Pentagon's $75B drone push

The Pentagon is asking Congress for $75 billion for drones and anti-drone systems in its fiscal 2027 budget, its biggest such request on record. (defensescoop.com) Defense officials said on April 21 that the total includes $53.6 billion for autonomy, drone platforms and contested logistics, plus $21 billion for munitions, counter-drone systems and programs such as collaborative combat aircraft. The broader Pentagon request totals $1.5 trillion, with $1.15 trillion in annual appropriations and $350 billion tied to reconciliation. (defensescoop.com) The biggest jump sits inside a little-known office called the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, or DAWG. Pentagon officials said it would get $54.6 billion in research-and-development funding for fiscal 2027, up from $225.9 million in fiscal 2026, with $1 billion in the base budget and $53.6 billion dependent on reconciliation. (breakingdefense.com) DAWG is replacing and absorbing the earlier Replicator effort, the Biden-era program built to field thousands of lower-cost, expendable drones, especially for the Pacific. Comptroller Jules “Jay” Hurst said the new group is acting as a “pathfinder,” testing systems with companies and feeding back results in real time. (breakingdefense.com) The shift follows two years of Pentagon warnings that small, cheap unmanned systems are changing warfare faster than normal procurement cycles can handle. A December 2024 Defense Department fact sheet said unmanned systems are making it harder for forces to hide, communicate and maneuver, while lowering the cost of precision strike for states and non-state groups alike. (media.defense.gov) That urgency showed up in policy before it showed up in this budget. A September 2024 Pentagon memo said Replicator 2 would focus on defending critical installations and force concentrations from small drones, and a July 2025 memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said drones accounted for most casualties in Ukraine that year and ordered the department to speed purchases and loosen internal restrictions. (media.defense.gov 1) (media.defense.gov 2) The anti-drone side is growing at the same time. In August 2025, Hegseth ordered the Army to shut down the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office and replace it with Joint Interagency Task Force 401, saying the number of Pentagon organizations working on the problem had multiplied and needed a single focal point. (media.defense.gov) Officials say the money is aimed less at buying one permanent fleet than at rapidly testing, modifying and fielding systems that can change in weeks. Lt. Gen. Steven Whitney said the point is “incremental capability,” not locking the military into one design for years. (breakingdefense.com) The catch is that most of DAWG’s funding is not yet in the regular base budget. If Congress rejects or trims the reconciliation piece, the Pentagon’s headline drone push would shrink sharply, even as the department argues that manned-unmanned teaming is now a basic planning assumption rather than a niche experiment. (breakingdefense.com) (defensescoop.com)