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.”

Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance @DOGE pic.twitter.com/ueqQPc7rKI

— Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (@SecDef) July 10, 2025

One of Hegseth’s goals with the memo is to proliferate and provide training with small drones for frontline combat units, reminiscent of models and tactics used in the Ukraine war, according to the memo.

“Small UAS resemble munitions more than high-end airplanes. They should be cheap, rapidly replaceable, and categorized as consumable,” Hegseth said in the memo.

Once units have tested the equipment, military leaders may order “large purchases” of UAS and their components, provided they comply with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) Blue List, which vets components and units for UAS systems to ensure they do not originate from banned nations, such as China.

“U.S. capital markets attract the best entrepreneurs and engineers in the world. U.S. scientists lead in artificial intelligence,” the memo reads. “The U.S. military has the Nation’s best and brightest in its ranks. Our adversaries have a head start in small UAS, but we will perform a technological leapfrog and establish small UAS domain dominance by the end of 2027.”

Chinese company Da Jiang Industries (DJI) currently controls 70% of the worldwide commercial drone market, while American drone companies specializing in defense applications still heavily use Chinese parts to make their products.

The U.S. currently employs mostly high-cost drones such as the MQ-9 Reaper, which costs around $56.5 million to build per unit, according to the Air Force. In contrast, drones used by groups such as the Houthi Rebels in Yemen can cost as little as $2,000 a unit, according to Politico experts.

“The Department’s bureaucratic gloves are coming off,” Hegseth wrote in the memo.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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