Hegseth Tears Up Red Tape, Orders Pentagon To Begin Drone Surge At Trump's Command

FIRST ON FOX: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has issued sweeping caller orders to fast-track drone accumulation and deployment, allowing commanders to procure and trial them independently and requiring drone combat simulations crossed each branch of nan military. 

As portion of an fierce push to outpace Russia and China successful unmanned warfare, "the Department’s bureaucratic gloves are coming off," Hegseth wrote. "Lethality will not beryllium hindered by self-imposed restrictions... Our awesome consequence is risk-avoidance."

In a brace of memos first obtained by Fox News Digital, Hegseth rescinded bequest policies that he believes restricted innovation. For nan first time, commanders pinch nan rank of colonel aliases skipper tin independently procure and trial drones, including 3D-printed prototypes and commercial-off-the-shelf systems, arsenic agelong arsenic they meet nationalist information criteria.

They tin besides run and train with drones immediately, bypassing accepted support bottlenecks, and are moreover authorized to trial non-lethal autonomous UAS successful controlled environments.

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A brace of caller orders is meant to accelerate drone accumulation and integration crossed each work branches.  (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

"Small UAS lucifer munitions much than high-end airplanes," 1 instruction stated. "They should beryllium cheap, quickly replaceable, and categorized arsenic consumable."

The memos redefine mini drones (Group 1 and 2) arsenic consumables — not durable subject assets — removing them from bequest search systems and simplifying acquisition.

To date, Hegseth said, nan Department of Defense has "failed to section UAS [unmanned craft system] astatine standard and speed." 

"Small UAS are specified captious unit enablers that they must beryllium prioritized astatine nan aforesaid level arsenic awesome weapons systems." 

Commanders are instructed to activity pinch nan FAA to "remove inappropriate scope restrictions, fast-track and grow spectrum approval, and found a assortment of UAS training areas that see unrecorded fire, mixed arms, and swarm testing."

"The Department’s bureaucratic gloves are coming off," Hegseth wrote successful nan memos.  (Getty Images)

Training ranges will beryllium expanded, pinch 3 caller UAS nationalist trial sites mandated wrong 90 days.

Weaponization, agelong a sticking point, will besides move faster: Weapons Boards must now respond to drone arming requests wrong 30 days, and artillery certifications must beryllium processed wrong a week.

While America’s adversaries person a "head start" successful nan world of mini UAS, Hegseth expect nan U.S. to found domain power by nan extremity of 2027. 

"Next twelvemonth I expect to spot this capacity integrated into each applicable combat training, including force-on-force drone wars," Hegseth said, adding that finance methods outlined successful Trump’s Unleashing American Drone Dominance executive bid are being investigated. 

The Pentagon will now build a "dynamic, AI-searchable Blue List," a integer level cataloging approved drone components, vendors, and capacity ratings. By 2026, this strategy will beryllium tally by nan Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) and fueled by information from nightly AI retraining pipelines.

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Corporals Nathan Baptiste, left, and Jacob Bennett connect a camera to an study UAV during tactical script training of violative and protect drone capabilities astatine Camp Pendleton connected Friday, June 6, 2025.  (Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)

To jump-start nan drone industry, nan Pentagon will pursue advance acquisition commitments, nonstop loans and different superior incentives wrong 30 days. Major purchases "shall favour U.S. companies," 1 memo said. 

The move comes astatine a clip erstwhile nan lethal capabilities of modern drone warfare person been proven connected nan crushed in Ukraine and successful nan Middle East. 

Since Russia launched its full-scale penetration of Ukraine successful 2022, drones person redefined modern warfare. Both Ukrainian and Russian forces person utilized unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to reshape strategies connected nan battlefield and stitchery real-time intelligence. What started arsenic basal surveillance and artillery targeting has quickly evolved into lethal deployments of alleged "kamikaze drones" — loitering munitions designed to hover earlier zeroing successful connected targets heavy down force lines.

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Among nan astir prolific and arguable of these is Iran’s Shahed-136, a low-cost, GPS-steered drone supplied to Russian forces. Fired successful ample formations, nan Shaheds person been instrumental successful attacks connected Ukrainian power infrastructure and residential zones, often bypassing costly rocket systems astatine a fraction of nan cost. In response, Ukraine has modified commercialized drones to present explosive payloads against Russian trenches, vehicles, and naval targets successful nan Black Sea.

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Earlier this month, Israel relied heavy connected drone strikes during Operation Rising Lion, coordinating them pinch parented aerial missions to target high-level Iranian subject officials and atomic infrastructure. Iran retaliated pinch its ain barrage of drones.

The accelerated take of drones has triggered awesome shifts successful doctrine, spurred nan improvement of physics countermeasures and ignited statement complete whether drones are poised to overtake parented craft arsenic nan ascendant unit successful early aerial combat.