Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has directed the US military to leapfrog ahead its adversaries — including Russia — and establish "drone dominance" by 2027. But the US peacetime culture that drives military procurement and operations is no match for the real-world laboratory of the Ukrainian battlefield that has put Russia in the ascendancy when it comes to modern drone warfare.
Hegseth, speaking at a recent press event on the lawn in front of the Pentagon, announced new policies designed to usher in an era of US "drone dominance." With the assistance of uniformed soldiers operating small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS — a term for the type of small drones often seen in civilian use), Hegseth signed a memorandum entitled "Unleashing US Military Drone Dominance," which outlined his vision of acquiring and utilizing what he called "the biggest battlefield innovation in a generation."
The defense secretary’s memo lambasted bureaucratic roadblocks that, according to him, prevented the US military from acquiring "the lethal small drones the modern battlefield requires" — drones being employed in significant numbers by the US’ potential adversaries. He ordered that hundreds of US-made products be approved for purchase by the US military that would permit combat units to be armed with a wide variety of low-cost drones and for these drones to be incorporated into training exercises.
