Pentagon spending on drones jumps from $225M to $55B in one year

tencentshill

Reminder: The Trump family has direct involvement in drone companies https://apnews.com/article/trump-sons-powerus-drone-intercep...

ranger_danger

> Funding tied to the little-known Defense Autonomous Warfare Group spans procurement, research, training and sustainment Someone really wanted to name a department DAWG.

andrewstuart

Doesn’t seem anywhere near enough. All future and present conflict is fundamentally based around drones.

zethraeus

And they bought three new drones!

Aboutplants

The most surprising thing here is that the US was previously only spending $225 Million on drones when it’s been fully apparent for the past decade(s) that drones were the future of warfare.

hnthrow0287345

Misleading title: this article says it is seeking a budget increase, not that it's been approved >The funding request, a dramatic surge from roughly $225 million a year earlier, signals a major shift in how the U.S. military plans to fight future wars, accelerating a move toward large numbers of lower-cost, AI-enabled systems. The merits of this ask within this insane administration basically means nothing IMO. Hegseth could ask for cybernetic ponies with beer coolers and I wouldn't be surprised.

johnea

But, but... What about Tom Cruise... on the flight deck... with his bomber jacket!!! This is... UNAMERICAN!!! p.s. This comment is sarcasm. For the unmitigated reality, please refer to your 1950s "duck and cover" propaganda...

BugsJustFindMe

It would cost less to provide free breakfast and lunch to all public school students in the US, but that might actually improve the country's future instead of blowing things up.

tristanj

A Chinese drone manufacturer [Poly Technologies] has disclosed a massive government order for almost a million lightweight kamikaze drones, to be delivered by 2026 https://defence-blog.com/china-places-massive-order-for-kami... https://www.warquants.com/p/one-million-suicide-drones-with-...

Aboutplants

My only hope is that as we flippantly give hundreds of billions of dollars to defense, at some point in the near future a few hundred billion dollars for actual infrastructure or education won’t seem like all that much.

carabiner

Drones killing drones. No lives at stake any more. Like burning piles of money on the sidelines until one side runs out.

dmix

They refuse to spend less in other areas, which is the big reason why they haven't already solved the glaringly obvious drone problem. Not surprised they just want to throw more money at a new program instead of stepping on anyones toes in the other branches.

i_love_retros

If only the regular folk could rise up and take back their tax money and spend it on something that collectively helps them like universal healthcare. It's so lucky for the crooks running the country that the regular folk haven't thought of that!

avazhi

They saw what’s happening in Ukraine and then got firsthand knowledge with the Shaheds.

SimianSci

I see drones as more of a side-affect to the new era of warfare we are in. The more powerful your economy, the more autonomous weapons you can create and eventually deploy. Manufacturing capacity and economic resiliancy are becoming far more important than a nation's ability to equip and train its military. The alarming part of this to me is that this heavily implies that wars will be decided more by who can successfully destroy their adversary's economy, than who can take and hold points of strength. Holding a city with an entrenched military doesnt matter much when there is still a factory deep in enemy territory producing the next wave of attacks. The incentives for targeting non-combatant civilians is rising at an alarming rate.

nullocator

This should be a massive wakeup call to anyone who believes the ~$500B-1T per year "defense" tax burden placed on U.S. citizens for the last 20 years is keeping them safe. Apparently it wasn't until Ukraine+Iran that the most sophisticated and well funded military in the world realized that cheap drones and missiles weren't just the future but they are the present. We've been getting raked over the coals by these defense contractors and I'm guessing we probably have no idea how far down are pants actually are. And the response: 1.5x the budget and unboard a new generation of corrupt defense contractors who will sell the american military and people more shit tier products at top dollar.