

In the wake of the Revolutionary War, the military built up to fight the British was largely cut back, the recovering Americans wary of standing armies and their links to monarchies.

But the U.S. Military Academy—better known as West Point—opened in 1802, and with the military now an option for a proper career, the number of recruits swelled. As industry ballooned, weapons wielded by soldiers became more accurate and able to hit targets much further away.

The War of 1812 with Great Britain, as well as later battles with Mexico, showed the U.S. why it needed a professional army that could work with other forces, like the Navy, said Bowery.

But the American Civil War, decades later, would come as a shock, said Frederik Mertens, a strategic analyst at the Dutch think tank, TNO. Both the Union and Confederacy didn’t have the strength of the European armies on the continent at the time, and the Civil War forced them to whip their ranks into shape, he told Newsweek.

“But the most important aspect was that this was the first war that we can truly call industrial,” he added.

“The decisive element of this war was the economic and industrial superiority of the Union, which might make this the first time a war was won with ‘the American Way of War,'” Mertens said.

World War I

The industrial shift really made itself felt during World War I. The U.S. military morphed into a major global force as Europe was ravaged by war between 1914 and 1918; machine guns, more sophisticated artillery and logistics, as well as wireless communications, beefed up the U.S. armed forces.

During this war, the U.S. used tanks for the first time, as the world moved toward mechanized warfare—a military term meaning armored vehicles and other machines are often used to fight battles and support troops.

The war also marked the first hint of U.S. air power playing a key role in operations. The DH-4, an early two-seater biplane, was the only American-built aircraft to see active combat during the conflict.

World War II

“World War II showed us what an America that decided to really flex its military muscle had become: it had the people, industry, and organization to become the world’s superpower,” Mertens said.

But by 1945, scientists had spent years in U.S. labs developing the atomic bomb. This was a weapon that wouldn’t just transform the U.S. military, but change armed forces and military policy around the globe.

The devastation wrought on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, forcing Japan’s surrender, marked the opening of an unprecedented new chapter and reshaped U.S. military might.

Meanwhile, shortly after the end of the war, the U.S. Air Force was formally founded. Before 1947, it had been part of the U.S. Army, but once it became its own branch, this paved the way for air power to dominate how the U.S. would go on to fight its wars.

Korean and Vietnam Wars

The Korean War is generally seen as the first war where the planes you had in the air were all-important.

Vietnam, though, was defined by guerrilla warfare for which the U.S. military was initially ill-prepared, despite its dominance in the skies. Overwhelming force was a poor match for an enemy locked in an existential war, and, while weaker, was willing to lose many lives to drain the U.S.’ resolve for fighting, said Mertens.

“Vietnam was a watershed moment for the U.S. Army, not so much because of the requirement to fight a popular insurgency in the south, but because of the political-strategic decision to fight the war with a draftee force, and not to mobilize reserves and National Guard troops,” Bowery said. “This method of prosecuting the war quickly turned the American public against the war effort. Army units in Vietnam quickly developed tactics and weapons to fight guerrilla forces in jungle terrain; the helicopter was perhaps the most iconic piece of kit from that war because it was ubiquitous and used for practically every operation or mission.”

Operation Desert Storm

Much had changed once more by the time the First Gulf War rolled around, breaking out after Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia in 1990. Both countries were major oil suppliers for the U.S.

Washington. deployed half a million troops to Saudi Arabia before launching its largest air campaign since its bombardment of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

U.S. helicopters in the air were the first to act, swooping in to target Iraq’s anti-aircraft systems and radar sites that could be used to find and take out U.S. and allied forces. Jets pummeled Iraqi sites with cruise missiles for six weeks before ground troops kicked off their short-lived operations.

The U.S. and its dozens of allies dropped more than 88,000 tons of bombs in the war that involved close to 700,000 U.S. personnel, the active phase of war more commonly known as Operation Desert Storm. A total of 143 U.S. troops were killed in action across the U.S. build up in Saudi Arabia and the 100 hours of Desert Storm.

This was the first time the U.S. widely used certain systems that are still considered the gold-standard of military kit. Operation Desert Storm was the combat debut for the now-famed Patriot air defense missile system—highly sought-after by Ukrainian troops battling advanced Russian weapons—and the first war where U.S. troops used Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles on a large scale.

It was also when the U.S. gave the rest of the world the impression its military could do whatever it wanted, Mertens said.

Iran War

Fast-forward to 2026. While launching punishing aerial attacks on Iran—unquestionably the weaker military power—many observers say the U.S. has failed to triumph over a damaged but remarkably resilient Tehran.

“Iran is again showing what Vietnam should have taught,” Mertens said. “A regional power fighting an existential war has enormous staying power that can match American military prowess in what for the USA is a war of choice.”

Unlike in previous modern conflicts, the U.S. didn’t fight with the support of NATO allies or the military backing of other partner nations beyond Israel.

And while the U.S. has long trailblazed with the most sophisticated technology, the war launched on Iran on February 28 has taught Washington another important lesson.

Iran’s success in using lots of cheap drones, forcing the U.S. to use up far more costly air defense missiles to shoot them down, has forced many of the world’s militaries to rethink their tactics.

Mass, more than sophistication, has become king—a shift likely to redesign the U.S. military once more.

Looking Ahead

While drones are already a massive part of the U.S. military, they’re only going to become more important. If Ukraine’s experience fighting swarms of Russia’s drones is anything to go by, they’ll be increasingly used for scoping out enemy targets, evacuating wounded troops without endangering medical teams, and striking hundreds of miles behind enemy lines.

They’ll also be woven into how the next wave of state-of-the-art fighter jets operate. Several countries, including the U.S., are developing sixth-generation jets, which will be harder to detect, more automated, and kitted out with more advanced avionics and weapons than the most sophisticated planes currently in operation, like the F-35 and F-22.

U.S. defense companies are currently developing drones, sometimes called loyal wingmen, which will fly alongside these sixth generation jets.

Likely to push through, too, is the realm of cyber. There are already hints of this coming; back in 2009, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates established the U.S. Cyber Command.

Earlier this year, top officials suggested the U.S. used advanced cyber capabilities to plunge the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, into darkness just before elite forces swept into then-President Nicolás Maduro’s compound and brought the former leader to the U.S. to face narcotrafficking charges.

Also on the table are a range of programs pushed by President Donald Trump, from a new class of battleships to the Golden Dome missile defense shield meant to protect the U.S. from the most advanced missiles Russia and China have to offer.

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Tony Phillips