Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday announced a sweeping new directive to ramp up the U.S. military's arsenal of unmanned aerial vehicles.

"We know why we were put here," Hegseth said in a video posted on his X account. "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 [Donald] Trump issued an executive order unleashing American drone dominance to bolster our drone industry and arm our warfighters 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 warfighters."

Hegseth, shown in the video with the Pentagon in the backdrop and service members flying drones, said the overhaul relies on three factors:

• Bolstering the U.S. drone manufacturing base "by producing thousands of American-made products, prioritizing buy American."
• Arming combat units with a variety of low-cost American-crafted drones, "leveraging our world-leading engineers and AI experts."
• Finally, "we're going to train as we expect to fight. Senior officers must overcome bureaucratic risk-aversion in budgeting, weaponeering, and training."

A drone delivered a memo to Hegseth that he signed earlier Thursday. The memo titled "Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance" was sent to senior Pentagon leaders, combatant commanders, and directors of defense agencies.

The memo gives commanders across all military branches the authority to procure and test drones independently, Newsweek reported. The policy also aims to slash red tape, allowing for expedited training and testing processes. Hegseth also instructed the military to classify small drones as "consumable assets" rather than long-term, durable equipment.

The initiative is part of a broader push by the administration to rejuvenate its drone capabilities and close the gap with adversaries such as Russia and China, who have aggressively integrated drones into their combat operations.

"Next year I expect to see this capability integrated into all relevant combat training, including force-on-force drone wars," Hegseth wrote in the memo, according to Newsweek.

He cited that drones have accounted for "most of this year's casualties in Ukraine" and argued that "drone technology is advancing so rapidly, our major risk is risk-avoidance."

The memo also reportedly directs the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps to create active-duty formations by September, built for the sole purpose of scaling the use of small drones — with initial systems delivered to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command by 2026.

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