The Pentagon’s largest-ever budget request earmarks $75 billion for drones and technologies to counter them, mainly for a massive increase for a little-known office working with US commandos to test and evaluate various systems, according to defense officials.
The drone-funding proposal includes $54.6 billion for the Defense Autonomous Working Group, or DAWG, from just $225.9 million this year. That would appear to be the largest single year-over-year boost of any defense program or office, meaning it’s likely to draw particular congressional and public scrutiny in an already eye-catching $1.5 trillion request that’s 42% larger than this year’s budget.
The big boost for the Pentagon’s little-known drone unit comes as the US and Israeli war against Iran illustrates how drones can help level the playing field against even the world’s most well-funded armed forces. Tehran has sent volleys of its cheap Shahed one-way attack drones into energy facilities and other buildings across the Persian Gulf, closing the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic, raising global energy prices and putting pressure on President Donald Trump to find a diplomatic off-ramp.
The vast majority of the $75 billion is aimed at evaluating, purchasing or modifying drone systems that are already in use, rather than for technologies in the research phase, according to a defense official who briefed reporters prior to the formal release of details on Tuesday.
“The first thing I will be looking for” in the new information “is a better description of what specifically” the working group will actually spend that money on, said Todd Harrison, a defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
The DAWG works with special operator forces who test systems on a daily basis, giving feedback to manufacturers for improvement before the US purchases them. It evaluates drones that can operate autonomously or with human operators, and suggests how to integrate them into the military services.
The working group was launched during the current Trump administration and is part of US Special Operations Command. The unit also manages the Biden administration era Replicator initiative, which sought to produce and field thousands of expendable autonomous drones by August 2025 — a milestone that came and went without any public results.
Among the Replicator systems selected and disclosed so far are AeroVironment Inc.’s anti-armor Switchblade 600, Anduril Industries Inc.’s reconnaissance and attack drone Ghost-X, and Performance Drone Works LLC’s C-100.
While Russia has for years used Iran’s Shahed drones in strikes on Ukraine, the US first used one-way attack drones in the current Middle East war. US Central Command deployed a unit wielding low-cost unmanned combat attack system (LUCAS) drones, produced by Arizona-based SpektreWorks Inc., which are estimated to cost about $35,000 each and were reverse-engineered from Iran’s designs.
DAWG in January launched a public challenge with a $100 million prize to produce technology for voice-controlled and autonomous drone swarms. The prize was launched jointly with the Defense Innovation Unit, which is devoted to partnering with Silicon Valley startups.
A proposal from Elon Musk’s SpaceX and xAI was among the successful submissions, as well as two other bids that included Sam Altman’s OpenAI for the artificial intelligence component, Bloomberg News reported in March.
The Office of Management and Budget on April 3 released the overall defense budget’s broad outlines. The Pentagon and the military services will brief reporters on Tuesday with additional details.
The funding boost for DAWG is far from certain to win approval. The Pentagon is requesting $1 billion in regular discretionary spending, while the rest of the funding is requested as mandatory spending. That means Congress would have to include the funding in a budget reconciliation bill, a separate spending package the Republican majority could pass on a party-line vote.
A message from Advisor Perspectives and VettaFi: Discover something new! Click here to register for our upcoming webcasts.
Bloomberg News provided this article. For more articles like this please visit
bloomberg.com.
Read more articles by Tony Capaccio, Roxana Tiron (BGOV)
