Secretary of War Pete Hegseth signed a new drone-related memorandum this week designed to further cut down on long-standing bureaucracies that slow down the process of fielding new weapons systems.
Hegseth signed the “Accelerating Employment of Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems to Protect American Airspace Sovereignty” memorandum on Monday, though the department did not release it until Friday. It builds on several others he has signed during his tenure related to the department’s policies and plans for drones.
“As we continue our quest for Drone Dominance with the world’s most lethal unmanned attack platforms, we also must defend the homeland from illicit drone use. Our adversaries are fielding unmanned systems at scale, at speed, and at low cost. They are using them to surveil, disrupt, and attack. We will not answer a fast-moving threat with a slow-moving bureaucracy,” he wrote in the memo, later calling drones “the defining threat of our time.”
It directs the department to “accept prudent risks,” but “not cut corners on law or safety.”
One of the overarching goals of the memo is to reduce redundancies.
It states that no service will “repeat a weapons safety review for the same system, configuration, and use case unless a material change creates a new risk,” and that “no Component will conduct an assessment of common systems without documenting the specific risk that prevents reliance on the existing approval.”
The memo also looks to ensure commanders have the approval authorities ready when considering how to defend against an incoming attack because “in many cases, the great risk is doing nothing.” If a request to use a counter-drone system is denied, the official who denies it must submit an explanation to Joint Interagency Task Force 401, which is leading the department’s counter-drone homeland defense effort.
Senior military officials do not believe there is a single system, weapon, or “silver bullet” that can be used exclusively to comprehensively defend against drones, rather they believe it will take a multilayered system that includes physically intercepting incoming projectiles, using electronic warfare, and even high-powered lasers.
The ability to mass-produce cheap drones also makes it more available to non-state actors and smaller militaries with fewer resources. Cheap attack drones can be used to target much more expensive weapons, equipment, and bases. There have been several instances in recent years where unauthorized drones were tracked flying near domestic military bases.
Several U.S. bases were damaged in the Middle East from Iranian drone and missile attacks during the war. In September, acting U.S. Navy Secretary Hung Cao acknowledged that Iranian forces “blew the hell out of Bahrain,” which was a reference to Naval Support Activity Bahrain, home of the U.S. Fifth Fleet.
The head of the Navy, Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Daryl Caudle, recently told the Washington Examiner his vision for the future of the fleet is for many vessels to have high-powered lasers to help defend against drones and other aerial threats. He doesn’t believe lasers can fully replace traditional air defense systems but believes they can reduce the use of very expensive munitions by saving them for specific threats.
Closer to home, U.S. troops at the southern border recently began using high-powered lasers to intercept Mexican cartel drones.
INSIDE THE ROOM FOR HEGSETH’S ‘STATE OF THE FORCE’ ADDRESS
Also this week, the secretary announced during his “State of the Force” address at Marine Base Quantico the department’s intent to work with Congress to legislate the creation of a 4-star functional combatant command called Autonomous Warfare Command, or AutoWarCom.
Project Agincourt will transition the department’s drone efforts until Congress can establish the combatant command, which another Hegseth memo set a deadline of exactly one year from Thursday, Oct. 1, 2027. Named after the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, Project Agincourt will be guided by Owen West, who is leaving his role as DIU director for this, and Navy SEAL Senior Chief Max Strasiser, the first enlisted SEAL to graduate from Navy Test Pilot School.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
