The US military wants to buy millions of drones in the coming years. Washington wants to catch up with China
Global Hawk surveillance drone Photo: Not supplied / WillWest News / Profimedia
The United States Army aims to purchase at least one million drones in the next 2-3 years and between 500,000 and millions in the years to come, said the Secretary of the US Army, Daniel Driscoll, in an interview with Reuters on Friday, reports Agerpres.
Driscoll detailed the major acceleration of the drone procurement plan, acknowledging the difficulties, given that the largest arm of the US military currently purchases only about 50,000 drones annually. “It's a big effort. But it's an effort we're capable of,” Driscoll said.
He spoke to Reuters by phone during a visit to the Picatinny Arsenal, a vast military research and production facility. Driscoll and the commander of the Picatinny Arsenal, Maj. Gen. John Reim, spoke to Reuters about the lessons the United States has learned from the war in Ukraine, characterized by drone deployments on an unprecedented scale.
Small, inexpensive drones have proven some of the most powerful weapons in the war between Russia and Ukraine, where conventional military aircraft are relatively rare because of a dense concentration of anti-aircraft systems near the front lines.
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“Drones are the future of war”
Ukraine and Russia can each produce about 4 million drones annually, but China is probably capable of producing twice as many, Driscoll said. According to him, the priority is getting the US into a position where it can produce enough drones for any future war, boosting domestic production of everything from motors and sensors to batteries and circuit boards.
“We expect to purchase at least one million drones in the next 2-3 years,” he said. “And we expect that at the end of 2-3 years from today, we will know that, in a moment of conflict, we will be able to activate a supply chain that is robust and scalable enough (…) to manufacture as many drones as we need,” added Driscoll.
The Pentagon is trying to overcome a mixed balance sheet regarding the acquisition of drones. In 2023, Pentagon chiefs announced the Replicator initiative, a department-wide effort to acquire and field thousands of autonomous drones by August 2025. However, no update on the status of the program was provided.
In July, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum that “undoes the restrictive policies” that have affected drone production. Reuters reported that the Pentagon's DOGE unit is leading efforts to overhaul the US military's drone program, including the purchase of tens of thousands of inexpensive drones in the coming months.
US congressmen have introduced a bill that would require the Pentagon to build a factory in Texas where up to 1 million drones could be produced a year. But Driscoll said his goal is to spread the funding and not rely on a single production facility.
Instead of partnerships with large companies in the military industry, the army wants to work with companies that manufacture drones that can also have commercial applications, he explained. “We want to partner with other drone manufacturers that use them for Amazon deliveries and all kinds of other things,” he said.
Chinese imports account for the vast majority of commercial drone sales in the US. More than half of them come from DJI, the world's largest drone manufacturer. “Drones are the future of war, and we must invest in both offensive and defensive capabilities against them,” Driscoll also indicated.
