This Week in DOD: Department Unleashes Drone Development; USDA, DOD Partner on Security; U.S. Hosts Israel for Bilateral Talks

Published July 11, 2025
By C. Todd Lopez

By eliminating unnecessary policies and bureaucracy, the Defense Department plans to put legions of small, inexpensive drones into the hands of warfighters who need them.

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"In line with President [Donald J.] Trump's recent executive order to support the American drone industry, [Defense] Secretary [Pete] Hegseth signed a memo removing restrictive policies on drone innovation that hindered production and access to vital technologies," said Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell during the Weekly Sitrep video. "By leveraging our department's savings from [the Department of Government Efficiency], we will help power a technological leapfrog and bolster the U.S. drone industry by approving hundreds of made-in-America drone products for purchase by our military."

Outdoors in a field, a soldier in a camouflage uniform holds a small drone aircraft in his outstretched left arm.

According to Hegseth, the department's new focus on the use of drone technology involves three primary efforts.

First is to strengthen the U.S. drone manufacturing base.

"We will bolster the nascent U.S. drone manufacturing base by approving hundreds of American products for purchase by our military," Hegseth said. "Leveraging private capital flows that support this industry, our overt preference is to buy American."

A man in a business suit extends his right arm into the air to retrieve a folded piece of paper hanging beneath a small, hovering drone. In the rear is a large building and two service members in camouflage uniforms holding remote control devices.

Second is to get the best tools America has to offer into the hands of the service members who need them most.

"We will power a technological leapfrog, arming our combat units with a variety of low-cost drones made by America's world-leading engineers and [artificial intelligence] experts," Hegseth said.

The department will also ensure those combat units don't just have drones available to them, but that they are also well-trained on how to use them.

"We'll train as we expect to fight. To simulate the modern battlefield, senior officers must overcome the bureaucracy's instinctive risk-aversion on everything from budgeting to weaponizing and training," Hegseth said. "Next year, I expect to see this capability integrated into all relevant combat training, including force-on-force drone wars."

Also this week, the Defense Department partnered with the Agriculture Department to better protect U.S. military installations.

A man in suit speaks into a microphone behind a lectern outside during the day.

"The Department of Agriculture initiated a governmentwide focus to safeguard our farmlands and land around our military bases from being purchased by adversarial nations," Parnell said. "Food security is national security."

Called the "National Farm Security Action Plan," the effort that was announced July 8, 2025, by USDA, affects the Defense Department as well. Part of the action plan involves government using both legislative and executive action to ban the purchase of American farmland by Chinese nationals or other foreign adversaries.

In some cases, farmland purchased by investors associated with adversarial foreign governments is situated around U.S. military installations, putting those installations at risk.

"As someone who's charged with leading the Defense Department, I want to know who owns the land around our bases and strategic bases, and getting an understanding of why foreign entities, foreign companies [and] foreign individuals might be buying up land around those bases," Hegseth said. "That's something I should be paying attention to, on behalf of the American people, on behalf of my department and on behalf of the president."

On July 9, 2025, Hegseth welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the Pentagon to commemorate the successes of both nations in recent military operations.

Nearly a dozen individuals in business attire sit around a large wooden table. In the rear are both U.S. and Israeli flags against the wall. Above their heads are boom microphones held by journalists.

"The secretary held bilateral meetings with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to honor the historic sacrifice and success of Operation Midnight Hammer and to celebrate Israel's special partnership with the United States," Parnell said.

At the meeting, Hegseth and Netanyahu discussed the successes of Israel's Operation Rising Lion and Operation Midnight Hammer, which together resulted in significant damage inflicted on Iran's nuclear weapons program and that successfully brought an end to the 12-day war between Iran and Israel.

"Thank you for being a friend, a model ally and showing leadership and strength," Hegseth told Netanyahu. "You can have a lot of allies and then you have allies with capabilities that actually execute on the frontlines and what you did was spectacular."

Both Hegseth and Netanyahu credited the strong bond between the U.S. and Israel for their mutual success against Iran.

"I think the entire world took note; I think Iran took note; [and] I think everybody in the Middle East took note of American resolve and of the strength of our alliance," Netanyahu said. "It was like the roar of two lions, and it was heard around the world."