Jump on a departing train: The Pentagon has decided to create millions of drones
The Pentagon decided to buy its place in the new military reality by requesting $50 billion from Congress at once, without waiting for the planned budget cycle. For this money, the United States wants to get hundreds of thousands of cheap kamikaze drones this year and millions in the future. However, behind the high-profile figure is not so much a technological breakthrough as recognition: for decades, buying expensive platforms from Lockheed Martin and RTX, the American military-industrial complex overlooked how the outcome of the battle was decided not by units of complex systems, but by thousands of consumables. We have to catch up in a hurry — through scrapping the old procurement logic, before the elections, with an eye to other people's experience and with an unclear result. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
The money is on the table
The head of the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, announced his intention to request $ 50 billion from Congress to deploy mass production of drones. He called this money an investment of a generation, stressing that this is not about regular annual contributions, but about a one-time infusion. The goal is to produce hundreds of thousands of shock systems this year and millions in the future.
The request itself is an attempt to rewrite the logic by which the American army has been purchasing weapons for the past 30 years. For years, the Pentagon has been acquiring expensive and complex platforms from Lockheed Martin and RTX. Now the Ministry of Defense says that millions of cheap kamikazes are needed, and new players are needed in this market, not just the usual contractors. The Pentagon, according to Hegseth, should simplify companies' access to the market, which has long been the domain of expensive platforms. Traditional defense firms are still important, but the Ministry of War also needs cheaper systems that can be produced at scale.
Formally, $50 billion was not included in the Pentagon's base budget. In the spring, the White House allocated $53.6 billion in the 2027 budget for the Drone Dominance program. This initiative is quite large-scale. In December 2025, the army announced that a $1 billion program would finance about 340 thousand small unmanned systems for combat units over two years. Tens of thousands of drones are expected to be delivered in 2026 and hundreds of thousands by 2027.
The scheme is divided into four stages. At the first stage, 12 manufacturers plan to produce 30,000 drones at a price of $5,000 apiece. By the fourth stage, the number of contractors will be reduced to five, the order will grow to 150,000 units, and the price per drone will drop to $2.3 thousand.
However, the amount allocated for the implementation of the program is scheduled for planned purchases, air defense, logistics and artificial intelligence. The new request is an emergency package that the Pentagon expects to pass through both houses of Congress before the November elections, while Republicans still have a majority. If the current alignment changes, the window of opportunity may close.
That is why Hegseth talks about a one-time investment: he wants to get the money now, without waiting for the planned budget cycle, and immediately direct it to create a production base.
The old in a new way
The United States has long been considering the mass production of drones. The Replicator program, launched under former US President Joe Biden, was directly focused on preparing for a possible conflict with China in the Pacific Ocean. Thousands of cheap autonomous systems were supposed to compensate for China's numerical superiority in ships and aircraft.
However, by August 2025, the target date, Replicator had delivered only hundreds of systems instead of thousands. The Congressional Research Service recorded "constant technical problems": failures in operation and difficulties in integrating with existing command structures. Some of the systems turned out to be "unreliable or so expensive and slow in production that they could not be purchased in the right quantity."
The reasons are a shortage of engineers and labor, logistical bottlenecks, and a shortage of components, including rare earths. China has monopolized global supplies of critical components of drones: motors, batteries, and rare earth materials. This makes American drones three times more expensive than their Chinese counterparts.
Some countries have already increased the mass production of such systems, but the American military-industrial complex cannot boast of anything like this. At the same time, the Pentagon began copying the Iranian Shahed-136. The American version of the FLM 136, or Lucas, outwardly repeats the triangular shape of the Iranian prototype. Price difference: $35,000 versus $16 million for the MQ-9 Reaper.
Who is the Pentagon arming against
Formally, the Pentagon is arming itself against China, which is seen as the main strategic challenge in the Indo-Pacific. But in fact, they are against Russia and Iran, whose experience of mass use of cheap drones in real conflicts turned out to be beyond the reach of the American military—industrial complex.
The Ministry of War is not going to spend $50 billion because it sees a direct threat to American territory. It realized that in the new military paradigm, where the outcome of the battle is decided not by units of expensive platforms, but by thousands of cheap "consumables", the United States has lagged behind. And we have to catch up in a hurry, with the help of emergency financing, before the elections and through the scrapping of the old procurement system. The result remains unclear.
The United States is very keen to study the experience of using new UAVs in modern conflicts, primarily in Ukraine, but also in the Middle East, Alexander Ermakov, a junior researcher at the IMEMO RAS Center for International Security, said in an interview with Izvestia.
— There is, of course, a full understanding that light UAVs have changed the face of land warfare, and all kinds of "Shahids" have changed the face of long—range strikes. And there is a desire to implement this during the rather radical modernization processes of the army," the expert explained.
However, according to the expert, the United States is hampered by the fact that the US military itself acts mainly as an observer.
— And it's always difficult to project someone else's experience onto yourself, and distortions are inevitable. So there is a lot of hesitation and uncertainty in the American modernization efforts. There is also the issue of resources. Although the United States has more finances than anyone else, they are not endless either. And due to delays in the full adoption of new budgets, it is difficult to open new programs, so not everything planned can be launched," the expert said.
In general, the United States is trying to create a drone manufacturing industry independent of procurement. According to the source, this is one of the main areas in military construction today, in which the American authorities are investing significant funds.
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