Leaders and experts from the US Department of War (DoW) and other agencies in the US government – including the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Transportation Department and Federal Aviation Administration – have met to plan a three-year effort to deliver counter-small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) capabilities to US warfighters and to secure US airspace from hostile drones.
The meeting, which took place on 25 November 2025 at The Mark Center in Alexandria, Virginia, follows the establishment of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF 401) by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth in August 2025.
“My priorities for transformation and acquisition reform include improving [counter-small unmanned aircraft systems] mobility and affordability and integrating capabilities into warfighter formations,” Hegseth wrote in the August memo that directed Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll to stand up the task force. Hegseth added that the department “must focus on speed over process by … establishing JIATF 401 with expanded authorities to execute capability development and delivery timelines that outpace the threat”.
“This was an opportunity to bring together all of the services, all of our interagency partners that have shared interests and equities with countering small UAS threats, because no one agency can solve this on their own,” US Army Brigadier General Matt Ross, the commander of JIATF 401, was quoted as saying at the 25 November summit in an article on the DoW website. “What we’re really trying to do is expand the community of interest into a community of action and make sure we’re taking tangible steps to defeat the UAS threat we face on a daily basis.”
Gen Ross warned that the threat from small UASs in the United States is growing.
“Unmanned systems are a defining threat for our time, and I say that because they’re prolific, they’re evolving quickly, and they’re no longer confined to combat,” he said, adding that drones are “putting exquisite surveillance and precision strike capability into the hands of individuals and small groups that used to be reserved for our state adversaries”.
Gen Ross emphasised three lines of effort to defeat small UAS threats: defending the homeland, supporting warfighter lethality and joint force training.
In the short term, according to Gen Ross, homeland defence will focus on the area around Washington, DC; the US southern border; and supporting the FIFA World Cup event in June 2026, for which the United States is the main host country.
US Northern Command and Joint Task Force Southern Border personnel have reported around 3,000 drone incursions over the border in the past year and have seen over 60,000 drones just south of the border looking into the United States, according to Gen Ross. He affirmed his belief that addressing threats from drones at the border is not simply about a hardware solution but also involves communications and data sharing.
“We need a common air picture that includes drones,” said Gen Ross. “In some cases we need cross-domain solutions that will allow us to see data that’s picked up on a secret radar and an unclassed sensor. We need to proliferate active and passive sensors that provide air situational awareness along the southern border.”
In the National Capital Region the task force will monitor how sensors from various agencies are able to track threats as they move through the sky, how that information can be passed to decision makers and how those with the ability to take those threats out of the sky can be given the authority to do so.
One particular focus JIATF 401 has during the World Cup, meanwhile, is to ensure security personnel have access through the Defense Logistics Agency to purchase counter-UAS capabilities that have been rigorously tested by the DoW.
Daniel Tamburello, the undersecretary of science and technology for the Department of Homeland Security, acknowledged that working together across the federal government will be crucial to mission success, the DoW article stated.
Both Northcom and DHS are responsible for protecting the homeland, including from drones.
“There’s a lot of overlap in those missions,” Tamburello said. “Jointness and interagency co-operation is actually extremely essential with this.”
Tamburello warned that the UAS threat “has become prolific and widespread, and it’s only going to get bigger and more complicated as more people adopt these systems and learn how to use them. … Any bad actor who wants to do something has a chance to do it, and we have to stop them.”
Tamburello noted that the goals for the task force include co-ordinating with every US agency that deals with the threat posed by UASs to enable interoperability and open communication.
“That is really going to be the best value for the taxpayer to make sure that we’re acquiring not only the best systems, but we’re not wasting money in the process,” he said.
With the World Cup approaching, some counter-UAS beyond the US military are already underway. The FBI, for example, has recently opened the National Counter-UAS Training Center in Huntsville, Alabama. This is used to give counter-UAS training to state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement officers to prepare them for the World Cup and other major events.
