The problem is the asymmetry. Drones are cheap, can be produced in huge numbers, and can be deployed anywhere by anyone. You can't put laser defences on every target, and the best laser defence could still be overwhelmed by a sufficient number of drones.
I am fucking terrified of drones.
Drones still have the limiting factor that is that they need to be produced at all as a piece of technology. Artillery shell on the other hand has all the explosive bits needed to make that drone blow up half your house, only it is a dummy round being fired from technology that has been globally solved and replicated for what over 100 years now, with huge stocks of surplus available along with popular rudimentary designs used by various guerillas around the world.
Increasingly we are also seeing a world where the technology to shape a cultures mind share can be deployed with a few dozen lines of code and a malware bot net rather than a sophisticated and well funded mass media operation a la the 1960s western cultural revolution supported in part by the CIA. You don't even need to blow up the enemies country, you can convince them it is in their best interest to be subjugated and they will remove their own naysayer internally and roll out the carpet for you when you arrive and proclaim your regional Obergruppenführer to meet production quotas.