Drones are now bullets: How a new Pentagon policy may accelerate robot warfare
The new policy also allows more units to buy drones, which should boost the demand signal to industry.
Patrick Tucker | July 11, 2025 05:40 PM ET
Drones Industry Pentagon
Treat small drones like ammunition, not airplanes, the defense secretary told the Pentagon in a Thursday memo that just might boost production where many other efforts have failed.
“There's a chance for this to go really fast,” said Allan Evans, CEO of Unusual Machines, a company that manufactures drone parts.
The memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which builds on a July 6 White House executive order, does a couple of key things. Most importantly, it directs the Defense Department to treat small drones under 55 pounds—the so-called Group 1 and 2 drones—as consumables rather than “durable property.”
Small drones already don’t have to fit STANAG 4586—the NATO standard that makes sure different militaries can talk to the same drone over the same control link. The memo explicitly removes that requirement; there had been some confusion, particularly in training documents. It instructs U.S. military buyers to not hold cheap battlefield drones to the same interoperability rules designed for larger, more expensive systems.
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2025/07/drones-are-now-bullets-how-new-pentagon-policy-may-accelerate-robot-warfare/406686/?oref=d1-homepage-top-story
