It’s fair to criticize Western militaries for not adapting to drones more quickly, especially on the defense-industrial side. But, it’s also wrong to frame this as a NATO disadvantage in strategic terms.
On the strategic level, you have to keep in mind that:
NATO is a defensive alliance
NATO strategy has always been built from the premise that NATO is weakest (relative to rivals) in ground warfare.
With respect to Russia, a prolonged war of attrition overwhelmingly favors NATO.
On point #1, what we’re seeing in Ukraine is that drones are tactically a defense-dominant weapon—that is, they make it much harder to seize territory. If there’s a way to use them in successful, high-mobility offensive operations, no one has found it. NATO’s major goal has always been to defend European territory against Russian invasion. Given the tactical balance of drones, even if Russia ends up the “drone-advantaged” side, it’s still the case that the basically defensive nature of drones and the defensive aims on the NATO side probably end up favoring NATO.
On #2, NATO has always been built around having an edge in the air and sea (and nowadays space) compensating for relativeness weakness on the ground. Historically, NATO faced substantial disadvantages on the ground relative to the Soviets, and NATO strategy was always about finding ways to use its other edges to compensate for that. Post-Soviet Russia has never had the same kind of advantages on the ground, but this has still been the area of relative Russian strength. With respect to frontline ground forces, even post-Soviet Russia would obviously have the edge in the initial stages of any conflict and that’s been true ever since the end of the Cold War.
Drones don’t do anything to challenge the NATO air/sea/space edge. Cheap drones operate at low speed, low altitude, and short range. Something that can match the speed, altitude, and range of a jet fighter is going to look a lot like (and cost a lot like) a jet fighter even it happens to be unmanned. For the same reasons, drones are a threat to naval vessels operating close to shore, but so are speedboats, and there’s no scenario where NATO is trying to put a carrier group 10 miles off the Russian coastline. The situation in constricted waterways is different, and it’s entirely possible that drones, speedboats, and perhaps speedboat drones will substantially deny naval access to the Bab al Mandab or the Strait of Hormuz. But that’s just not the Russian scenario and the only such constricted naval area there is the Baltic, where NATO controls the land.
On #3, Ukraine is gradually losing the war because Russia has 4x the population and over 10x the GDP. In a Russia-NATO conflict, it’s NATO with the overwhelming population and economic advantages. So, if you bog down into a war of attrition, there’s no doubt NATO wins it. Again, if we see Ukraine-type dynamics, this is something that’s better for NATO than the situation a decade ago because it makes it a lot harder for Russia to seize the Baltics in a blitzkrieg and then extend a nuclear umbrella over them.
My loose model is that increases in lethality tend, all else equal, to favor defenders. Increases in operational mobility tend to favor attackers.
At some point in any attack, you need to cover some ground where you are exposed to enemy fire from defenders with the advantage of a prepared position. The more lethal their weapons, the harder that is and that’s true even if your weapons are also more lethal because they have the advantage of a prepared position. As currently used, drones boost lethality and they’re also uniquely good against armor which has been the offensive weapon of choice on the modern, high-intensity conventional battlefield for attackers. I guess that’s fairly close to the “standard answer” you’re giving above.
The second bit is that drones offer no operational mobility (as currently deployed). To advance an offensive over any substantial distance, you need to move not just weapons systems but also people, platforms, and logistics forward. That is, suppose you’ve either killed your enemies or forced their retreat from some given area, you need to consolidate control over it and be able to either prepare your own defenses against counterattack or establish a forward staging point for the next attack. Mechanized or armored units do that pretty naturally; you’re bringing people and supplies with you as you go and you can immediately use them for the next steps. Drones don’t. If you’ve overrun a position with drones, there is no obvious next step save for finding a way to move people and vehicles forward, who then become vulnerable to enemy drones.
Another piece of it—quite dependent on the present state of technology—is that jamming is effective enough that most drones are limited to the range of however far they can trail a fiber optic cable which is only a few miles. That rules out deep penetration with drones, again making it hard to follow up on any successes.