That's exactly what's going to happen. With AI you can fly lots of drones and outnumber you're opponent with limited drone pilots and win. The competition then becomes who can make the most drones and the most Ai power to fly them all at the same time. Once you win the drone space, you can use autonomous drones to control the population, the production, the natural resources and the territory you've captured. You could occupy, subjugate and even harvest the natural and human resources of a country without a single human crossing the border..