The U.S. military is investing heavily in military drones based on the battlefield successes by Ukraine and Israel using attack drones in remote strikes, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Congress.
Mr. Hegseth said in testimony Wednesday on the current $961.6 billion annual defense budget request that the rapidly expanding use of small, unmanned aircraft requires applying the best advanced technology and innovation to building new U.S. systems, both offensive and defensive.
“Massed, affordable and attritable platforms with short lifespans are changing the character of war and transforming the way our forces must fight,” Mr. Hegseth told the Senate Armed Services Committee in prepared testimony.
“Incidents in the homeland and conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine remind us of how this technology has changed modern warfare.”
Ukraine conducted a daring drone strike June 1 against Russian strategic bombers using attack drones launched from container trucks smuggled into Russia. The attacks destroyed a reported 40 bombers.
Israel launched drone attacks from a secret base near Tehran that reportedly was used to target Iranian nuclear scientists and military leaders in decapitation strikes.
Iran has also launched over 100 one-way attack drones against Israel.
Mr. Hegseth said supply chain issues pose a significant challenge for developing military drones and the defense secretary noted that China, in particular, is producing more than 100 commercial drones for every one made by the United States.
The threat from unmanned drone aircraft includes a wide variety of systems, including short-range, remote-piloted, kamikaze drones commonly called first-person view, along with reusable bomber drones, one-way attack and long-range one-way attack platforms, he said.
Drones are also being used for electronic warfare, intelligence gathering, communications relay and other key warfighting missions.
Offensive drones should be adapted from commercial technology to help U.S. forces on the ground, in the air and at sea to defeat adversary unmanned combat drones.
So far, the Pentagon’s Replicator program has fielded thousands of unmanned systems in both air and sea and thousands more are planned to bolster deterrence of China in the Indo-Pacific, Mr. Hegseth said.
Greater defenses are needed to meet what the defense secretary said is “the exponentially growing challenge from ever more-capable drone weaponization.”
“We must also end the unsustainable pattern of shooting down increasingly sophisticated, lethal drones — that in many cases cost just a few hundred dollars and are
therefore accessible to a much broader range of bad actors — with exquisite multi-million-dollar weapons that are difficult to produce and to replace once used,” he said.
The Pentagon needs to speed up progress made in the last several years to quickly build and field better unmanned systems and integrate them into the military, he said.
Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified with Mr. Hegseth that the threat posed by advanced drone weapons and sensors is increasing. The budget request calls for crucial investments in drone technology, he said.
Gen. Caine noted that North Korea’s deployment of combat troops in Ukraine is helping Pyongyang’s forces prepare for a future conflict through the use of advanced weapons, including drones.
Iran’s increasing military cooperation with Russia also includes providing attack drones to the Russian military and reflects Iran’s plan to confront U.S. influence and destabilize regional security, he said.
The current budget request includes funds for “rapidly advancing drone technology, including improving our acquisition and production of drone systems at scale, Gen. Caine said.
“This is an area where we must take advantage of fast-moving private sector innovation to field low cost, attritable, kinetic and non-kinetic, small, unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) and counter sUAS systems to keep pace with our adversaries,” he said.
Army Gen. Michael Kurilla testified earlier this month that during an Iranian attack in April 2024, over 150 one-way attack drones were used along with 100 ballistic missiles and over 30 cruise missiles.
The number of Iranian attack drones in the recent fighting between Israel and Iran is not known.
China is making major investments in attack drones, according to a report by the RAND Corporation.
Zhao Xiaozuo and Chen Jianmin, Chinese researchers with the Academy of Military Sciences, have written that Ukraine’s forces are waging an informationized war, while much of Russia’s military remains mechanized.
“Success in modern warfare will require the rapid, scalable production and integration of air, surface and subsurface unmanned systems,” Navy Secretary John C. Phelan stated in recent Senate testimony, noting the effective use of unmanned weapons in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Drone funding increases are included the research and development funds for fiscal 2026 presented earlier this month to Congress as $142 billion, according to budget documents obtained by the newsletter DefenseOne.
Another $37.1 billion for defense research is in the president’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill currently being debated in the Senate.
Classified research and development funding of $43.9 billion is expected to include funds for drone development.
A major item is $789.4 million for development and prototypes of the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft, a drone that will fly in support of manned aircraft.
Funding for multi-role drones includes $376.4 million to upgrade the Navy MQ-4C Triton drone and $305.5 million for the Navy Unmanned Carrier Aviation drone, or MQ-25.
The Air Force MQ-9 will get $26.7 million and the Army MQ-1 Gray Eagle will get $3.4 million.
Maritime drones funded in the request include $57.9 million for large, unmanned surface vehicles; $39 million for medium unmanned surface vehicles and $1.1 billion in procurement funds.
More than $369 million will be spent toward large unmanned undersea vehicles; small and medium undersea vehicles; unmanned undersea vehicle core technologies.
The Navy plans to use missile-carrying robot sea vessels that could be commanded from guided-missile warships. The service also is working on underwater drones.
For the Army’s counter-drone systems, $55.2 million will go to counter small UAS systems development and testing along with $45.3 million for advanced component development and prototypes.
Another $503 million is slated for Army drone and counter drone aerial systems.
About $5 million for the Air Force’s offensive small, unmanned aircraft systems.
A report by the China Aerospace Studies Institute, an Air Force think tank, said the People’s Liberation Army deploys numerous aircraft drones and has some unmanned underwater vehicles, unmanned ground vehicles and unmanned surface vehicles.
“Today, in its quest to advance military innovation, the PLA is engaged in cutting edge research and development to create high-end unmanned, and increasingly intelligent or autonomous, systems for all domains of warfare, ranging from swarms of [unmanned aerial vehicles] and [unmanned surface vehicles] to hypersonic space planes,” the report said.
China’s aerial drones include the Xianglong jet-powered aircraft, a supersonic drone, the WZ-8, the GJ-11 stealth unmanned combat air vehicle, according to the Pentagon’s most recent annual report on the Chinese military.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.