The US military is racing to develop better defenses against drones, but there’s no silver bullet, no wonder weapon, that will single-handedly defeat everything, the commander of the Pentagon’s new counter-drone force said.
Joint Interagency Task Force 401 says stopping drones isn’t about one weapon or system. The counter-drone fight will require a mix of different tools, from ways to physically shoot down drones to electronic and other non-kinetic solutions.
It also demands easier, faster processes for testing and buying systems across the services.
The task force was created last fall to expedite counter-drone technologies across the Department of Defense, replacing the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office, which was established in 2019. Since its establishment, the task force has assessed and contributed to the US military’s counter-drone arsenal, including forces at home and abroad.
But there’s no one system they’ve found that can stop small uncrewed aerial systems, or UAS, which the task force’s commander, Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, called “the defining threat of our time.”
“There’s no silver bullet for counter-UAS. There’s just not,” Ross said last month at a media roundtable. “If there was, we would already have it,” he added.
Instead, the task force is focused on a suite of technologies for layered, integrated protection from drones. “Our formations must be able to detect, track, identify, and defeat these systems anywhere on the planet,” Ross said. “This requires us to layer our defenses by integrating sensors with kinetic and non-kinetic effectors and battle management systems into a responsive, interoperable network.”
He said that many defense technologies already exist for countering medium-sized drones, which the Pentagon classifies as Group 3, but more work remains in smaller drones under Group 1 and 2, UAS such as the quadcopters that dominate in Ukraine.
And the counter-drone problem isn’t just about what systems are needed to protect service members and civilians. “The technology is not going to solve this problem for us. We can’t field a system that will stop every drone. It will all come down to the installation commander or the person responsible for that site and how they use the tools that we provide them,” Ross said.
In its first 100 days, the task force has identified a key goal: creating a shared command-and-control system that makes it easier for different teams and regions to share data. It also wants to build a marketplace where the military services, law enforcement, and other agencies can find counter-drone systems suited to their specific threats, review performance data and user feedback, and potentially buy those systems in one place.
The task force notably isn’t operating in isolation. There’s overlap between the task force’s focus on stopping Group 3 drones, systems like Shield AI’s V-BAT or the Army’s AAI RQ-7, and the responsibilities of the Golden Dome missile defense project, which has to include defenses for Group 3 drones.
The task force plans to share data with the Golden Dome project, and Ross said he’s currently discussing what that looks like with Space Force’s Gen. Michael Guetlein.
Another priority for the task force is helping protect against small drones at major events, including the FIFA World Cup this year, with matches set to be held at 11 large stadiums in cities across the US.
Ross said that based on US forces overseas, “we’re heavily indexed against Group 3 systems, and those are larger systems that fly a longer distance and carry heavier payloads. And I want to make sure that we have just as robust protection against Group 1 and Group 2 systems that are smaller and much more likely to be seen over a widely attended gathering, stadium, or a watch party specifically for the World Cup.”
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