Drones, Baby, Drones! Hegseth Announces New Drone Dominance Policy
The Defense Secretary said that the President had ordered the unleashing of American manufacturing potential to counter the "millions of cheap drones" built by its rivals.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced today (Thursday) that the United States will be clearing away all regulatory hurdles to achieving what he called "drone dominance":
"You know what? We know why we were put here. We were brought here to rebuild the military, match capabilities to the threats of today. So while our adversaries have produced millions of cheap drones, before us we were mired in bureaucratic red tape.
"Not anymore. In June, President Trump issued an executive order unleashing American drone dominance to bolster our drone industry and arm our war fighters because that's what we're all about. So today I'm rescinding restrictive policies that stifle production and this will unleash American manufacturing and the ingenuity of our war fighters by doing three key things.
"First, we're going to bolster the U.S. drone manufacturing based by producing thousands of American-made products prioritizing by Americans. We'll arm combat units with a variety of low-cost American crafted drones, leveraging our world-leading engineers and AI experts. And third, we're going to train as we expect to fight.
"Senior officers, well I'll grab this, this is the memo, senior officers must overcome bureaucratic risk aversion in budgeting, weaponeering, and training. So here's the memo we're signing today delivered via drones here on the front lawn of the Pentagon with some of our great war fighters flying them. This is the future.
"We're in the fight. We're in the fight to win it. I'm never going to back down."
Watch: