In a world where drone technology is growing almost asymptotically, the US will assert its leadership. With the implementation of President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Unleashing American Drone Dominance,” the Pentagon is executing a new drone development strategy to do just that. Learning lessons every day from the Russian war on Ukraine, building dominance in developing, and using drones has been a natural progression for the US Department of Defense. However, doing so comes with challenges.
When Kyiv pulled off one of the most successful drone attacks to date in its war against Russia, a spectacular strike on Moscow’s premier bomber installations, drone warfare was catapulted into the strategies and tactics of the Pentagon. “The conflict has become a grinding war of attrition, with drones at the forefront—offering a grim preview of future warfare,” The Daily Signal observed.
President Trump explained his vision in an executive order. “The United States must accelerate the safe commercialization of drone technologies and fully integrate UAS [Unmanned Aircraft Systems] into the National Airspace System,” it reads. The narrative goes further, pointing out: “The time has come to accelerate testing and to enable routine drone operations, scale up domestic production, and expand the export of trusted, American-manufactured drone technologies to global markets.”
The memorandum listed the following three missions at the forefront of American drone dominance:
1. The US will “bolster the nascent US drone manufacturing base by approving hundreds of American products for purchase by our military.”
2. The Pentagon will “power a technological leapfrog, arming our combat units with a variety of low-cost drones made by America’s world-leading engineers and AI experts.”
3. In keeping with a persistent theme at the Defense Department, “we’ll train as we expect to fight. To simulate the modern battlefield, senior officers must overcome the bureaucracy’s instinctive risk-aversion on everything from budgeting to weaponizing and training.”
The key to making the drone initiative a success will be eliminating unnecessary bureaucratic policies and inappropriately cumbersome regulations. To achieve this end, “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is directing every US Army squad to be armed with small, one-way attack drones by the end of fiscal 2026, while also enabling troops to modify small drones as necessary in the field as part of a push to break through policy and acquisition barriers,” Breaking Defense reported.
Other initiatives include designating small drones as “consumables” rather than durable assets that must be accounted for using legacy tracking systems. This gives drones the status of ammunition that will be expended. Estimates for production are in the range of 10,000 units per month. To manage the new push on drones, each military service is directed to establish a dedicated UAS program office to apply best practices and control processes focused on the rapid acquisition of drone systems. However, in the rush to field tens of thousands of drones, several challenges must be addressed. Arguably, the Ukrainians are the most adept at deploying the technology. Among the lessons learned during the life and death struggle for drone superiority were, according to Ukrainska Pravda 25, a Ukrainian news source:
“A multitude of different drones, components, specifications, and related equipment is overwhelming logistics, slowing training, and delaying the deployment of drones in combat. Moreover, supplying various types of ammunition with different loading procedures can even result in injuries among military personnel … Software developers encounter greater challenges in creating high-quality solutions without a unified hardware standard. Component manufacturers struggle to scale production without standard specifications.”
Getting combat drones to the warfighters in valid numbers is one thing; developing an industrial base to sustain those numbers is equally important. Additionally, to be as effective as possible, even with hundreds of vendors having as many interchangeable parts as possible will be crucial, particularly for batteries. As the Ukrainians found out, having standard hardware will be a challenge. However, the US is in the drone race now. And it’s in it to win.
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