Drones Over U.S. Bases May Be Threatening Spy Flights: NORTHCOM Commander
Gen. Gregory M. Guillot asked Congress for more authority to defend against drone incursions.
Howard Altman
Posted 19 Hours Ago
The general in charge of coordinating U.S. counter-drone efforts said incursions over military installations may have been surveillance flights.
Some of the hundreds of drones flying over U.S. military bases and other sensitive areas last year were likely operated with nefarious intentions, the general coordinating the response to domestic incursions told a Senate hearing today. As a result, U.S. Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), testified that he needs increased authority to better protect these installations.
“The primary threat I see for them in the way they’ve been operating is detection and perhaps surveillance of sensitive capabilities on our installations,” Guillot explained to a Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) budget request hearing. He was responding to a question about the numerous drone incursions over U.S. military facilities, like the ones over Langley Air Force Base in 2023 that we were the first to cover. Guillot was not asked, nor did he volunteer information about who was operating these drones. A NORTHCOM spokesperson later declined to elaborate.
The limits on defending against drones are, at best, relegated to electronic warfare countermeasures, with simply providing awareness largely being the extent of the counter-drone systems deployed at installations in the United States. At this time, directed energy weapons, like lasers and high-power microwave systems, let alone kinetic capabilities, remain off-limits. This is a glaring issue we raised after our trip to see Guillot at his headquarters in Colorado Springs last year.
https://www.twz.com/news-features/drones-over-u-s-bases-may-be-threatening-spy-flights-northcom-commander
