Secretary of Struggle Pete Hegseth introduced on September 30 that the Pentagon will create an Autonomous Warfare Command, generally known as AUTOWARCOM. He made the announcement in his State of the Force tackle to active-duty E-6s (employees sergeants, technical sergeants, and petty officers firstclass) and O-3s (captains and Navy lieutenants) at Marine Corps Base Quantico.
AUTOWARCOM would be the army’s twelfth combatant command, a unified command led by a four-star officer that directs forces from a number of companies. It’ll have “service-like authorities, constructed to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities throughout the joint power,” with a portfolio covering drones, synthetic intelligence, and command and management techniques.
A memo released after the speech units October 1, 2027, because the goal date to ascertain the command, contingent on congressional approval.
The command was one in every of six initiatives Hegseth unveiled within the speech. The others are America’s Corps of Cadets, FORTRESS America, the Subsequent Nice American Base, an Workplace of Non secular Affairs, and Venture Meridian, a research of future warfare that Elon Musk will co-direct.
AUTOWARCOM builds on an workplace Hegseth created three months earlier. A June 29 memo established the Direct Reporting Portfolio Supervisor for Unmanned Programs (DRPM-UxS) because the division’s single joint integrator for unmanned and autonomous system packages. The workplace studies to Deputy Secretary Stephen Feinberg and oversees how the army develops, buys, fields, and sustains unmanned techniques within the air, on the bottom, and at sea.
The Protection Autonomous Warfare Group and Joint Interagency Process Power 401 grew to become deputy offices underneath it. The workplace additionally inherits the $53.6 billion allotted for autonomous drone platforms within the division’s price range request.
Hegseth directed DRPM-UxS to guide Venture Agincourt, an interim effort to arrange the best way for the command. The challenge takes its identify from the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the place English longbowmen helped defeat a bigger French military of armored knights, and Hegseth mimed a bow and arrow as he introduced it.
Protection Innovation Unit Director Owen West will function chief executive officer of DRPM-UxS, and Navy SEAL Senior Chief Max Strasiser will function chief working officer. Strasiser was the primary enlisted SEAL to graduate from Navy Check Pilot Faculty. The workplace has 30 days to submit a plan of motion and milestones for Hegseth’s approval. It’ll additionally coordinate with Congress on required laws.
Below Agincourt, the workplace will prototype a model Hegseth known as “warfighting acquisition.” It pairs operators with entrepreneurs in fast adaptation cycles and strikes selections and funding nearer to frontline items.
Hegseth said Ukraine showed that no single sort of drone wins wars and {that a} system constructed to adapt is what issues. The division states that its Drone Dominance program has delivered hundreds of robotic techniques to the Center East in help of Operation Epic Fury.
Congress has already moved towards an identical command. The Senate Armed Providers Committee’s fiscal 2027 Nationwide Protection Authorization Act would allow a Robotic and Autonomous Systems Combatant Command led by a four-star normal. The committee handed the invoice 18–9 in June.
The Air & House Forces Affiliation opposed the availability in a July 6 letter to committee Chairman Jack Reed. The affiliation argued that the command would complicate the event, acquisition, and operational use of the companies’ unmanned techniques.
Two different initiatives embrace drone parts. FORTRESS America requires installations to generate their very own energy and for bases to be protected towards cyberattacks, sabotage, and drones. The Subsequent Nice American Base shall be a brand new set up for 15,000 to 25,000 troops, with autonomous techniques and air defenses. States will compete to host it.
Hegseth additionally commissioned Venture Meridian, a 120-day research co-directed by Musk, Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, and former Home Speaker Newt Gingrich. The commissioning memo names synthetic intelligence, autonomy, directed vitality, robotics, and biotechnology as fields that may change warfare. It directs the research to establish the capabilities troops will want and suggest methods to develop, check, and area them.
Pentagon Chief Expertise Officer Emil Michael will fee the challenge by way of a companion group the memo doesn’t identify. Findings are due January 28, 2027, in a public report with a categorized annex.
“The perfect forecasters of future conflict don’t solely reside contained in the Pentagon,” Hegseth stated. Musk’s SpaceX is a Pentagon contractor, and Luckey’s Anduril builds autonomous weapons for the army. Meridian is Musk’s first official role advising the administration since his public feud with Trump after leaving DOGE.
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