US plans to purchase 1 million drones in 3 years

The secretary said his priority is to put the U.S. in a position where it can produce enough drones for any future war by spurring domestic production of everything from motors and sensors to batteries and circuit boards. Much of this manufacturing is dominated by China today. Driscoll said he wants to fundamentally change the way the U.S. Army views drones — more as expendable munitions than “fine-tuned” equipment.

And we hope that by the end of a year or two from today, we know that in a time of conflict, we will be able to activate a supply chain that is robust and deep enough that we can activate the manufacturing of as many drones as possible. we need. Daniel Driscoll, Secretary of the US Army, estimates that the US will buy at least 1 million drones in the next two or three years

Future of war?

In 2023, Pentagon leaders announced the Replicator initiative, a department-wide effort to acquire and field thousands of autonomous drones by August 2025. The military has not provided an update on that program. In July, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum in which he said he was “rescinding restrictive policies” that had affected drone production.

Reuters reported that the Pentagon’s DOGE unit is leading efforts to revamp the US military drone program, including acquiring tens of thousands of cheap drones in the coming months. US lawmakers have introduced legislation that would direct the Pentagon to create a facility in Texas that could assemble up to 1 million drones a year.

But Driscoll said his goal is to spread out the funding and not rely on a single production facility. Rather than partnering with large military products companies, he said the U.S. Army wants to work with companies that are producing drones that could also have commercial applications. “We want to partner with other drone manufacturers who are using them for Amazon deliveries and all different use cases,” he said.