Courtney Albon
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday announced sweeping changes to the way the Pentagon buys and fields uncrewed air systems, or UAS, with a goal of establishing “UAS domain dominance” by 2027.
Hegseth announced the policy changes in a video recorded on the Pentagon’s front lawn. With Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” playing in the background, a quadcopter delivered a memo announcing the policy changes, which Hegseth then signed.
“While our adversaries have produced millions of cheap drones, before us we were mired in bureaucratic red tape,” he said in the video, which he posted from his official X account. “Not anymore.”
Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance @DOGE pic.twitter.com/ueqQPc7rKI— Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (@SecDef) July 10, 2025
The memo lists three broad goals: bolstering the U.S. drone manufacturing base, delivering thousands of low-cost systems to military units over the next few years and integrating drone operations into training programs.
“Next year I expect to see this capability integrated into all relevant combat training, including force-on-force drone wars,” Hegseth wrote in the memo.
The announcement builds on a June 6 White House executive order that calls for normalizing drone operations and integration into the national airspace as well as investment in production and emerging technologies across commercial, civil and national security sectors.
No comments:
Post a Comment