Army eyes drones for every infantryman amid battlefront overhaul

THE Army is rapidly developing small, first-person-view drones — the same type that have proven devastatingly effective in Ukraine — and envisions a future where “every infantryman will have a drone with them,” according to Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll.

“We’re basically making a call to arms where we’re absorbing the lessons learned in Ukraine,” Driscoll told a small group of reporters on the sidelines of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) annual conference. “Ukraine managed to remove almost $10 billion in Russian equipment, including $100,000 worth of drones.”

He added that the Army’s elite units are already considering using drones for every mission. “When you meet our major units like the Ranger Regiment or Delta Force,” he said, “they envision drones being a critical part of every action they take.”

The remarks were made at the AUSA annual conference in Washington, where hundreds of Army leaders met with defense officials to showcase the latest technologies on the battlefield. The event — one of the military’s largest industry gatherings — almost didn’t happen this year due to the government shutdown.

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A Ukrainian serviceman inspects a drone provided by the Come Back Alive foundation to a Ukrainian airborne brigade amid the Russian attack on Ukraine in kyiv, February 14, 2024. (Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters/file photo)

AUSA stepped in with a $1 million donation to cover travel costs and bring in Army officers from around the world, allowing the service to continue meetings with industry and advance modernization plans.

Driscoll said the Army views drones and counter-drones as “different sides of the same coin,” noting that future soldiers will need to be proficient in both. “You can’t really defend against one without being an expert in the other,” he said.

The service also develops defensive networks that merge sensors and interceptors to protect key assets from aerial threats. “We’re using new technologies like drones to create a detection layer that, combined with interceptors, will essentially allow us to build mini ‘iron domes’ over protected assets,” Driscoll said.

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Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll (Spc. Luke Sullivan/75th Ranger Regiment)

He described this “pervasive drone” vision as part of a broader modernization drive that spans artificial intelligence, industrial reform and energy resilience — all of which, he said, are necessary for the military to operate in contested environments such as the Indo-Pacific.

In a separate but related effort, Driscoll and Energy Secretary Chris Wright unveiled the Janus program, a next-generation energy initiative that would place small nuclear microreactors on U.S. military bases. The goal: to make facilities self-sufficient in energy and less dependent on vulnerable fuel convoys or foreign supply chains.

“These reactors will be built and operated commercially,” Driscoll said, “and they will give us the ability to provide resilient, secure, 24-hour power to our most critical facilities.”

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Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll briefed reporters on the Army’s modernization. (Cheriss May/Getty Images)

Wright said the program aims to replicate the reliability of nuclear propulsion in Navy submarines. “These engines are installed, they ensure the life of the submarine without refueling,” he said. “It was a game changer for our Navy. And I think we can do the same thing for our Army with small reactors that can be deployed in any context.”

The Janus reactors, which will be developed in partnership with the Ministry of Energy, are designed to be small and transportable. Driscoll said each would be protected by armor-grade materials — “the same material you put around a tank” — and protected by the same layered network of sensors and drones envisioned for base defense.

Uranium enrichment is one of the biggest obstacles to scaling microreactors. Reactors require high-grade low-enriched uranium (HALEU) — a concentration of uranium 235 higher than that currently produced for civilian use.

(Iryna Rybakova/Press service of the 93rd Kholodnyi Yar Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine/Handout via Reuters)

“Nobody’s producing them today,” Wright told reporters. “Congress allocated funds a few years ago, but they have sat too long. We will make awards to accelerate the increase in U.S. enrichment capacity in America.”

Wright said the goal was to restore the domestic uranium supply chain and eliminate reliance on foreign sources. “We quickly built 100 reactors, providing 20 percent of America’s electricity, and then it stagnated for decades,” he said. “Today, nuclear power provides about 5 percent of global energy production. This is deeply disappointing.”

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Safety and security will be major concerns as the Army moves forward. “From a cyber perspective, no one is going to authorize a remotely controlled nuclear reactor,” said Dr. Jeff Waksman, the Army official in charge of the Janus program. “They will be connected by fiber optics – there is no possibility of remote operation.”

Waksman added that the small size and design of the reactors make them unattractive proliferation targets. The goal of the project is to eventually reach a global scale, but for now, “these will be deployed in the 50 American states and not deployed at the front,” he said. “These are small targets, with very small amounts of material inside.”