Overview
- Lt. Gen. Joseph Jarrard warned Thursday that domestic U.S. military bases are "ill-equipped" to detect and defeat small attack drones and first‑person‑view (FPV) swarms.
- Senior commanders say the core shortfall is early warning: many bases lack the sensors and integrated tracking needed to cue defenses before drones fly overhead.
- The Pentagon and Army are accelerating tests of counter‑UAS tools and expect to field directed‑energy lasers and other systems to a limited number of bases, with reporting that at least five sites could receive lasers by year‑end 2026.
- Combat lessons from abroad — including Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Web and an FPV strike on a U.S. base in Baghdad — show cheap, prepositioned or one‑way drones can bypass traditional defenses.
- The mismatch between low-cost attack drones and high-cost interceptors pushes the military toward layered defenses, greater sensor coverage and local interagency links, and those changes will shape base security and nearby civilian response plans.