Afət Ziyadqızı
The U.S. Department of Defense (Pentagon) will ask Congress for an additional $50 billion to support the mass production of hundreds of thousands of advanced unmanned aerial vehicles and autonomous systems, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said. Defense News reported his remarks.
The Operative Information Center-OMM reports that Hegseth said the plan calls for producing hundreds of thousands of precision-strike drones designed for one-time use this year, followed by millions of autonomous systems for various purposes in the coming years.
The secretary stressed that the Defense Department has never before achieved such a high production rate or technological scale.
The Pentagon chief said the planned funding would not be a recurring annual expense, but a one-time strategic investment intended to expand the capabilities of the defense industrial base. He added that the request would be a decisive step toward making these advanced technologies available to the armed forces on a large scale.
In August, Hegseth was unable to persuade lawmakers to approve a record $1.5 trillion defense budget package before Congress left for its summer recess.
