On July 10, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced a sea change in U.S. defense policy. More than a decade ago, America pioneered the wide-scale use of military drones, flying Predator drones first on surveillance, then strike missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the decades since, U.S. dominance of this groundbreaking defense technology eroded, to the extent that “global military drone production skyrocketed over the last three years,” while the U.S. all but stood still.
Now, said the SecDef, it’s finally time to “support our industrial base, reform acquisition, and field new technology” to equip the U.S. military “with the lethal small drones the modern battlefield requires.”
All of which sound like fine ideas. But over the past few days, a new question has emerged: Will our defense base actually get to build these drones — or might they end up getting built by someone other than American defense contractors?