Hearings to examine the American small drone industrial base.

...to examine both the state of our small drone industrial base and the path to American leadership in drone production. This issue has profound implications for both our warfighting readiness and our future prosperity. I'm not really sure Americans understand that fully yet. It's also part of our broader effort to rebuild the American arsenal. We're pleased to welcome three witnesses who are leading this effort with the department. Mr. Owen West, Senior Advisor for Drone Dominance, Mr. Travis Metz, the Drone Dominance Program Manager, and Major General Steven Marks, who is the Director of the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group. The war in Ukraine has forever changed the character of modern warfare and demonstrated the growing importance of small unmanned systems, what we colloquially call drones. In particular, so-called Group 1 drones are now central to reconnaissance, targeting, and strike missions. These drones weigh less than 20 pounds and are often purchased at low cost and in very large numbers. Both the American commercial drone industry and the Pentagon are years behind the curve in producing and employing drones. Catching up is as necessary as it is difficult, but I believe we're finally on the cusp of charting a future for American drone dominance. To understand why we're so far behind, we must first acknowledge how we arrived here today. The Chinese Communist Party correctly predicted that small drones would be a crucial technology for both military and commercial use, particularly in agriculture and other large-scale industrial efforts. China used state subsidies in the tens of billions of dollars, predatory pricing practices, and state-directed control of key supply chains to capture more than 90 percent of the global non-military small drone market. American drone companies were essentially forced out of the global market. Diminished commercial demand made American drones far more expensive than Chinese drones, anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive. This poses a difficult problem for U.S. military units and U.S. industries who require cheap drones but cannot buy from Chinese companies for fear of supply chain or software vulnerabilities. As we've seen in the critical minerals and rare earths industry, fighting back against 21st century economic warfare like this requires creative solutions and thoughtful industrial policy. The United States is poised today to enact both. Last year's defense reconciliation law set aside $2.5 billion to procure a range of small drones. Just over $1 billion of that sum will be used specifically to purchase very small Group 1 first-person view drones. Our witnesses will discuss the competition process for this investment. At least it is hoped that we would. I hope they'll also discuss our strategic use of loans to help industry rebuild supply chains quickly. We expect this will deliver 300,000 drones by next year. This steady demand signal, which must be continued for quite a few years, will serve as the anchor for America and her allies as we constitute our supply chains. So we'll see what our witnesses say about that. Investment is just the first step. The free world must band together to stop rewarding China's predatory practices in the small drone industry, and they should have been no surprise. Congress has taken important steps to address these concerns. The key example is Section 1709 of the FY25 NDAA, championed by Senator Rick Scott. This provision essentially banned the leading Chinese state-sponsored drone companies from selling in the United States. The Trump administration, led by FCC Chair Brendan Carr, implemented this law just before Christmas last year. Success will require sustained attention to the supply chain across its full range of components. We took action to address this in fiscal year 2026 NDAA. We directed the Pentagon to establish a working group to assess our small drone industrial base capacity. That group will then be asked to develop recommendations to strengthen the industry. I anticipate there will be work across the country to support this effort, from new drone designs coming from Oklahoma and California to component manufacturing in New Hampshire and Florida. I welcome Major General Marks' testimony as the Director of the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, or the DAWG, which is the correct pronunciation of the word in Mississippi, DAWG. While the drone dominance efforts focus on smaller Group 1 first-person view drones, the DAWG will lead on larger one-way attack drones and small unmanned boats. Just a few days ago, America used one-way attack drones for the first time in combat in Ar-Rayyan with Task Force Scorpion firing the Locus drone, a reverse-engineered Shahed-136. I welcome the General's comments on what he plans to do to jumpstart these new areas of weapons with the significant funding we provided for the DAWG in reconciliation. It is an absolute imperative that we make a game-changing investment in the next few months on low-cost munitions to complement our exquisite munitions. The American drone industry is essentially starting from near zero, but today we are on a path to a strong drone industry that can support American military and commercial demand thanks to a steady demand signal, thoughtful industrial policy, and close coordination with our allies and partners. But we are looking to this panel today for leadership and insight. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about the department's plan to support this vital work, and I also look forward to hearing from my colleague and friend, Ranking Member Reed, who is recognized.

Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the witnesses for appearing here today and to discuss the Department of Defense drone dominance program. The modern battlefield has evolved dramatically, and that's an understatement, and small unmanned aerial systems, or SUAS, have become a defining feature of warfare. As we sit here today, the United States is engaged in major combat operations against Iran. Over the past several days, American forces operating alongside Israel have conducted thousands of strikes against Iran, including the deployment of hundreds of one-way attack drones. Iran has retaliated with strikes across the region, including its own drone attacks that have resulted in American casualties. The data from Ukraine is even more sobering. More than half of all casualties on the battlefield are now attributed to UAS. What originated as a commercial technology has become a decisive military capability, and we must ensure the United States is not caught flat-footed. I appreciate the department's recognition of this strategic imperative. The commitment of significant funding for the drone dominance program represents an investment in building both capability and capacity. The goal of fielding hundreds of thousands of combat-ready drones by 2027 is ambitious, and I would like to understand how the department intends to achieve it. I have several questions about the program. First, in June 2025, the President issued an executive order on drone dominance which directed the Secretary of Defense to submit a report within 90 days identifying programs that could be more cost-effective or lethal if replaced by unmanned systems. I would like to know whether the report was submitted and, if so, what insights it provided to inform the drone dominance program. Second, I would ask our witnesses to explain how the various service initiatives align with the broader department strategy and how any drone dominance program would transition to service management. Third, the requirement to eliminate Chinese subcomponents from the industry may prove technically challenging. China dominates not just finished drone systems but critical components like motors and batteries. I would like to know the department's assessment of American and allied supply capacity to meet this requirement and at the intended scale and price point. Finally, the committee established a small SUAS industrial base working group precisely because we recognized the need for strategic coordination. There are a number of programs and significant funding commitments underway, and I would ask the witnesses to explain how the working group is informing your approach. Is the department building genuine industrial capacity, or are we creating demand that will outstrip supply? The stakes are clear. Our potential adversaries are not waiting, and neither should we, but speed cannot come at the expense of strategic coherence. This committee wants the drone dominance program to succeed, which is why we need direct answers about the challenges, risks, and path forward. And I look forward to your testimony and thank you for your service to our nation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. We will now begin with statements. Who would like to go first? Mr. West, you are recognized for five minutes or so.

Yes, sir. Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Reed, and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today, along with Travis Metz, the Program Manager of Drone Dominance, and my collegiate classmate, Major General Marks of the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group. We're here to testify about the department's urgent effort to arm our troops with lethal drone technology that has proliferated across the world. I want to thank this committee for its interest in small drones. Drones are the most significant battlefield innovation in generations. In Ukraine, as the two Senators just said, low-cost drones account for a staggering proportion of the casualties. In Iran, Colombia, Israel, to Thailand and Cambodia, this weapon system has altered the order of battle. Seeing this change several years ago, our adversaries today produce these systems by the millions at low cost. For too long, the United States was hindered by self-imposed restrictions and bureaucratic red tape while our adversaries surged ahead. As Secretary Hegseth has stated, our major risk here is risk aversion. President Trump, Secretary Hegseth, and Congress have together ended this era of hesitation. The President's executive order unleashing American drone dominance established a mandate to strengthen our domestic drone industrial base and deliver capabilities to our troops. Secretary Hegseth translated the President's directive into decisive action by unleashing U.S. military drone dominance, a memorandum in July of 2025. The department's mission under this directive is threefold. First, bolster the domestic manufacturing base. Second, arm our combat units and train as we expect to fight. And third, power a technological leapfrog. Via reconciliation funding that sat atop clear acquisition reform guidance, Congress set drone dominance in motion. The program operationalizes these directives to ensure our warfighters are swiftly armed to fight on the modern battlefield. We are partnering with the Test Resource Management Center and Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division to execute this program and are working with our teammates, including DCMA, the Defense Contract Management Agency, and the DAWG, to integrate capabilities into the department. We are leveraging America's world-leading engineers, entrepreneurs, and capital markets to buy competitively, at scale, and without delay. We are prioritizing Buy American to expand this nascent but vital domestic industry. Military operators are the designers and the judges to ensure drone capabilities deliver for the warfighters. The department is in debt to this committee and Congress for recognizing the importance of this issue and providing us the authorities and resourcing required to rapidly deliver combat power. I look forward to your questions. Thank you.

Mr. Metz.

Thank you, Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Reed, and the members of this committee for inviting me to speak with you today. I joined the department last summer and have been working with Mr. West on the drone dominance program ever since. We've worked closely with the Defense Autonomous Working Group, represented here today by Major General Marks, on the drone dominance program. I bring long experience as a venture capitalist and entrepreneur, and I am committed to bringing that commercial mindset to the drone dominance program, incorporating market-based practices to incentivize the industrial base to deliver high-performance small drones at scale to the warfighter at a wartime pace. The drone dominance program is the engine to unleash the American small drone industrial base. It has two goals. First, scale U.S. supply chains for small drones, thereby reducing the cost of acquisition. And second, supply significant quantities of those drones to the military services now to help fast-forward their integration. We've committed $1.1 billion over the next 18 months to purchase drone systems. Consistent with Secretary Hicks' mandate on acquisition reform, we are no longer buying based on paper requirements. Rather, we are buying at scale based on live evaluation by the military services. I spent most of the last two weeks at Fort Benning, where we kicked off our four-phase program. We invited 25 drone vendors to compete with their drones in a test process that was executed and scored by military operators. That competition ended last Sunday, and we will be announcing and placing orders with the winning vendors over the next few days. The winners will be given orders for a total of 30,000 small one-way attack drones, which will be delivered to military units over the next five months. We will then run three more cycles of this on a six-month calendar, raising quantities, lowering prices, and evaluating against more difficult mission tests. There are two distinct aspects that are key to the program's success. First, it incorporates a clear demand signal to the industry for the next 18 months. We have posted quantities and prices up front, removing the valley of death by promising that if your system performs well, we will buy your units. Second, we are ensuring that the warfighter is at the center of that process. We have removed the bureaucratic filter. Warfighters, who are the end users, will be the primary evaluators. They will score systems based on ease of use and lethality in real time. The drone dominance program is a case study for how the department can acquire at the speed of relevance. We're using actual purchases and the entrepreneurial spirit and capital of American industry to drive unit prices down while scaling production volumes up, ensuring that our forces have the quantity of consumable drones required for modern conflict. Thank you for the funding to accomplish this. With your continued support for acquisition reform and sustained funding, we will ensure that the American warfighter never enters a fair fight. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, Mr. Metz. Major General Marks.

Thank you, Senator. Mr. Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Reed, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I am here to discuss how the Defense Autonomous Warfighter Group, what we call the DOG, is leveraging the critical reconciliation funding and expanded acquisition authorities you provided to prove out a new way of warfare. I am pleased to be joined today by other essential partners in this department-wide effort. The character of warfare has fundamentally changed. As we are seeing play out in Ukraine and in the Middle East, autonomous systems are no longer emerging. They are a reality on the battlefield. Our adversaries understand this. They are not just buying new technology, they are creating entirely new organizations to master it. A potent example is open-source reporting on Russia's Rubicon unit. This is not just a new drone squadron. It is a fundamentally new command structure built outside of conventional doctrine to hunt and neutralize high-value targets with devastating speed and effect. The lesson is clear. The decisive advantage in this new era of autonomy comes from organizing to employ technology with focus and agility. The DOG was established to unify the department's efforts. Its mission is to work across the joint force to synchronize operational demand with technical innovation and industrial capacity. What makes this model work is how we execute it. We have collapsed the distance between the warfighter and the developer. We have hand-selected experts, so engineers are working side-by-side with operators at the tactical edge, solving operational problems in real time. This ensures that the capabilities we develop are informed directly by battlefield needs and that we remain responsible stewards of taxpayers' dollars. This model is working. We are accelerating timelines and delivering capabilities through initiatives like drone dominance. Our objective is clear: to provide our warfighters with the tools to dominate the battlefield, deter our adversaries, and if necessary, defeat them. The security of our nation depends on it. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you very much. Mr. West, we'll start with you. There's $1.1 billion for small drone industrial base. Where are we going to get the money for group two, the larger drones, whose industrial base needs are more complex and of course more expensive?

And Senator, your question was where are we going to get the money?

Right. Well, you're looking at them, but so what's the plan though?

So...

Are we going to get it from the American taxpayer, of course, yes. And it'll be money well spent if you do your work right, yes.

It's an important question because the question is really about integration and the POMs and budgeting for the future. We're singularly focused in this effort in the group one space and our goal, if you stepping back, if we listen to our four-star testimony from last spring's posture hearings, our four-star commanders acknowledged that they didn't have enough as a proportion of their spend on unmanned systems. And the basic problem they identified was price. We were paying $30,000 or $40,000 for this small group one 10-inch UAS where our adversaries pay about $500. So our goal here is to get this price down so we can scale group one. Group one. But this does this is a spectrum, so many of the components found in group one, batteries, motors, ISR technologies, are directly relevant to group two and the bigger ones.

Well, let's compare China's arsenal to the group one and group two. Where are they and when do you think when do you think we'll get started or need to get started on group two? First thing, Chinese.

Senator, I'm, you know, highly informed on group one because this has been our effort. Group two, however, if we look at some of the other systems, I will say that what we're establishing here is a framework. And I can turn this over to Travis where if moneys were to flow into the system, we can apply these to the drone dominance competition specs and we aspire to do the same thing at group two as we will with group one.

Okay. So your expertise is on group one and we need to have a later hearing on group two perhaps.

We definitely need we need all all layers of systems, Senator.

How soon?

As soon as we can get them. Right now with drone dominance, we're moving we're moving so fast that we're getting many complaints that Travis is has run over. But we aspire by August we're already starting to operationally field some of the group ones as a result of our first gauntlet.

Okay, well let me ask about that, Mr. Metz, because in your testimony you said the warfighters are going to be the ultimate test experts. Where where do you anticipate doing this? In real combat or in a warfighting training or in theater?

Yes, sir. Thank you for the question. So the event that we just finished running at Fort Benning on Sunday ran 14 days. We had approximately 100 members of our uniformed services, so primarily from the Army, the Marines, and from various units in SOCOM, who both operated the drones that were being evaluated and had before the program before the event kicked off had helped us set up the actual mission tests. So the way that we evaluated the drones was through performance in missions that replicated the anticipated use of the drones in combat. The scoring for the systems, the scoring against both the mission performance, so sending a drone out 10 kilometers and hitting a target for instance, into the into the Georgia forest, the beautiful Georgia forest, was scored by the military operators and then separately we asked all of the military operators, so again Army, SOCOM, Marines, to evaluate the performance of the drones based on whether or not they would take it to war. And we are buying based on those criteria starting, you know, time now.

And I wonder why after years of war, I wonder why Ukraine is still having to get so many Chinese drones.

Sir, the Ukrainians are moving very quickly to try to also extract themselves from Chinese supply chains. That is, you know, evidence, more evidence than we could possibly need that we have to do the same.

Thank you very much. More questions later. Senator Reed.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Again, gentlemen, thank you. Let me first commend you on the Fort Benning tests. That's I think exactly the right way to do things. And together with your input from industrial and a strategic standpoint, getting the troops to tell you what they need is is very good. So let me commend you. We created in last year's NDAA a small UAS working group. Can you give me the status, Mr. West, of that group now or General Marks?

Yes, sir. We have the director sitting to my right.

That's the DOG?

That is the DOG.

Thank you, Senator. Appreciate the question.

I just want to get everything coordinated here.

It is sometimes confusing.

Well, it is, but thank you. One of the things that we're doing now is reacting to the immediate crisis that we're seeing in our supplies, etc., but the pace of change is so rapid. We have to start thinking ahead and I hope you are of systems which are almost completely autonomous. Infantrymen are not there, but the systems there. Are we doing any of that work like trying to leap ahead of the bad guys rather than just match them?

So Senator, thank you. Yes, sir. Going back to your first question on the NDAA 26, section 914. So the small UAS industrial working group is chaired by the Deputy Secretary of War and then I am the director of that board. We've built cross-functional teams, reps from Defense Innovation Unit, the industrial base policy, the economic defense unit, and then the office of strategic capital. We are due to provide a briefing to the Deputy Secretary of War by the end of this month in order to have the report back to the defense committees by 1 April.

Thank you. Clarifies it. But to the point of are we looking ahead and have a parallel sort of what do we need three years or three months from now, Mr. West? Or General, to you.

Senator, you have identified what it will take for us to perform the technological leapfrog that Secretary Hegseth has initiated. The United States has the best AI scientists in the world. And you're also correct that the rate of change on the battlefield is astonishing. So I can turn it over to Travis to talk about the iterative process. You know, we're now at a competition every six months. There's the potential to shrink that window, but what we want to do is get to that rate of change ultimately by the second or third competition, plow in autonomy, so that by 2027, we have operational, lethal drones that are capable of dominating on any battlefield.

Mr. Metz, please.

Yes, sir. As Mr. West mentioned, we're running these competitions every six months. So phase two will kick off in August of this year. The missions that are designed at each of these competitions will increase in difficulty, primarily to increase in difficulty and go up in terms of volumes and go down in terms of prices. The difficulty of the missions, in particular for phase two, will require the drone companies to start to build out the technology that reduces the sort of cognitive load on the pilots and deals with the fact that the warfare, the battlefield for drones, is very complex in terms of the electronic warfare elements. So drones that are starting to build out the capabilities to do things where the pilot doesn't have to fly it, you know, instant time now, is a critical part of our phase two.

No, I absolutely ... one aspect of this which has to be considered is command and control. If you've got a lot of autonomous systems out there, there's an increased chance for miscalculation. So what are you doing? Because that requires more than just buying a piece of equipment from a drone manufacturer, it's integrating it into the command and control system. You have 28 seconds, Mr. Metz.

Yes, sir. A topic that requires 28 hours, I think. The operators are on the loop on this 100 percent of the time. We've integrated the office of the General Counsel to make sure that every step along the way here we address the laws of armed conflict and all the other laws that we impose quite properly on ourselves to make sure that we have full control of these systems.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Reed. Senator Fischer.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. West, obviously these drones are only going to be useful if our service members are prepared to use them. So how's the department incorporating unmanned warfare into the combat training of our troops as they're preparing logistically and operationally how to face the realities of fighting with these drones?

Senator, it's a terrific question and I'd like General Marks to weigh in as well, but you know, we are going to start to deliver small drones in volumes that will require the services to establish training hubs, schooling, and obviously there are doctrinal changes that are already underway. So the question as bureaucrats that we have is to how do we ensure that there's sustainment for the drones and that we aren't ... we're delivering the drones that the services want to use in combat and that the services are prepared to absorb and inhale. And I think General Marks will have better expertise than I do on this.

General. Thank you, Senator, for the question. So drone dominance powered by the DOG insights ensures that systems we procure meet warfighter demands. So the DOG connects those capabilities to operational and service modernization efforts. So we have to be tied at the hip with the services and sharpening that tip of the joint force spear. We, through the DOG efforts, what we do is have the operators working with the engineers, working with the acquisition professionals, and they run it through the systems through their paces, stress testing every step of the way. Ultimately, they will develop the doctrine for employing these systems and then it will be required by the services to train the larger force.

How quickly do you think you can get the drones out to these men and women? Mr. Metz.

Senator, for phase one of the drone dominance program on the small UAS, we'll be delivering drones this month.

General Marks, how's the department coordinating efforts to make sure that we don't just have the offensive drone capabilities, but how are we going to be able to train and be able to field the counter-drone systems as well? I'm sure you have plans for that.

Thank you, Senator. Well, actually, we focus in the DOG on the offensive side of the house, where the JCO, the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office, led by Major General Sean Gainey, is the one that's working on the counter-UAS and working through the development and then also the training piece of that capability.

The drones that you were working on now though, they can be used both offensively and defensively, right?

Yes, ma'am. Many of the counter strategies that we're seeing evolve across battlefields around the world are using small drones as a kinetic force as a counter. In our phase two in August, where we intend to buy another 50,000 or 60,000 drones, the Joint Interagency Task Force 401 that General Marks mentioned, which is coordinating the counter-UAS strategies inside the department, will be part of that gauntlet attempting to knock down all the drones that our company, our vendors, are actually putting up in the air. And the ambition is to iterate jointly with them as we go forward with the program.

Mr. West, were you going to add anything to that?

No, Travis was my college coxswain, so he usually does the talking and I do the rowing.

That's not what I heard. As you look at Ukraine, and obviously they've shown all of us how war's changing, but as you're looking at their experience in manufacturing drones, how are you incorporating that? Whoever wants it.

I appreciate the question, Senator. So the goal of the drone dominance program fundamentally is to build a U.S. industry around small drones. Today, the best drones in the world in terms of battlefield capacity and in terms of their scalability at the manufacturing level are in Ukraine. And so, recognizing my time's about to run out, one of the ... we can speak more about this, but one of the goals of the program was to convince some of the most sophisticated drone companies in the world to bring manufacturing here so that we have the benefit for the warfighters of the best systems at scale.

And have you convinced them?

With your demand signal. So we have, you know, we're going to place orders and those orders bring ... are bringing these companies to the U.S. to manufacture in the U.S.

Thank you.

Senator Shaheen.

Well, thank you. I'd like to follow up on Senator Fischer's point and the issue that both Senators Wicker and Reed raised in their opening statement about the efforts in Ukraine. Senator Blumenthal and I were in Odessa about two weeks ago, and we were in a room that was about a sixth of the size of this room, and it was filled with drones. This is an example of a couple of those. They were ranging in size, as you can see, from very small, you know, maybe a square foot, to quite large, the size of a snowblower. And we asked who's making those drones and are any of them coming from the U.S.? And they said no. And we said why? Because what the U.S. is doing costs too much and it's not technologically advanced enough. And that was troubling, but what was even more troubling was to hear from virtually ... as part of that trip, I also visited several countries in Eastern Europe, and virtually every member of our military who briefed us said that we are ... we do not have anyone in Ukraine taking advantage of the technological advancements that are happening there. And that Ukraine is become ... and I said this to Bridge Colby earlier this week in testimony, I said what we heard was that Ukraine had become a bad word in the Pentagon. So you're talking about six months as being expedited scheduling. What they were talking about in Ukraine was iterating those drones every two weeks because of warfare. I don't know how we think we're going to compete if we're talking about an every six months schedule and we're looking at our adversaries who are iterating on a weekly basis. And I applaud the effort that's underway, the drone dominance program, I voted for that in the NDAA, I thought it was important, but it doesn't feel to me like there is a sense of urgency about what our challenge is. So I'd like for you to respond to that.

Senator, we feel that same sense of urgency. You know, we are morally committed to this effort. I'd like Travis to discuss the results at Banning.

So why aren't we taking advantage of the technological advancements that the Ukrainians have made? I noticed that Prime Minister Starmer has asked them to help with what's going on in the Middle East right now. Why are we not trying to take more advantage of that?

Senator, we are. We specifically built a framework and invited the best Ukrainian FPV drone companies in the world to come to our competition on the basis that their battlefield technology is proven and they have proven they know how to scale. In the long term, the commitment from those businesses is to relocate so the core manufacturing to the U.S. Those drone companies came to the competition and a few of them are likely to get orders.

Right, I saw that two of them have been down-selected for phase one, I understand that. But again, I find it troubling that our service members who are in the region don't seem to have the understanding that we are really interested in what's going on there and are trying to get that information. I want to switch to another question because the U.S. market has only one company that produces drone propulsion motors and that's ePropelled in Laconia, New Hampshire. It's one of the most glaring deficits in our domestic market, as I'm sure you all know. And the fact that it only exists in New Hampshire right now is one of the keys to ensuring that we can do the drone build-out that we need to do. Many of our defense suppliers in New Hampshire have benefited from the submarine supplier development funding through the Navy and the maritime industrial base context. So can you share whether the department is thinking about supporting capital investments that can help companies like ePropelled as they're looking at the investments they need to make in order to build out the supply chain that we're going to need?

Thank you, Senator, for the question. I've met multiple times with Nick, the CEO of ePropelled. I think it is a wonderful example of where we are heading. He is building brushless motors in New Hampshire and he is a supplier to a number of the drone companies that will be receiving orders from this, and I do think that he is a candidate for both continued demand signal from us and further support from the Department of War.

So I'm out of time, but if you could speak to the help that we might be able to provide small businesses for investments that we're going to need in order to build out, that would be appreciated.

Go ahead and do that. Go ahead and do that.

So Senator, one of the things that we hope to shine a light on are supply chain constraints and two of our colleagues in the department stand at the ready, the Office of Strategic Capital and IBAS, to do direct lending to firms like ePropelled. We first met Nick months ago and this is a great example of an American small business that's going to get ready to scale on behalf of our defense.

And we are going to be able to help some of those small companies as they look at what they need to do to build out.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

IBAS stands for...

Industrial Base... Senator, I'm going to have to defer. My IBAS colleagues are behind me and there's so many acronyms as I've returned to the Pentagon, I'm going to struggle with.

You know there are a lot of acronyms.

But they are a terrific unit that stands at the ready to lend and they have incredible and deep expertise specifically in batteries, motors.

Shall members, shall we put Senator Shaheen's photograph in the record? Is there objection? Without objection, so ordered. Senator Rounds.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, thank you for the discussion so far and I think it's very, very appropriate that we do it at this time. Several years ago, I met a gentleman by the name of John Antal who wrote a book called Seven Seconds to Die with regard to the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 and the use of drones at that time by Azerbaijan to literally take out over 1,000 pieces of equipment in about a 43-day period of time. It was the beginning of the end of Armenia being able to control a section between the two countries called Nagorno-Karabakh. In it, he laid out just exactly how effective five years ago the use of drones had become and with it, he talked about the ability for those drones to operate almost independently and laid out the guidelines for what we consider to be a human-in-the-loop or a human-over-the-loop with regard to the autonomous use of those drones. He wrote a second book detailing the Ukrainian war and in it called Next War, in which he identified the advanced use of drones and what they were doing. And in fact, he made very clear in it that the advancements made were substantial. I think we are behind in our application of some types of drones, particularly the type one drones, the small, less expensive drones. And yet, it is dominating the battlefield in Ukraine today. But I'd like to talk just a little bit in terms of the speed at which drones are being incorporated into the day-to-day activities and how fast we have to be able to update them. Senator Shaheen mentioned it and I think it's critical that we impress that we need drones that are almost modular. Mr. Metz, can you talk a little bit about the focus moving forward in terms of what might be effective today, may within a two-week period of time on the battlefield be ineffective and how that happens?

Thank you, Senator, I appreciate that question. One of the goals of the program is to make sure that we scale the actual physical manufacturing of the systems, but the technology stacks that are increasingly integrated into the systems, as you correctly pointed out, need to be on a rhythm that is far faster than the six months for the physical drones. And they are. So we will have tech stacks inside of these systems that honestly often may have models retrained on a nightly or weekly basis. I'm a deep optimist around the capabilities of the U.S. entrepreneur class around those technology stacks and we saw that at Fort Benning this week. Some of the ability to on the fly modify the systems that were helping the soldiers hit these targets out 10 kilometers. And I mentioned it before, in particular because of the nature of the Georgia forest, which is a very difficult RF environment. But the ability of these companies on the fly to manage the technology was impressive and I think it...

Well, let's just talk about that a little bit. This is a good way to gather public support for the need to move as rapidly as possible. You're talking about a drone that may very well be radio-controlled and I think that's what most people think they are is radio-controlled. But it doesn't take long for an adversary to figure out a way to stop that communication. So you can move to a different frequency perhaps, you can change from frequency to frequency and you can become advanced in doing that. But at some stage of the game, the adversary has already figured out how to stop that. So the next step on the line and what many of them use right now is a fiber optic line. Can you talk a little bit about what's happening in that regard?

Yes, sir. We in fact tested fiber optic drones at Fort Benning last week. They performed well. They, as you well point out, they help you manage a complex RF environment. That's just one strategy amongst many to manage the complicated sort of comms and RF environment. One of the key principles of the framework that we've set up for phase one and going forward is we are, our goal is not to tell industry how to solve the problem. Our goal is to set up battle-realistic missions on which to test the drones and then ask industry to solve those problems. Even in phase one, the one that we just ran, we saw multiple different strategies for solving the EW problem. So fiber optics, some automated target recognition for the last 100 meters, things like that.

And then finally, any of these drones will have to be utilizable, operable by our young men and women in the battlefield, not just one expert in a particular area, but the vast majority of our young men and women are going to have to be trained on how to use these if they're in the front lines, right?

Yes, sir. And Mr. West talked about this before. One of the keys for the testing that we did at Fort Benning was it was not, these were being tested by our operators given a total of two hours of training on each drone system. Now they are experienced operators, but they had not seen most of these systems before. That is a proxy for are these drones capable of being used by our Marines, our soldiers, and our other service members.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much. Senator Blumenthal.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding this hearing on such a really critical topic. Thank all of you for being here today and I respect the work that you're doing. I must say I share Senator Shaheen's sense of urgency and impatience having made nine trips to Ukraine in the last four years and having watched their drone industry grow literally in real time while we were watching and they're showing us what they are doing in response to what they're hearing and seeing on the battlefield and then visiting one of their forward detection positions on the Black Sea in Odessa and having that picture and we have more pictures which we can put in the record of all the variations of drones that they are seeing from their adversaries and that they are doing themselves literally again in real time. I wonder whether the scope of our efforts here matches the challenge that this nation faces. A billion dollars, even two billion dollars, seems totally inadequate to what is necessary. Ukraine is spending multiples of that amount. Obviously they're at war. They have support from our industry and I wonder if you could just comment on whether you think the scale and magnitude of our efforts is adequate to match the challenges that we have. I don't know whether that's a question for Mr. West or for one of the other witnesses, Mr. Metz.

Senator, it is our obligation to learn as much as we can from the Ukrainian battlefield.

Have you been to Ukraine?

Sir, I was there twice in 2018 but not since the war kicked off.

Have you been, Mr. Metz?

No, sir, I have not.

I don't know how you can run this program without having visited Ukraine. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but it is absolutely true. You know, I'm not a drone expert, but I will tell you to walk through the assembly line of their drone manufacturing facility as I've done on a number of occasions and watching how they have grown their industry and how they're thinking about unmanned aerial and undersea warfare now. There are a number of, I know you're talking to American entrepreneurs. Have you talked to Eric Schmidt?

Senator, I think Mr. Metz is well-positioned to answer your question. It's very important before he does and talks about how we've incorporated the top Ukrainian drone companies in this competition, I would like to say that the United States companies performed very well. I think it's fair to say they outperformed our expectations, not having been tested many of them on a live battlefield. But Travis, can you go over exactly how we plan to incorporate exactly what the Senator's talking about?

Yeah, so I would like to go to Ukraine. Many members of the team that is helping me run the drone dominance program have been to Ukraine to evaluate the range of drones. I have talked to Mr. Schmidt and many members of his team about their experiences on the battlefield in Ukraine and we do not disagree with you about the need to bring the best drone technology in the world tested on the battlefield to the U.S. warfighter. Many of the U.S. companies that are now competing in our program have in fact been to Ukraine to test their product, Mr. Schmidt being a good example of that. But we also have some of the largest Ukrainian, the successful, the companies in Ukraine that have successfully iterated to scale, they are competing in this program. So I feel that we do have the benefit of the technology advancements that they have perpetuated on the battlefield.

Well, I'm glad to hear that, but I have to say with all good intentions and you have not only intentions but you have the intellectual and expertise and other capacity, I don't doubt yours, I question whether our country is sufficiently committed. And the magnitude of this effort, I think has to be on the scale and scope of what we did with nuclear arms when we were behind in that area of warfare or what we did in space exploration. I think it will take really an effort on a scale that we haven't matched so far. My time has expired. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Senator Blumenthal. Senator Hirono.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Metz, while much of the focus has been on accelerated procurement and deployment of small drones, an equally important but less discussed issue is the need to develop a comprehensive plan for how we sustain these systems. And as you know, on average about 70 percent of a weapons system's total life cycle cost is sustainment, including the logistics, maintenance, storage, training, and software updates to remain operational. How are you thinking about sustainment issues from your position at DOD and are you coordinating with the military services to ensure that they are developing long-term sustainment plans for these new systems? So if we're looking to procure or have, what is it, a goal of 300,000 drones, where are they all going to be stored? How long will they be stored? Do they become obsolete? Have you, what is the thinking about those issues?

Thank you, Senator. It's an excellent question. So one of the key things to have in mind about these systems is that they are intended to be attritable, consumable systems. So we would expect the vast bulk of the systems that we're delivering as part of the drone dominance program to be used in realistic training exercises by the members of the military. We think the volume required for appropriate training is in the hundreds of thousands per year to consume. The U.S. Army, the U.S. Marine Corps, and various units of SOCOM are deeply integrated into the drone dominance program, meaning members of the key positions in each of those services was at the Fort Benning event with a goal of developing the sustainment plans in both the short term and the medium term. So in the short term, we will be delivering drones starting this month to roughly 17 different military units and there is a plan in place across each of those for those drones to be used in realistic training exercises. In the long term, those same military service departments will be developing their own TTPs and other doctrine to be able to sustain the drones. But we don't expect them to sit on the shelf for very long.

What's very long? To be used within a year?

Months.

Months. So where are these drones to be used? Are you expecting most of them are going to be used in the war with Iran?

In the short term, I would expect most of the small one-way attack drones that we're developing to be used in actual live training exercises from the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marines.

So we're going to be using these drones for live training exercises, so these are not in actual conflict situations. They're going to be using actual drones for exercises.

Senator, I assume if there was a need to use these particular types of weaponized drones in combat, they would be used that way as well.

Yes, I understand that, but the only place where as far as I know we're in conflict right now is Iran. For you again, a contingency in the Indo-Pacific will stress drone capabilities and present specific challenges, including the vast distances associated with this AOR. So in the testing that you did at Fort Benning, was there somebody from INDOPACOM at those tests or will they be there since you obviously need to make sure that the drones that you are developing are going to be used in the various AORs? And I would say INDOPACOM presents particular challenges of distance, etc.

Senator, I think the challenges of the distances in the INDOPACOM region mean that many of the drone platforms that we're testing, the first-person drones, don't apply for many of the missions. I think Major General Marks might be better positioned to answer that question.

Thank you, Senator.

General Marks, in particular, I do want to mention that Admiral Paparo has seen the usefulness of drones in his AOR and he also had mentioned using 3D printers to create these drones. Have you been in discussions with Admiral Paparo?

Actually, yes, Senator, not me personally, but attended his commander's conference last week. That was one of the topics that we discussed. I think we have to look at drones or one-way attack platforms that can go a lot further than what we currently are designing. For the DOG effort, I would appreciate and be happy to engage with you and the committee in a classified setting.

The Marine Corps recently developed its first 3D printing drone program. And I do note that Mr. West, you mentioned that the cost of the drone in U.S. is 10,000 versus 500. I hope that we are rapidly decreasing the cost for acquire the million drones that is one of our goals in a number of years. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Marks, it is correct that you and Admiral Paparo are exactly of the same page on this issue of drones. Is that correct?

That is correct, Senator.

Thank you very much. Senator Budd.

Thank you, Chairman. Fascinating subject, appreciate you all being here, very insightful. Mr. West, let's talk about China and drone supply chains, if you will. You know, I've met CEOs who say they can't buy brushless motors or IR cameras from non-Chinese company at scale. So how do we best address this supply chain vulnerability and are there any other common components that are hard to find outside of China?

Thank you, Senator. I'll let Mr. Metz address our off-ramp on-ramp, which is the key to your question.

He seemed most excited to answer the question, so thank you. But go ahead, please.

But he is excited because he's deep on this. And the basic question is, first of all, the NDAA has strict rules over the seven-odd critical components that may not come from covered countries. But like so many of our weapons systems, many of the sub-components that you're addressing do today come from China. So as we try to scale, we are balancing trying to onshore all of these components. We mentioned a company called E-Propel in New Hampshire that is making brushless motors here. As we come up and set...

Let me just jump in on that, is that at scale? They're able to make them at scale?

No, but they will. The demand signal we're providing is giving them orders time now that will cause them to be able to bring in further capital and scale their manufacturing.

Thank you. Mr. West, did you have additional thoughts? Okay, great, thank you. Mr. West, are there any non-traditional funding methods that you're considering to increase production as well as ensure supply chain independence? For example, the Office of Strategic Capital's credit financing or the Defense Production Act Title III, Mr. West.

Yes, sir, both the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment Division and the Office of Strategic Capital stand ready to act as soon as the supply chain constraints are illuminated as a result of having this largest order ever in Group One. This will stress our domestic supply chain as you outlined and will illuminate where they can come in for things like direct lending and other support invoking their authorities.

Thanks for that. Mr. Metz, what specific requirements has your program established to ensure that our drones can operate in a GPS-denied environment? And will these be department-wide or service-driven requirements?

Senator, we're running a joint acquisition program that will in Phase Two, which begins this August, be testing drones against a full counter-UAS environment. So denial of GNSS, denial of comms in many different formats. We are not being prescriptive with the companies about how they solve those challenges because we want the entrepreneurs both that we're bringing in from outside of the United States and the entrepreneurs in the U.S. to innovate across those particular problems. But the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, which is the group inside of the Pentagon that's tasked with coordinating all of our counter-UAS efforts, will be a core partner in August and their goal is to knock down all the drones.

Thank you. Mr. West or all three of you, how are you ensuring that the department and the individual services are working together and efficiently and not duplicating efforts to boost small UAS production? It seems like every in open sources I read every week or so there's a new effort, a new program, a new department working on this issue. How do we make sure we're not duplicating effort?

Senator, there are two components to this. At the top, we're connected with the general officers and I can talk let General Marks address this aspect in terms of their sustainment plans and their doctrinal changes. At the grassroots, we've collected the best operators from across the joint force. They all know one another. These pilots are all as obsessed as we are at getting United States capabilities in this Group One up and at the very top of the globe on any battlefield. And so there's a natural integration that's taken place. But the bottom line is because of your reconciliation funding, we've been able to apply this in a very specific group and centralize this to depress these prices to ultimately get the services the drones that they want.

So Senator, thank you for the question. So we have in DOG, the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, have trained service members from all the services and work directly with the forward commands to show them how we've come up against problems and how we are developing different techniques, tactics, and procedures to actually operate the systems. So we are working with all the services on this.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Senator Budd. Senator King and then Senator Scott.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like to see a chart of number of units produced per month and price from the Ukrainian industry versus what we're projecting. You mention that there have been, you put out effectively a bid with a proposed price. I want to see the numbers. And if you could give, can you give us that off the top of your head? What are the how many of the are the Ukrainians producing a month and what do they cost versus what are we projecting for this section one production that you're now bidding?

Yes, Senator. And if you'll indulge me, it's an honor to take a question from you. I grew up in Pittston, Maine, on the banks of the mighty Kennebec River. Wow. Also a fellow Sugarloafer and also have sat next to you at the Bag and Kettle restaurant. Well, home of the best burger in the world.

That's this is Maine, everyone is connected in one way or another.

So it's an excellent question. So the Ukrainians last year built roughly four and a half million drones in this size, well, they built four and a half million drones in total, 4.4 million of them were this in this size range. We think they'll build about six million this year, so 500,000 a month. Historically most of the Ukrainian drones are made from components that are primarily from China, although as I mentioned before, they are also concerned about their supply chain vulnerabilities on that. We think their per-unit pricing is depending on the nature of the FPV, somewhere between probably $500 on the low end and maybe in the low thousands on the high end. Our program is designed to over these six-month cycles to lower prices.

To lower prices from what? What are the prices now?

So we're going to pay $5,000 per drone in Phase One, the ones that we're going to place orders with this week. We intend by the end of this program, our goal is to get down to less than $2,000 for a one-way kamikaze attack drone.

So you understand why that's a legitimate question. If they're doing it for 500 to 1,000, we're talking about 5,000. But do you believe there's a realistic path to getting down under 2,000?

I do. I'm an optimist about the efficacy of the sort of American industrial base when given a good framework and given real orders to go achieve it. I'm confident that we will scale the prices down. Where the exact endpoint is, I think is hard to know a priori. It's fair to say that I would not expect, given the way that the U.S. economy works in terms of labor rates and so forth, I would not expect us to match Chinese drone prices.

I understand that, but my experience with large-scale contracting is if you establish a number up front, miraculously the companies find a way to meet it, rather than waiting for them to give you to give you the number. Completely different question. Defense. We've been talking about creating drones. What about defense for drones? I mean, that's, are we talking about directed energy? Is that part of DOG is looking at how to defend against these weapons because our adversaries are going to be building them too at scale. General?

For the DOG, I'm not going to be able to get into specifics just because of the classification.

I understand that, but is defense part of part of your mission?

It would be, it is. I don't know what Drone Dominance is doing as it pertains to the defense and protection of these systems.

Well, I would hope that that's part of what we're talking about here because... Mr. West, you want to weigh in there.

Senator, yes, the Joint Interagency Task Force 401 is tasked with our counter-UAS and we have invited them to the second Gauntlet. And the basic goal is to integrate both offense and defense going forward so that both technologies can come up simultaneously since there's so much overlap. Bottom line is in, in Gauntlet 2 in August, we hope that our counter-UAS can knock down many of the drones we've built.

Are you, are you looking at directed energy as part of the counter-UAS mission?

Yes, sir.

I would hope so because that's 50 cents a shot. And that's something that we have been woefully slow to move on.

Sir, you are cost conscious and we are very cost conscious.

Delighted to hear that. The Wounded Warrior Project has pointed out to me that drone injuries are different than IED injuries. They're head and upper body as opposed to lower extremities. I hope, I mean, that's not necessarily part of your mission, but I hope that's something the department is looking at about the nature of industry of injuries and the training necessary. Final question, are you working on underwater capabilities as well? Underwater autonomous vehicles?

Senator, I'm not able to go into much depth on what we are doing in the undersea environment. But would request and welcome a closed session so we can discuss it in greater detail.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much, General. This is critically important work and I appreciate the work you're doing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Do any of you want to weigh in on the question about upper body injuries and what Senator King has learned from the Wounded Warrior program? Any of you have any insight on that?

I mean, it's, it's something definitely we have to go and look at, Senator. I'd be interested to know a little bit more about that, but that is something that we've got to address as we continue to scale out these autonomous systems.

Well, for whoever is listening in DOD and VA, it's the point that the Senator's made that someone needs to look at. So thank you for raising that.

Mr. Chairman, something like 75 percent of the of the casualties in Ukraine are caused by drones. And so this is very...

That's important information, Senator. Senator Scott.

First, Chairman, thank you for your kind words earlier. Thank each of you for being here today. I'm glad President Trump and the Department of War are prioritizing this. For years I and others have made it a goal to get the government to stop purchasing communist-made drones to protect our national security. Let's be clear, Communist China is our enemy. They've chosen, not the people, the government of Communist China has chosen to be our enemy and we should not rely on them for absolutely anything, much less issues of national security. In past NDAAs, I and others have fought for my American Security Drone Act to prohibit the purchasing of drones from several entities, which was a huge step to get this done in the fiscal year 25 NDAA and I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member. I fought and secured a provision that allowed for the blacklisting of known bad actors, DJI, Autel, to phase them out of the market. This was a huge win for our national security and I was thrilled to see President Trump and Chairman Carr move forward with fully implementing this provision. But we're not even close to being done yet. We have to keep fighting to ensure Communist China has absolutely zero role in our drone supply or anywhere in our military, which is critical to American safety. That means unleashing American manufacturing in the drone industry and many others. So let's talk about the Blue UAS program, which as you know is intended to keep commercial drones free of parts made by adversarial nations like Communist China. This list has traditionally been viewed as safe, but it's a well-known fact that they often have ties to CCP-owned companies that continue to find loopholes in our laws to infiltrate our markets. Mr. Metz, what steps can Congress take next to get Communist China completely out of our drone supply chain?

Senator, thank you for the question. So for the Drone Dominance program, our phase one deliveries will be that are delivered to the troops will be NDAA compliant. Going forward from there, the Drone Dominance program will be more prescriptive than the NDAAs in terms of not allowing various components to be included in the systems that we procure with the long-term goal of building a drone supply chain that is American. So for instance, in phase two, so that's we'll be placing orders in August for phase two, we will not be allowing any Chinese batteries or motors in phase two, in addition to other restrictions that we'll be imposing that are above and beyond the current statutory restrictions.

Okay. Mr. Metz, the threat CCP drones and parts pose extend beyond just drones, but things like cameras that could be outfitted to the drone. In recent days we've seen our International Trade Commission side with Chinese camera producers over GoPro, an American company, which will allow China to continue to sell their spy cameras in our country. This completely undermines our markets, harms American companies, and creates a total vulnerability for Americans' data to still end up in the hands of our enemy. To truly stop Communist China's influence of this market and protect our safety, wouldn't you agree we must also address these vulnerabilities? Mr. West.

Senator, yes. And thank you for championing this legislation, which has done so much for our domestic industrial base. It's very important.

So, so how are we going to get, how are we going to make sure there's no equipment purchased or used by the Department of War that has zero ties to Communist China manufacturers and work with the FCC?

Senator, the one crucial step that we've taken is to migrate the Blue list that you invoked from DIU to the Defense Contract Management Agency. Now why was this done? Number one, they have the scale in terms of of the numbers and the real expertise to ensure that if you make the Blue list, you are NDAA compliant. But as you mentioned, this is difficult stuff. In other words, you have to examine the bill of materials, you have to examine the capital stack, and you have to autopsy these drones, rip them apart and get down to the subcomponent level and then build up the expertise to understand where exactly these things are coming from. So as Travis said, you know, we aspire to have a more aggressive on-ramp for American components than the NDAA, so ultimately by deep in 27, these drones are American or allied.

Do you think everybody's taking seriously that we cannot rely on Communist China for anything in our military?

Yes, Senator, I do.

Good. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman.

Thank you, Senator. Senator Kelly.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to, you know, comment on Sec or on Senator King's question about injuries. I was last March, I was in Ukraine at a military hospital, met with 10 Ukrainian service members who were severely injured, nine out of 10 were injured by FPVs, so first-person view drones. And the one that was not was injured by a landmine that we thought was placed by a drone. So none of them were injured by artillery, even though that's still a, you know, it's still on the battlefield. So obviously going forward here, drone technology is such a going to be such a significant part of ground combat. So General Marks, I want to ask you something I think that is going to define warfare now for rest of our lives, for generations, and that's the role of artificial intelligence in what we've seen play out here over the last several days, but certainly into the future it's going to be a new feature of combat operations in many different ways, but specifically the LUCAS, the low-cost unmanned combat aircraft system attack system. Those drones deployed in Operation Epic Fury have documented autonomous anti-jamming and I believe also some swarming capability. So my question is about what's underneath all of that. Are AI systems being used to assist in targeting decisions during this operation?

So Senator, thank you for the question. I am familiar with the LUCAS system. At this level, open hearing, I'm able to, I'm not able to go into great depth on what is inside of the LUCAS system, but I'd be willing to get on your calendar, on the committee's calendar and provide you a classified briefing.

Okay. So the my next question's kind of irrelevant there because I was going to ask about who validated the systems, who safeguarded them, and what human oversight exists at the moment a drone selects or confirms a target. So let's do that in a closed session as well. But I also want to just state for the record here that companies like Anthropic and others in the AI industry have published their own safety frameworks of how advanced AI systems should be deployed. But Congress has not yet set any kind of clear statutory framework for how AI can be used in lethal military operations. There's a DOD directive, Directive 3000.09, which requires what is called, and I'm quoting from the directive, appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force. But that language doesn't necessarily mean a human is involved at the moment a target is selected or engaged. So before we rapidly scale up production and field more of these systems that have AI incorporated into their capability, we need a clear answer on this. At the moment a drone identifies and confirms a target, whether or not a human has to make the final decision to strike the target, or can a system execute the engagement autonomously once it's been activated? These are questions we haven't yet dealt with here in Congress and we need to. So just general, I just want to get your thoughts on that independent of what Lucas or any other system can do.

Thank you, Senator, for the question. Any system, any capability that the department procures has to comply and be compliant with the law of armed conflict. I would say that any commander that deploys these systems, just like any weapon system, it has to comply with those, the law of armed conflict.

I am not sure that the law of armed conflict has dealt with this issue. So LOAC might not be exactly clear and that's why I think it's up to us, Mr. Chairman, that you know, we take this issue of humans in the loop seriously and create the framework that DOD will apply to these systems with regards to their autonomous nature and the ability for a system to make a decision on targeting the enemy. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Kelly. We now begin round two of our questioning and I recognize Senator Reed.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have one question. We've talked a lot about deploying lethal drones as quickly as possible, etcetera, and doing so in a training environment so that all of our forces can be very familiar with them. Is there any work going on to develop training simulators? At some point we're going to be asking ourselves why are we using them at Fort Benning when we need them elsewhere. Mr. West or Mr. Metz?

Senator, the simulators are key for two reasons. First, it allows us to scale the training so that our troops don't have to have their hands on the joysticks and fly actual expensive drones. In other words, with some software that exactly replicates the flight parameters of the specific drone system, we can cycle through in a room like this and learn how to fly and fairly quickly.

Well, I'm going back to the notion of in the field where you've got E-1s and E-4s and E-5s hands-on simulating that they have it. I mean, we learned a long time ago how to make blanks so that we could go out there and shoot at each other but not hurt each other necessarily. And I think we want to get to that scale of realistic training rather than sitting in an air-conditioned van and doing it that way.

Senator, Secretary Hegseth has called for the use of drones in every exercise starting this year.

No, but did you understand the question is are we using simulators in training for both offensive and defensive use of drones?

Senator, the answer is yes. So just this Monday down at Fort Benning, we demonstrated a simulator for a number of the drone platforms. We would intend to use that as part of the training, part of the schoolhouse in the field. Yes, sir. And I should only add one of the benefits of driving the cost down and making these systems truly consumable is that you can then transition to actual physical use of them without worrying about the long-term costs of that.

Understand. Thank you.

Further questions? The record will remain, but the questions for the record will be due to the committee within two business days of the conclusion of this hearing, which is occurring right now. We are adjourned.