▶ 0:16:17Chair Wicker: To examine the state of our small drone industrial base in the past two american leadership. This issue has profound implications for future prosperity. I am not sure many americans understand that fully yet. It is also part of our broader effort to rebuild the american arsenal. We are pleased to welcome three witnesses who are leading this effort with the department. Mr. owen west, senior advisor for drone dominance, Mr.
▶ 0:16:44Chair Wicker: Travis metz, drone dominance program manager, and major general steven marks, the director of the defense autonomous warfare group. The war in ukraine has changed the character of modern warfare and demonstrate of the importance of small, unmanned systems, what we call drones.
▶ 0:17:09Chair Wicker: So-called group one drones are now central to reconnaissance, targeting and strike missions. These weigh less than 20 pounds and are often purchased at low cost and in large numbers. The american commercial drone industry and the pentagon are years behind the curve in producing and employing drones.
▶ 0:17:33Chair Wicker: Catching up is as necessary as it is difficult and I believe we are finally on the cusp of charting a future for american drone dominance. To understand why we are so far behind we must acknowledge how we arrive here today. The chinese communist party correctly predicted this -- that small drones would be a crucial technology for military and commercial use, particularly in agriculture and other large-scale industrial efforts.
▶ 0:18:01Chair Wicker: China used to 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% of the global nonmilitary small drone market. American drone companies were essentially forced out of the global market and commercial demand made american drones more expensive than chinese drones.
▶ 0:18:28Chair Wicker: Anywhere from five to 20 five 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.
▶ 0:18:48Chair Wicker: As we have seen in the critical minerals and rare earth 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.
▶ 0:19:06Chair Wicker: Last year's defense reconciliation law set aside $2.5 billion to picker a range of small drones, just over $1 million of that will be used specifically to purchase very small group one first person view drones. Our witnesses will discuss the competition process for this investment, at least it is hoped that we would.
▶ 0:19:36Chair Wicker: I hope they will 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, which must be continued for quite a few years, will serve as the anchor for america and allies as we constitute our supply chains. We will see what eyewitnesses say about that.
▶ 0:20:07Chair Wicker: Investment is 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 of section 1709 of the fy 25 ndaa, championed by senator rick scott.
▶ 0:20:33Chair Wicker: This provision bans the leading chinese state-sponsored drone companies from selling in united states. The trump administration, led by fcc chairman brendan carr, implemented this law just before christmas last year. Successful requires sustained attention to the supply chain across its full range of components. We took action to address this in fiscal year 2026.
▶ 0:21:01Chair Wicker: We directed the pentagon to establish a working group to assess our small drone industrial base capacity. That group will be asked to develop recommendations to strengthen the industry, and 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.
▶ 0:21:30Chair Wicker: I will come major general marks's testimony as director of the dawg, which is the correct pronunciation of the word in mississippi. While the drone dominance efforts focus on smaller group one first person view drones, the dawg will lead on larger one-way attack drones and small unmanned boats.
▶ 0:21:58Chair Wicker: A few days ago, america used one-way attack drones for the first time in combat in iran with task force scorpion firing the drone, a reverse engineered 136. I welcome his comments on what he plans to do to jumpstart these new areas of weapons with the funding we provided for the dawg in reconciliation.
▶ 0:22:29Chair Wicker: It is an 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 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" a nation with our allies and partners.
▶ 0:23:00Chair Wicker: We are looking to this panel for leadership and insight. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about the department plan to support this vital work and to hearing from my colleague and friend, ranking member reed, who is recognized.
▶ 0:23:17Sen. Reed: 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 small unmanned aerial systems have become a defining feature of warfare. As we sit here today, the united states engaged in major combat operations against iran.
▶ 0:23:47Sen. Reed: Over the past several days, american forces operating alongside israel have conducted thousands of strikes against iran, including the deployments of one-way attack drones. Iran has italianate -- retaliated with its own drone attacks that 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.
▶ 0:24:16Sen. Reed: 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 appreciated the recognition of the strategic imperative. The drone dominance program almond death represents an investment in capability and capacity.
▶ 0:24:41Sen. Reed: The goal of fielding thousands of combat ready drones is ambitious and I would like to understand how the department intends to achieve it. I have questions about the program. In june 20 25, the president issued an executive order on drone dominance which directed the secretary of defense to summit a report identifying programs that could be more cost-effective or lethal if we replace them with unmanned systems.
▶ 0:25:07Sen. Reed: I would like to know whether the report was cemented and if so what insights it provided to inform the drone dominance program. I would ask a witness to explain how the various service initiatives align with the broader department strategy and how any drone dominance program would transition to service management. The requirement to eliminate chinese subcomponents from the industry may prove technically challenging.
▶ 0:25:36Sen. Reed: China dominates not just finished drone systems but critical components like batteries. I would like to know the department assessment of american and allied supply capacity to meet this requirement and at the intended scale and price point.
▶ 0:25:52Sen. Reed: The committee established a small uas industrial base working group because we recognized the need for strategic coordination here and there are a number of programs and significant funding commitments underway and I would ask the witness to explain how the working group is informing their approach. Are we creating demand that will outstrip supply? The stakes are clear.
▶ 0:26:21Sen. Reed: Our potential adversaries are not waiting and neither should we. Speed cannot come at the expense of strategic coherence. This committee once the drone dominance program to succeed, which is why we need direct answers about the challenges, risks, and path forward. I look forward to her testimony and thank you for your service to our nation.
▶ 0:26:42Chair Wicker: We will now begin with statements. Who would like to go first? Mr. west, you're recognized. For five minutes or so.
▶ 0:26:55Mr. West: 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 at drone dominance and my collegiate classmate, and major general marks of the defense autonomous warfare group, we are here to testify about the department's urges albert -- urgent effort to arm our troops with lethal drone technology that has proliferated across the world.
▶ 0:27:25Mr. West: I want to thank this committee for its entrance -- interest in small drones. Drones are the most significant battlefield innovation in decades. Ukraine, at the center said, low cost account for -- as the senator said, low-cost drones account for a staggering proportion of the casualties. In iran, columbia, cambodia, this weapon system has altered the order of battle.
▶ 0:27:54Mr. West: Seeing this change several years ago, our adversaries produced these systems by the millions at low cost. For too long, the united states was tendered by self-imposed restrictions, redtape, while our atmosphere -- adversary surged ahead. As secretary hegseth stated, are major risk here is risk aversion. President trump, secretary hegseth, and congress have ended this era of hesitation.
▶ 0:28:23Mr. West: 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 directive into decisive action by unleashing U.S. military drone dominance, a memorandum in july of 2025. The department mission is threefold. First, bolster the domestic manufacturing case.
▶ 0:28:52Mr. West: Second, arm our combat units and train as we expect to fight and third power a technological leapfrog. Via reconciliation funding atop acquisition reform guidance, congress set drone dominance in motion. The program operation uses these directives to ensure our war fighters are swiftly armed to fight on the modern battlefield.
▶ 0:29:17Mr. West: We are partnering with the test resource management center and naval surface warfare center to execute this program and we are working with our teammates, including the defense contract management agency and the d.a.w.g. To integrate capabilities in the department. We are leveraging america's leading engineers and capital markets to buy competitively at scale and without delay.
▶ 0:29:45Mr. West: We are prioritizing buy american to expand this nascent but vital domestic industry. Military operators are the designers and judges to ensure drone capabilities deliver for the war fighters. The department is in to this committee and congress for recognizing the importance of this issue and providing us the authorities and resources to deliver combat power.
▶ 0:30:14Mr. West: I look forward to your questions. Thank you.
▶ 0:30:18Chair Wicker: Mr. metz.
▶ 0:30:20Mr. Metz: Thank you, chairman wicker, ranking member reed. I have been working with Mr. west on the drone dominance program. We have worked with the defense autonomous working group, represented here today by major general marks.
▶ 0:30:46Mr. Metz: I bring long experience as a venture capitalist entrepreneur and I am committed to bringing that to the drone dominance program, incorporating market-based practices to incentivize the industrial base to deliver high-performance, small drones at scale to the war fighter\ at a wartime pace. The drone dominance program is the engine to unleash the small drone industrial base. It has two goals.
▶ 0:31:17Mr. Metz: First, scale your supply chains for small drones, reducing the cost of acquisition, and second supply significant quantities of drones to the military services now to help fast-forward their integration. We have committed $1.1 million over the next 18 months to purchase drone systems. Consistent with secretary hegseth's mandate, we are no longer buying based on paper requirements.
▶ 0:31:48Mr. Metz: We are buying at scale based on valuation by military services. I spent most of the last two weeks at fort benning, or be kicked off our 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 sunday and we will be announcing and placing orders with the winning vendors over the next few days.
▶ 0:32:19Mr. Metz: 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, reason quantities, lowering prices, and evaluating more difficult mission tests. There are two distinct aspects that are key to the program success. First, incorporating a clear demand signal to the industry for the next 18 months.
▶ 0:32:51Mr. Metz: We have posted quantities and prices up front, removing the -- promising if your system performs well we will buy your units. Second, we are ensuring the war fighter is at the center of the process. We have removed the bureaucratic filter. War fighters will be the primary evaluators. They will score systems based on ease-of-use and lethality in real time.
▶ 0:33:18Mr. Metz: The drone dominance program is a case study for how the department can acquire at the speed of relevance. We are using actual purge -- purchases and capital of american industry to drive unit prices down while scaling production up, ensuring our forces have the quantity of consumable drones required for modern conflict. Thank you for the funding to accomplish this.
▶ 0:33:40Mr. Metz: With your continued support for acquisition reform and sustained funding, we will ensure the american war fighter never enters a fair fight. I look forward your questions.
▶ 0:33:51Chair Wicker: Major general marks.
▶ 0:33:54Maj. Gen. Marks: Members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to have -- appear before you today. I'm here to discuss how the defense autonomous warfare group, the d.a.w.g., is leveraging the reconciliation funding and expanded acquisition authorities he provided to prove out a new way of warfare. I'm pleased to be joined today by other essential partners in this department wide effort.
▶ 0:34:23Maj. Gen. Marks: The character of warfare has fundamentally changed as we are seeing play out in ukraine and the middle east, autonomous systems are no longer emerging. They are a reality on the battlefield. Our adversaries understand this. They are not just buy a new technology. They are creating entirely new organizations to master it. An example is reporting on russia's rubicon unit. This is not just a new drone squadron.
▶ 0:34:53Maj. Gen. Marks: It is a 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 area of autonomy comes from organizing to employ technology with focus and agility. The d.a.w.g. Was established to unify to bartman efforts. Its mission is to work across the joint force -- department efforts.
▶ 0:35:22Maj. Gen. Marks: Spacious work across the joint failure -- joint force. What makes this work is how we execute it. We have collapsed the distance between the war fighter 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 capabilities we develop are informed directly by battlefield needs and that we remain responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars. This model is working.
▶ 0:35:54Maj. Gen. Marks: We are accelerating timelines and delivering capabilities through initiatives like drone dominance. Our objective is clear, to provide war fighters with tools to dominate the battlefield, deter adversaries, and if necessary to feed them. -- defeat them. The security of our nation depends on it.
▶ 0:36:15Chair Wicker: Thank you. Mr. west, we will start with you. There is $1.1 billion for small drone industrial base. Where are we going to get the money for group two, the larger drones, in this industrial base -- the needs are more complex and more expensive.
▶ 0:36:42Mr. West: Your senator is where are we going to get the money?
▶ 0:36:47Chair Wicker: You're looking at him. So what is the plan? We are going to get it from the american taxpayer, of course glenn it will be money well spent if you do your work right, yes.
▶ 0:37:00Mr. West: It is an important question because it is about integration and the budgeting for the future. We are focused in this effort in the group one space and our goal , stepping back, if we listen to our four star testimony from last spring's posture hearings, our commanders acknowledge they did not have enough proportion of their spend on unmanned systems and the basic problem the identified -- they
▶ 0:37:32Mr. West: Identified was price. We were paying $30,000 or $40,000 for small commit 10 inch uas whereas our adversaries pay about $500. So our goal here is to get this price down so we can scale group one but this does -- this is a spectrum so many of the components found in group one, batteries, motors, isr technologies, are relevant to group two.
▶ 0:38:02Chair Wicker: Let's compare china's arsenal to the group one and group two. Where are they and when do you think we will get started or need to get started on group two? First thing, chinese.
▶ 0:38:23Mr. West: I'm highly informed on group one because this has been our effort. Group two, if you look at some of the other systems, I will say that what we are establishing here is a framework and I can turn this over to travis where if money were to flow into the system, we can apply these to the drone dominance competition specs and we aspire to do the same in group two.
▶ 0:38:49Chair Wicker: So your expertise is on group one and we need to have a later hearing on group two, perhaps.
▶ 0:39:02Mr. West: We need all layers.
▶ 0:39:07Chair Wicker: How soon?
▶ 0:39:08Mr. West: As soon as we can get them. We are moving so fast that we are getting complaints that travis is run over, but we aspire by august -- we are already starting to operationally field some of the group ones as a result of our first gauntlet.
▶ 0:39:29Chair Wicker: You said the war fighters are going to be the ultimate test experts. Where do you anticipate doing this? In real combat or training? In theater?
▶ 0:39:49Mr. Metz: The event we just finished at fort benning on sunday ran 14 days. We had approximately 100 members of our uniformed services, so primarily from the army, marines, and various units in so calm, 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 we evaluated the drones was through
▶ 0:40:21Mr. Metz: Performance in missions the replicated the anticipated use of the drones in combat. The scoring for the systems, against the mission performance, so sending a drone out 10 kilometers and hitting a target, into the georgia forest, was scored by the military operators and then separately we asked military operators to evaluate performance of the drones based
▶ 0:40:53Mr. Metz: On whether they would take it to war. We are buying based on those criteria, starting now.
▶ 0:40:59Chair Wicker: I wonder why ukraine is still having to get so many chinese drones.
▶ 0:41:08Mr. Metz: Ukrainians are moving very quickly to try to also extract themselves from chinese supply chains. That is evidence -- more evidence than we could possibly need that we have to do the same.
▶ 0:41:25Chair Wicker: More questions later. Senator reed?
▶ 0:41:30Sen. Reed: Let me first commend you on the fort benning test. I think that is the right way to do things. And together with your input from industrial and strategic standpoints, getting the troops to tell you what they need is very good, so let me commend you. We created last year a small working group.
▶ 0:41:58Sen. Reed: Can you give me the status of that group now?
▶ 0:42:05Mr. West: We have the directors sitting to my right.
▶ 0:42:09Sen. Reed: That is the d.a.w.g.? I just want to get everything coordinated.
▶ 0:42:15Maj. Gen. Marks: It is sometimes confusing.
▶ 0:42:18Sen. Reed: It is. Thank you appear one of the things we are doing now is reacting to the immediate crises we are seeing in our supplies, but the pace of change is so rapid. We have to stop thinking ahead of systems which are almost completely autonomous. Infantrymen are not there but the systems are there.
▶ 0:42:46Sen. Reed: Are we doing any of that work, trying to leap ahead of the bad guys rather than just match them?
▶ 0:42:56Maj. Gen. Marks: Going back to your first question on the nda 26 section 914, the small uas industrial working group is chaired by the deputy secretary of war and then I am the director of that board. We have built cross functional teams with representatives from the defense innovation unit, industrial base policy, the economic defense unit, and the office of strategic capital.
▶ 0:43:23Maj. Gen. Marks: We are due to provide a briefing to the deputy secretary of war by the end of the month to have the report back to the defense committee by april 1.
▶ 0:43:41Sen. Reed: That clarifies it, but to the point of looking ahead and having a parallel sort of -- what we need three years or three months from now?
▶ 0:43:57Mr. West: You've identified what will take for us to perform the technological leapfrog that secretary hegseth has issued. The united states has the best ai scientists in the world. You're also correct at the rate of change on the battlefield is astonishing so I can turn over to travis to talk about the iterative process. We are now at a competition every six months.
▶ 0:44:23Mr. West: There is potential to shrink that window but we want to do is get to that rate of change by the second or third competition, plow in autonomy so that by 2027 we have operational commit lethal drones capable of dominating on any battlefield.
▶ 0:44:43Sen. Reed: Mr. metz?
▶ 0:44:46Mr. Metz: As Mr. west mentioned, we are running these competitions every six months so phase two will kick off in august of this year. The missions designed at these competitions will increase in difficulty, primarily to increase in difficulty and go up in volume and down in price.
▶ 0:45:09Mr. Metz: The difficulty of the missions in particular for phase two will require drone companies to build out technology that reduces the cognitive load on the pilots and deals with the fact that they were fair on the battlefield for drones is complex in terms of electronic warfare elements so drones that are starting to build out capabilities to do things where the pilot does not have to fly it is a critical part of our phase two.
▶ 0:45:42Chair Wicker: One aspect of this that has to be considered is command-and-control. If you have autonomous systems out there, there's an increased chance for miscalculation so what are you doing? That requires more than just buying a piece of equipment from a drone manufacturer. It is integrating it into the command-and-control system. You have 28 seconds. >> is a topic that requires 28 hours, I think.
▶ 0:46:12Chair Wicker: The operators are on the loop on this 100% of the time. We have integrated the office of the general counsel to make sure every step along the way here we address the laws of armed conflict and other laws we impose properly on our self to make sure we have control of the systems.
▶ 0:46:32Chair Wicker: Senator fischer.
▶ 0:46:36Sen. Fischer: Mr. west, these drones are only going to be useful if our service members are prepared to use them, so how is the department incorporating unmanned warfare into combat training of troops? As they are preparing logistically and operationally how to face the realities of fighting with these drones?
▶ 0:47:08Mr. West: It is a terrific question that I would like general marks to weigh in as well but we are going to start to deliver small drones in volumes that will require the services to establish training hubs, schooling, and obviously doctrinal changes already underway.
▶ 0:47:30Mr. West: So, as bureaucrats, the question we have is how do we ensure that there is a sustainment for the drones and that we are not -- that we are delivering the drones of the services want to use in combat and that services are prepared to absorb. I think general marks will have better expertise than I do.
▶ 0:47:53Maj. Gen. Marks: Drone dominance powered by the d.a.w.g. Insights interest systems meet war fighter demands so the d.a.w.g. Connects those capabilities to operational and service modernization effort so we have to be tight at the hip of the services and sharpening the tip of the joint force spear. Through the d.a.w.g.
▶ 0:48:12Maj. Gen. Marks: Efforts, we have the operators working with engineers and acquisition professionals and they run it through its -- the system through their paces, stress testing every step of the way. Ultimately, they will develop the doctrine for employing the systems and then it will be required by the services to train the larger force.
▶ 0:48:37Sen. Fischer: How quickly do you think you can get the drones out to these men and women?
▶ 0:48:48Mr. Metz: For phase one of the drone dominance program, we will be delivering drones this month.
▶ 0:48:54Sen. Fischer: How is the department coordinating efforts to make sure that we do not just have the offensive drone capabilities but how are we going to be able to train and field the counter drone systems as well? I'm sure you have plans for that.
▶ 0:49:19Maj. Gen. Marks: We focus in the d.a.w.g. On the offensive side of the house, where the joint interagency task force led by brigadier general matt ross is working on the counter uas and working through the development and training of that capability.
▶ 0:49:42Sen. Fischer: Are the drones that you are working on now -- they can be used offensively and defensively, right?
▶ 0:49:53Mr. Metz: Yes. Many of the counter strategy is that we are seeing evolve across battlefield around the world are using small drones as a kinetic force as a counter. In our phase two in august we intend to buy another 50 or 60,000 drones to join the interagency task force, which is gordon aiding the counter uas strategies inside the department as part of that got, attempting to lock down all the drones that
▶ 0:50:23Mr. Metz: Are -- our vendors are putting up in the air and the ambition is to iterate jointly with them as we go forward with the program.
▶ 0:50:32Sen. Fischer: Where you want to add anything to that?
▶ 0:50:36Mr. West: Travis was my college coxswain so he does the talking I do the rowing.
▶ 0:50:44Chair Wicker: That is not what I heard.
▶ 0:50:48Sen. Fischer: As you look at ukraine and they have shown all of us how war is changing, but as your -- you are looking at their experience in manufacturing drones, how are you incorporating that? Whoever wants it.
▶ 0:51:10Mr. Metz: I appreciate the question. 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 scalability of the manufacturing level are in ukraine so recognizing my time is about to run out, we can speak more about this for one of the goals of the program was to convince some of the most -- companies in the world to bring
▶ 0:51:42Mr. Metz: Manufacturing here so that we have the benefit for the war fighters of the best systems at scale.
▶ 0:51:45Sen. Fischer: Have you convinced them?
▶ 0:51:50Mr. West: With --
▶ 0:51:52Mr. Metz: With your demand signal. Those orders are bringing companies to the U.S. to manufacture in the U.S..
▶ 0:51:58Sen. Fischer: Thank you.
▶ 0:52:00Chair Wicker: 's senator shaheen.
▶ 0:52:04Sen. Shaheen: I would like to follow up on the issue that senator zwicker and reed raised in their opening statement about 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 the size of this stream and filled with drones. This is an example of a couple of those.
▶ 0:52:32Sen. Shaheen: They were ranging in size, as you can see, from very small, maybe a square foot come up to quite large, the size of a snowblower. And we asked who is making those drones. And or any of them coming from the U.S.? They said no. We said why? Because what the U.S. is doing cost too much and it is not technologically advanced enough.
▶ 0:53:00Sen. Shaheen: And that was troubling but 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 do not have anyone in ukraine taking advantage of the technological advancements happening there.
▶ 0:53:27Sen. Shaheen: And that ukraine has become -- and I said this earlier this week in testimony -- what we heard was that ukraine had become a bad word in the pentagon. So you are talking about six months as being expedited scheduling. What they were talking about in ukraine was iterating those drones every two weeks.
▶ 0:53:54Sen. Shaheen: I do not know how we are going to compete if we are talking about and every six month schedule and we are looking at our adversaries who are iterating on a weekly basis and I applaud the effort underway, the drone dominance program. I voted for that. I thought it was important, but it does not feel to me like there is a sense of urgency about what our challenges -- are like you to respond to that.
▶ 0:54:28Mr. West: We feel that same sense of urgency. We are committed to this effort. Like tribes discussed the results --
▶ 0:54:36Sen. Shaheen: So why are we not taking advantage of the technological advancements the ukrainians have made? Prime minister starmer has asked them to help with what is going on in the middle east now. Why are we not trying to take more advantage of that?
▶ 0:54:52Mr. West: We are. We build a framework and invited the best ukrainian drone companies to come to our competition on the basis that there battlefield technology is proven at scale and the long term commitment from those businesses is to relocate so the core manufacturing to the U.S. peer those company's came to the competition.
▶ 0:55:19Sen. Shaheen: I saw two of them have been selected for phase one. I understand that, but again I find it troubling that our service members who are in the region do not seem to have the understanding that we are really interested in what is going on there and are trying to get that information. I want to switch to another question because the U.S.
▶ 0:55:47Sen. Shaheen: Market has only one company that produces drones -- drone propulsion motors. It is one of the most glaring deficits in our domestic market, as I'm sure you know. And the fact that it only exists in new hampshire now is one of the keys to ensuring that we can do the drone buildout that we need to do.
▶ 0:56:13Sen. Shaheen: Many of our defense suppliers in new hampshire have benefited from the summary and 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 as they are looking at the investments they need to make to buildout the supply chain we are going to need?
▶ 0:56:39Mr. Metz: I have met multiple times with nick, the ceo of e propel. He is building motors in new hampshire and he has -- he is a supplier to drone companies that will be receiving orders and he is a candidate for continued demand signal for us and support from the department of war.
▶ 0:57:04Sen. Shaheen: If you can speak to the help that we might be able to provide small businesses for investments that we are going to need to build out, appreciate that.
▶ 0:57:20Mr. West: One of the things we hope to shine a light on our supply chain constraints and two of our colleagues stand at the ready, the office of strategic capital and to do direct firm -- leading to firms. When we first met, nick months ago, this is a great example of an american small business that is 20 ready to scale on behalf of our defense.
▶ 0:57:50Sen. Shaheen: And we are going to be able to help some of the small companies as they look at what they need to do to build out?
▶ 0:57:59Chair Wicker: It stands for? >> industrial base -- I'm going to have to defer. My colleagues are behind me and there are so many acronyms I will struggle with. They are yet the stands at the ready to lend and have incredible and deep expertise specifically in batteries and motors.
▶ 0:58:32Chair Wicker: Chair wicker:
▶ 0:58:33Chair Wicker: Should we put senator shaheen's photograph in the record? Without objection, so ordered. Senator rounds.
▶ 0:58:42Sen. Rounds: Thank you for the discussion so far. I think it is very appropriate that we do it at this time. Several years ago, I meant a gentleman who wrote a book called seven seconds to die, regarding the war in 2020 and the use of drones at that time by azerbaijan to literally take out over a thousand pieces of equipment in a 43 day period.
▶ 0:59:16Sen. Rounds: It was the beginning of the end of armenia being able to control a section between the two countries. In it, he laid out exactly how effective five years ago the use of drones had become and with it he talked about the ability for drones to operate almost independently and laid out the guidelines for what we consider to be a human in the loop or over the loop with regard to the
▶ 0:59:47Sen. Rounds: Autonomous use of drones. He wrote a second book detailing the ukrainian war and -- cold next war in which he identified the advanced use of drones and what they were doing. He made clear that the advancements made were substantial.
▶ 1:00:08Sen. Rounds: I think we are kind in our application of some types of drones, particularly the type one drones, the small, less expensive drones, yet it is dominating the battlefield in ukraine today but I would like to talk a little bit of the speed at which drones are being incorporated into day-to-day activities and how fast we have to be able to update them.
▶ 1:00:38Sen. Rounds: Senator shaheen mentioned it and it is critical we impress that we need drones that are almost modular. Can you talk about the focus moving forward in terms of what might be effective today may within a two week period of time in the battlefield be ineffective and how that happens?
▶ 1:00:59Mr. Metz: I pretty 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 to the systems, as you pointed out, need to be on a rhythm that is far faster than six months for the physical drones and they are so we will have tech stacks inside the systems that often may have models retrained on a
▶ 1:01:34Mr. Metz: Nightly or weekly basis. I am a deep optimist around capabilities around this technology stack. We saw that at fort bennett, some of the ability to on the fly modifying the systems helping the soldiers hit these targets out at kilometers. I mentioned it before, in particular because of the nature of the georgia forest, which is a very difficult environment.
▶ 1:02:02Mr. Metz: The ability of companies on the fly to manage its technologies was impressive.
▶ 1:02:05Sen. Rounds: 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 well be radio controlled. That is what most people think they are, radio controlled, but it does not take long for an adversary to figure out a way to stop that communication appear and you can move to different frequency and you can become advanced in doing that, but the adversary has already figured out how to stop that so the next step on the line is a fiber
▶ 1:02:38Sen. Rounds: Optic line. Can you talk about what is happening in that regard? >> we tested fiber optic drones. They helped manage a complex environment. That is one strategy amongst many to manage the complicated market.
▶ 1:02:57Sen. Rounds: One of the key principles of the framework we have set up for phase one going forward is our goal is not to tell industry how to solve the problem here in our goal is to set up battle realistic missions on which to test the drones and ask industry to solve those problems, even in phase one we saw multiple strategies for solving the problem so fiberoptics, automated target recognition for the last hundred meters, things like that.
▶ 1:03:28Sen. Rounds: Any of these drones will have to be utilizable and operate able by our young men and women on the battlefield, not just one expert in a particular area but the majority of our young men and women will have to be trained in how to use these if they are on the front lines.
▶ 1:03:49Mr. Metz: Yes. One of the keys for the testing was these were being tested by our operators, giving a total of two hours of training on each drone system. They are experienced operators but have not seen most of the systems before. That is a proxy for our these drones capable of being used by our marines and soldiers and other service members?
▶ 1:04:17Sen. Blumenthal: Thanks for holding this hearing on such a critical topic. Thank you for me here today and I respect the work you are doing .
▶ 1:04:30Sen. Blumenthal: 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 the drone industry grow in real time while we were watching and they are showing us what they are doing in response to what they are hearing and seeing on
▶ 1:05:01Sen. Blumenthal: 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 they are seeing from their adversary and that they are doing themselves quite literally in real time.
▶ 1:05:25Sen. Blumenthal: I wonder whether the scope of our efforts here matches the challenge that this nation faces. A billion dollars, even $2 billion, seems totally inadequate to what is necessary. Ukraine is spending multiples of that amount. Obviously they are at war.
▶ 1:05:56Sen. Blumenthal: They have support from our industry and I wonder if you could just comment on where you think the scale and magnitude of our efforts is adequate to match the challenges that we have. I do not know whether that is a question for Mr. west hearing or for one of the other witnesses. Mr. metz?
▶ 1:06:27Mr. West: It is our obligation to learn as much as we can from the ukrainian battlefield.
▶ 1:06:32Sen. Blumenthal: Have you been to ukraine?
▶ 1:06:34Mr. West: I was there twice in 2018 but not since the war kicked off.
▶ 1:06:42Sen. Blumenthal: Have you been, Mr. metz? I do not know how you can run this program without having visited ukraine. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but it is true. I am not a drone expert. But I will tell you to walk through the assembly line of their drone manufacturing facilities as I have done on a number of occasions and watching how they have grown their industry and how they are thinking about unmanned aerial and undersea warfare now.
▶ 1:07:17Sen. Blumenthal: There are a number of -- I know you're talking to american entrepreneurs. Have you talked to eric schmitt?
▶ 1:07:26Mr. West: I think Mr. metz is well-positioned to answer your question. Before he does and talks about how we have incorporated the top ukrainian drone companies in this competition, I would like to say that the united states companies performed very well. It is fair to say they are performed are out -- our expectations, not having been tested, many of them, on a life battlefield. Travis, can you go over how we planned to incorporate what the senator is talking about?
▶ 1:07:58Mr. Metz: 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. schmitt 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 cannot tested on the battlefield to the U.S. war fighter. Many of the U.S.
▶ 1:08:27Mr. Metz: Companies now competing in our programming have been to ukraine to test the product. We also have some of the largest ukrainian successful -- the companies in ukraine they 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.
▶ 1:08:54Sen. Blumenthal: I'm glad to hear that, but I have to say, with all good intentions, and you have not only intentions but the intellectual and expertise in other capacity, I do not doubt yours.
▶ 1:09:15Sen. Blumenthal: 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 expiration.
▶ 1:09:43Sen. Blumenthal: I think it will take really an effort on a scale that we have not matched so far. My time is expired.
▶ 1:09:51Chair Wicker: Senator hirono.
▶ 1:09:54Sen. Hirono: Mr. metz, while much of the focus has been on accelerated procurement and deployment of small drones, and equally important but less discussed issue is need to develop a conference of plan for how we sustain these -- comprehensive plan for how we sustain the system is.
▶ 1:10:17Sen. Hirono: 70% of a weapon system total lifecycle is cost is sustainment, including 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?
▶ 1:10:46Sen. Hirono: So if we are looking to procure or have a goal of 300,000 drones, where are they all going to be stored? How long will they be stored? Do they become obsolete? What is the thinking about those issues?
▶ 1:11:05Mr. Metz: Excellent question. One of the key things to have in mind about the systems as they are intended to be consumable systems so we would expect the bulk of the systems that we are 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, U.S.
▶ 1:11:34Mr. Metz: Marine corps, and various units of so calm are deeply integrated into their own dominance program, meeting members of the key positions in each of those services was at the event with the goal of developing sustainment plans in the short-term and 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
▶ 1:12:05Mr. Metz: Those for those drones to be used in realistic training exercises. In the long term, the same military service departments will be developing their own other doctrines to be able to sustain the drones. We do not expect them to sit on the shelf for long.
▶ 1:12:23Sen. Hirono: What is very long? To be used within a year?
▶ 1:12:27Mr. Metz: Months.
▶ 1:12:29Sen. Hirono: So where are these drones to be used? You expect most of them will be used in the war with iran?
▶ 1:12:37Mr. Metz: In the short-term out expect most of the small one-way attack drones we are developing to be used in actual live training exercises from the U.S. army and U.S. marines.
▶ 1:12:48Sen. Hirono: So we're going to be using these drones for live training exercises. So these are not in actual conflict situations. They are going to be using actual drones for exercises.
▶ 1:13:02Mr. Metz: I assume if there was a need to use these particular types of weaponize drones in combat they will be used that way as well.
▶ 1:13:09Sen. Hirono: I understand that the only place as far as I know we are in conflict now is iran. A contingency in the indo pacific will stress drone capabilities and present a specific, including the distances associated with the -- so in the testing you did at fort benning, was there somebody from and opaque, -- from there
▶ 1:13:42Sen. Hirono: At your tests? Need to make sure the drones were developing are going to be used in the various ar's? I would say it presents challenges.
▶ 1:13:58Mr. Metz: The challenges of the distances in the region mean many of the drones we are testing do not apply for many of the missions so major general marks might be better positioned to answer the question.
▶ 1:14:09Sen. Hirono: I want to mention that they have seen the usefulness of drones in his aor and mentioned using 3d printers to create these drones. Have you been in discussions with the admiral?
▶ 1:14:35Maj. Gen. Marks: Not me personally but attended his commanders conference last week. That was one of the topics that we discussed. I think we have to look at drones as one-way attack platforms that can go further than what we currently are designing. For the d.a.w.g. Effort, I'll be happy to engage with you and the committee in a classified setting.
▶ 1:14:59Sen. Hirono: The marine corps recently developed its first 3d printing drone program. I do know that, Mr. west, you mentioned the cost of the drones in the U.S. as $10,000 versus $500. I hope that we are rapidly decreasing the cost to acquire the alien drones that is one of our goals in a number of years. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:15:25Chair Wicker: Chair wicker: it is
▶ 1:15:32Chair Wicker: Chair wicker: it it you and the admiral are on the same page on this issue of drones? Is that correct?
▶ 1:15:36Gen. Marks: That is correct, senator.
▶ 1:15:39Chair Wicker: Thank you very much. Senator budd to?
▶ 1:15:44Senator Budd To: Appreciate you all being here. Let's talk about china, drones, and supply chains. I have met ceo who's -- ceos who said they cannot get brushless motors from non-chinese companies at scale. How do we best address this? Are there any other common components hard to find outside of china?
▶ 1:16:09Mr. West: Thank you, senator. I will let Mr. metz address the off on-ramp.
▶ 1:16:19Senator: He did seem the most excited to do that.
▶ 1:16:23Mr. West: The basic question, first of all, the ndaa has strict rules over the seven odd critical components that may not cover all countries, but like so many of those systems, many of the subcomponents that you are addressing do come from china. Trying to scale these onshore components, we mentioned a company in new hampshire that is making brushless motors here. As we come up --
▶ 1:16:53Sen. Budd: Is that at scale? They are able to make them at scale?
▶ 1:16:57Mr. Metz: No, but they will. The command signal we are providing is giving them time now that will give them the ability to bring in further capital and scaled manufacturing.
▶ 1:17:10Chair Wicker: Did you have a
▶ 1:17:11Dish -- Sen. Budd: Mr. west, additional thoughts question mark ok, thank you. Any nontraditional funding methods you are considering to increase production and share supply chain independence? For example, strategic capital credit financing or title iii, Mr. west?
▶ 1:17:36Mr. West: The industrial base strategic capital office stands ready to act as soon as supply chain constraints are illuminated as a result of having this largest order ever in group one, stressing our domestic supply chain, as you outlined, eliminating where they can come in for things like direct lending and other support invoking their authorities.
▶ 1:18:02Sen. Budd: What specific requirements has your program established to make sure that the drones can move to a gps denied environment? Will they be department or service driven requirements?
▶ 1:18:19Mr. Metz: In phase to the joint acquisition program this august we will be testing against a full counter ua s environment. So, denial of gss or comms in many formats. We are not being prescriptive with the companies about how they solve the challenges, because we want entrepreneurs to bring it in from outside the united states and efforts in the U.S. to innovate across those problems.
▶ 1:18:48Mr. Metz: The joint interagency task force is tasked with coordinating all of the counter efforts and will be a core partner in august and their goal is to knock down all the drones.
▶ 1:19:00Sen. Budd: Mr. west, or all three of you, how are you making sure the department individual services are working together, efficiently, not duplicating the efforts for small uis production? Seems like an open source is that I read every week there is a new effort, program, or department working on the issue. How do we make sure we are not duplicating the efforts?
▶ 1:19:25Mr. Metz: There are two components to this. At the top, the general officers, and the general can address this aspect, in terms of sustainable plans, at the grassroots we have collected the best operators from across the joint force. They all know one another. You know, these pilots are all as obsessed as we are at getting U.S. capabilities in this one up.
▶ 1:19:53Mr. Metz: And at the very top of the globe on any battlefield. So, there is a natural integration taking place. The bottom line is that because of reconciliation funding, we have been able to apply this in a very specific group and centralize it to depress these prices, ultimately to get the services in drones that they want.
▶ 1:20:19Gen. Marks: Thank you for the question, senator. In the defense autonomous warfare group we have trained service members from all services and worked directly with forward commands to show them how we have come up against problems and how we are developing different tactics and techniques, tactics and procedures, to actually operate the system. We are working with all services on this.
▶ 1:20:43Sen. Budd: Thank you.
▶ 1:20:45Chair Wicker: Senator king, then senator scott.
▶ 1:20:50Senator King: Thank you, Mr. chairman. I would like to see a chart of number of units produced per month, in price, from the ukrainian industry, versus what we are projecting. You mentioned that there have been -- you put out effectively a bid with a proposed price. I want to see the numbers. Can you give us that off the top of your head?
▶ 1:21:17Senator King: How many are the ukrainians producing every month and what do they costs as opposed to what we are projecting for this, for this section one production that you have now been in?
▶ 1:21:29Mr. Metz: If you will indulge me, senator, it's an honor to take a question from you. I grew up in pittston, maine, on the banks of the kennebec river, fellow sugarloaf, I sat next to you at the bag and cattle restaurant. Home of the best burger in the world.
▶ 1:21:47Sen. King: This is maine, everyone is connected in one way or another. [chuckles]
▶ 1:21:54Mr. Metz: It's an excellent question. Last year the ukrainians built roughly 4.5 million drones in total, 4.4 million of them were this, in this size range. We think that they will build about 6 million this year.
▶ 1:22:14Mr. Metz: Historically, most ukrainian drones are made from components primarily from china, although as I mentioned before they are also concerned about their own supply chain vulnerabilities and we think that there per unit pricing, depending on the nature of the fpv, is somewhere between $2500 on the low end and the low thousands on the high-end. Our program is designed to, over the six month cycles, lower prices.
▶ 1:22:46Mr. Metz: We are going to pay $5,000 per drone, we are placing those orders this week. By the end of this program we intend -- our goal is to get down to less than $2000 for a one kamikaze attack drone.
▶ 1:22:59Sen. King: You understand why this is a legitimate question. We are talking about 5000. Do you believe there's a realistic path to getting it down to 2000?
▶ 1:23:12Mr. Metz: I do. I'm an optimist about the efficacy of the american industrial base when given a good framework and real orders to go achieve it. I am confident that we will scale the prices down. The exact endpoint, that's hard to know. It's fair to say that I would not expect, given the way that the U.S. economy works in terms of labor and so forth, I would not expect us to match a trike -- chinese drone prices.
▶ 1:23:42Sen. King: I understand that but my experience is that if you establish a number of front, they do find a way to mediate. Rather than waiting for you to give them the number. Completely different question, defense, we've been talking about creating job -- creating drones. Are we talking about directed energy? Is that part of dog, looking at how to defend against these? Our adversaries will be building them at scale as well.
▶ 1:24:10Gen. Marks: I won't be able to get into specifics because of the classification.
▶ 1:24:16Sen. King: I understand that, but is defense a part of your mission?
▶ 1:24:19Gen. Marks: It would be. It is. I don't know what dominance is doing around the systems.
▶ 1:24:25Sen. King: I would hope that that is a part of what we are talking about.
▶ 1:24:30Chair Wicker: Mr. west question
▶ 1:24:32Mark Mr. West: Joint agency entered task force is tasked with counter uis. We invited them to the second gauntlet. The basic goal is to integrate offense and defense going forward so that both technologies can come up simultaneously, since there is so much overlap. Gauntlet two in august, we hope that the counter uis cannot down many of the drones.
▶ 1:25:01Sen. King: Are you looking at directed energy is a part of that?
▶ 1:25:07Mr. West: Yes, sir.
▶ 1:25:09Sen. King: I hope so. It's $.50 a shot.
▶ 1:25:15Mr. West: You are cost-conscious and we are very cost-conscious.
▶ 1:25:19Sen. King: Delighted to hear that. The wounded warrior project pointed out to me that drone injuries are very different from other kinds of injuries. Head and upper body. That's not necessarily a part of your mission, but I hope it is something the department is looking at, the nature of industry, injuries, and the training necessary. Final question, are you working on underwater capabilities as well, underwater autonomous
▶ 1:25:49Question Mark Sen. King: I'm not able to go into much depth on what we are doing in the undersea environment. I would request and welcome a closed session so that we can discuss it in greater detail.
▶ 1:26:04Sen. King: Thank you very much, gentleman. This is critically important work and we appreciate what you do.
▶ 1:26:10Chair Wicker: Do any of you want to weigh in on the question about upper body injuries and what senator king learned from the wounded warrior program? Any of you have any insight on that?
▶ 1:26:30Gen. Marks: It is something that we definitely have to go and look at, senator. I would be interested to know a bit more on that. That is something that we've got to address as we continue to scale out these autonomous systems.
▶ 1:26:49Chair Wicker: For whom ever is listening in dod, the point that the senator made is that someone needs to look at it.
▶ 1:26:59Sen. King: Something like 70% of the casualties in ukraine are caused by drones.
▶ 1:27:04Chair Wicker: That's important information, senator. Senator scott?
▶ 1:27:11Senator Scott: Thank you for your kind words earlier and thank you each of you for being here today. I'm glad that the department of war is prioritizing this. For years I and others have been trying to get the government to stop purchasing communist made drones to protect national security. Let's be clear, communist china is our enemy. Not the people, their government. They have chosen to be our enemy and we should not rely on them for absolutely anything, much less issues of national security.
▶ 1:27:42Senator Scott: In the past, I and others have fought for the security drone act. It was a huge step to get done in the fiscal year 25 nda. I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member. I thought for a secured provision for the blacklisting of known bad actors in the department.
▶ 1:28:03Senator Scott: This was a huge win for national security and I was thrilled to see the president and the chairman move forward with implementing this provision, but we are not close to getting done yet. We have to keep fighting to make sure that communist china has zero role in our supply or our military, critical to american safety. Unleashing american manufacturing in the drone industry and many others. Let's talk about the blue uis program that was intended to keep commercial drones free apart from adversarial nations like communist china.
▶ 1:28:34Senator Scott: The list has traditionally been you -- viewed as safe but it is well known that they often have ties to ccp owned companies and have loopholes to infiltrate our markets. Mr. metz, what steps can congress take to get communist china completely out of our drone supply chain?
▶ 1:28:52Mr. Metz: Thank you for the question. For the drone dominance program, our phase one deliveries while being delivered to the troops will be nda compliance. Going forward from there, it will be more prescriptive in terms of not allowing various components to be in the systems that we procure with the long-term goal of building a drone supply chain that is american.
▶ 1:29:23Mr. Metz: For instance, in phase two, where we will be placing orders, we won't be allowing any chinese batteries, in addition to other restrictions we will be imposing that are above and beyond current statutory restrictions.
▶ 1:29:37Sen. Scott: Mr. metz:
▶ 1:29:41Sen. Scott: Mr. metz, it extends beyond just drones, with things like cameras that could be outfitted to the drones. In recent days we've seen the trade commission sign with producers over an american company that will allow china to continue to sell spy cameras in our country. This harms american companies and creates a total vulnerability for american data to still end up in the hands of our enemy.
▶ 1:30:05Sen. Scott: To truly stop their influence on the market and protect our safety, wouldn't you agree that we must also address these vulnerabilities?
▶ 1:30:16Mr. West: Senator, yes. Thank you for championing this legislation that has done so much for our domestic industrial base. It's very important.
▶ 1:30:29Sen. Scott: So, how are you going to make sure that there is no equipment used by the department of war and have zero equipment ties to these manufacturers?
▶ 1:30:41Mr. West: One crucial step we have taken is to migrate the blue list that you invoked. Why was this done? Number one, they have the scale in terms of the numbers in real expertise to make sure that if you make the blue list, you are nda compliant. As you mentioned, it's difficult stuff.
▶ 1:31:01Mr. West: You have to examine the materials, the capital stack, autopsied the drones, ripped them apart, get down to the subcomponent level and build up the expertise to understand where these things are coming from. As travis said, we aspire to have a more aggressive on-ramp for american components than the ndaa. Ultimately, by deep in 27, these drones, they will be american or allied.
▶ 1:31:31Sen. Scott: Is everyone taking it seriously that we cannot rely on communist china in the military?
▶ 1:31:38Mr. West: I do.
▶ 1:31:40Chair Wicker: Senator kelly?
▶ 1:31:46Senator Kelly: Just to comment on senator king's question about injuries, I was last march in ukraine at a military hospital. I was with 10 ukrainian servicemembers who were severely injured. Nine out of 10 were injured by first-person view drones.
▶ 1:32:14Senator Kelly: 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 is still on the battlefield. Obviously, going forward here, drone technology is going to be such a significant part of ground combat.
▶ 1:32:41Senator Kelly: General marks, I want to ask you something that I think is going to define warfare now for the rest of our lives, for generations, the role of artificial intelligence in what we have seen play out here over the last several days, and certainly into the future. It will be a new feature of combat operations in many different ways.
▶ 1:33:08Senator Kelly: Specifically, the low-cost unmanned combat aircraft systems, the attack systems, those drones deployed in operation epic fury have documented autonomous and high jamming and I believe some swarming capabilities. My question is about what is underneath all of that. Our ai systems, are they being used to assist in targeting these decisions during this operation?
▶ 1:33:39Sen. Kelly: -- gen. Marks: at this level of open hearing I'm not able to go into great depth on what is inside of the lucas system. But I would be willing to get on your calendar, on the committee calendar, to give you a classified briefing.
▶ 1:33:57Sen. Kelly: My next question will be relevant there, it is about who validated the systems, who safeguarded them, and what human oversight exists at the moment that a drone selects or confirms a target. So, let's do that in a closed session as well.
▶ 1:34:17Sen. Kelly: But I also want to just state for the record here that companies like anthropic and others 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.
▶ 1:34:48Sen. Kelly: There is a dod directive, directive 3000.09, which requires what is called, the directors, appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force. That language doesn't necessarily mean a human is involved at the moment that a target is selected or engaged.
▶ 1:35:18Sen. Kelly: 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 has been
▶ 1:35:48Sen. Kelly: Activated? These are questions that we haven't yet dealt with here in congress and we need to. In general, we want to get your thoughts on that, independent of what lucas or any other system can do.
▶ 1:36:05Gen. Marks: Thank you for the question. Any system or capability procured by the department has to comply and be compliant with the law of armed conflict. I would say that any commander that deploys these systems, like any weapons system, it has to comply with the law of armed conflict.
▶ 1:36:28Sen. Kelly: I am not sure that the law of armed conflict has dealt with this issue. It may not be exactly kid here is why I think it is up to us, Mr. chairman, that we take this issue of human, humans in the loop, seriously.
▶ 1:36:47Sen. Kelly: 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 targeting the enemy. Thank you.
▶ 1:37:08Chair Wicker: Thank you you, senator kelly. We now begin round two of questioning. I recognize senator reed.
▶ 1:37:19Senator Reed: We've talked a lot about deploying lethal drones as quickly as possible, etc., and doing so in a training environment so that all of our forces can be very familiar with it. Is any work going on to develop training simulators? At some point we are going to be asking ourselves why we are not using them -- why we are using them at fort benning when we need them elsewhere? Mr.
▶ 1:37:46Senator Reed: West: 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.
▶ 1:38:05Senator Reed: In other words, with some software that exactly replicates the flight parameters of a specific drone system, we can cycle through like this and learn how to fly them fairly quickly.
▶ 1:38:21Sen. Kelly: I'm going back --
▶ 1:38:24Sen. Reed: I'm going back to that notion of in the field. We learned a long time ago how to make blanks so that we could get out there and shoot at each other. Realistic training rather than sitting in air conditioning.
▶ 1:38:49Mr. Metz: Secretary hegseth --
▶ 1:39:00Chair Wicker: The question is are we using simulators in training for both offense of and defensive use of drone?
▶ 1:39:08Mr. Metz: The answer is yes. Just of this monday down in fort benning we demonstrated a simulator for a number of the platforms and we intend to use it as a part of the training, part of the schoolhouse in the field. I should add that one of the benefits of driving the costs down and making the systems truly consumable is that you can then transition to actual physical use without worrying about the long-term, you know, costs.
▶ 1:39:40Chair Wicker: Thank you. Further questions? The record will remain, the question for the record will be due to the committee at the conclusion of this hearing, which is occurring right now. We are adjourned.