Hegseth Announces Pentagon Plan For ‘Drone Dominance’

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo Thursday directing the Pentagon to take measures to “unleash” American drone production and use on the battlefield.

The memo rescinds a myriad of Biden-era restrictions that stifled the use and production of small, cheap Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) on the battlefield, while also paving a more streamlined path for American products and materials to be approved for drone manufacturing, Hegseth announced in a bombastic X post Thursday. Small, expendable drones have shown their effectiveness in wars across the world, most notably in Ukraine and in covert Israeli strikes on Iranian air defenses during their bombing campaigns against nuclear facilities in June.

The memo also calls on military leaders to implement drones and relevant training regimes in their units, paving the way for small drone use on the battlefield. The directive aims to bring the Defense Department in line with President Donald Trump’s executive order signed June 6 calling for “homegrown drone innovation.”