DOGE Team At Pentagon Is Urgently Trying To Overhaul America’s Lagging Drone Program

Apparently the Pentagon has its very own DOGE unit, and it is overseeing a major US effort to greatly and rapidly bolster the US military’s drone program, which by many accounts has been lagging.

The Pentagon’s Department of Government Efficiency, which has only been disclosed in a fresh Reuters report Thursday, will aim to acquire at least 30,000 drones in the coming months. It follows Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth recently vowing to cut red tape after there were alarm bells in Washington over US drones’ lackluster performance on the Ukrainian battlefield.

The urgency of a more cutting-edge and nimble drone program, perhaps more in line with the vision of defense tech innovationists like Palmer Luckey and his Anduril Industries, was communicated in President Trump’s June executive order designating the drone program a defense priority. This includes a desire for greater numbers of AI autonomous drones.

According to Reuters, “DOGE officials have requested information on drones from across the Pentagon, including the Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force and the Defense Innovation Unit, seeking information about specifications, including weight and payload size, according to two of the people.”

Owen West, a Marine veteran who has had roles both at Goldman Sachs and the Department of Defense, has been identified as DOGE’s drone team leader, and he is said to have co-authored of a key Hegseth July drone memo.

“The Pentagon’s DOGE unit is leading efforts to overhaul the U.S. military drone program, including streamlining procurement, expand homegrown production, and acquire tens of thousands of cheap drones in the coming months, according to Pentagon officials and people with knowledge of the matter,” Reuters continues.

The Ukraine war has been dominated by literally hundreds of thousands of small UAVs, sometimes hitting in waves of ‘drone swarms’ on either said – and China too is said to be bulking up its arsenal with AI drone swarms with an eye on potential Taiwan action.

Consider for example, the following observation from last June related to the Ukraine battlefield:

Ukraine just mounted an attack that marks a turning point in the history of warfare Hundreds of drones were pre-deployed and then struck 40+ aircraft 1000+ km inside of Russia >$1B in damage by <$1m of drones Critical infra is no longer safe,” Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire wrote on X. 

Trying to think through the implications of this. Asymmetric/ irregular warfare just became way more viable. Traditional organized militaries are toast.

— nic carter (@nic__carter) June 1, 2025

This is the new face of warfare — covert, mobile, and nearly impossible to detect until it’s too late. Also, the US now faces growing vulnerabilities, not only from irregular warfare but also from potential internal security lapses. And as the battlefield leaves the era of conventional ‘fronts’ – the Pentagon wants to catch up on holding the edge on weapons tech.