Small Drones Are the ‘Defining Problem of Our Time,’ Pentagon Warns

Small unmanned aircraft systems are the “defining problem of our time,” according to Col. Scott Humr, director of Science and Technology for the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the War Department’s premier organization for countering small UAS. 

“The challenge that we see, is that small UAS have fundamentally changed the character of conflict, of security and safety for the public. They are cheap, accessible, adaptable and increasingly lethal. They’ve lowered the barrier to entry and are sophisticated elements of air power for the individual. And now we’re seeing how this is reshaping everything on the modern battlefield, including in the homeland,” Humr said Thursday at GovCIO Media & Research’s Defense IT Summit. 

“Our Adversaries Are Not Waiting” 

The mission of the task force, which was established in August 2025, is to synchronize counter small UAS efforts across the DOW in order to rapidly deliver capabilities at scale to warfighters, allied forces and domestic security partners.  

In its first 100 days, JIATF 401 focused on shifting from what he called a “community of interest” to a “community of action.” That meant moving beyond conferences and conversations to delivering tangible capabilities to the warfighter. They also updated homeland counter UAS guidance and integrated interagency training. 

Looking ahead, Humr said the task force’s next three major efforts are creating a streamlined procurement marketplace for agencies to purchase capabilities quickly, publishing common data standardizations for interoperability, and establishing a unified command and control.  

“If you think about a threat that’s flowing from say down the Potomac River, it comes in through Belvoir. How does Belvoir pass a track of a UAS that’s going to now be in the National Harbor and then maybe going into Fort McNair airspace and then into the capital region,” he said. “We have to have an integrated seamless common command and control effort that’s going to be able to pass those tracks efficiently across the different agencies and partners.”   

Lessons From Ukraine 

Stephen Gordon, strategic accounts director for the DOW at Red Hat and a fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, said the war in Ukraine has demonstrated the tactical and psychological impact of low-cost drones. 

Gordon said Russia has used first-person view drones not only for battlefield strikes but to target civilian, as well.  

“What is Russia’s objective of literally going on what is now commonly referred to as a human safari by the observers in Ukraine? … We observed these drones attacking people going to get their pension checks in Ukraine, elderly walking, people on bicycles … not just on the front lines but across the theater,” he said. 

The result is a prototype for future conflicts where psychological warfare and maneuver operations are intertwined. The objective is not only to get civilians to leave the area so that Russia can conduct unobstructed air and ground military operations, Gordon said, but also to sow distrust among the Ukrainian people that their government can’t keep them safe. Gordon encouraged NATO to take note of the tactic. 

“There needs to be a reassessment of civilian protection in these kinds of areas because it is not just a nuisance. It is meant to impact multiple layers to make maneuverability a much easier objective for the adversary,” he said.