US Army Gen. James Rainey, who be uses as the commanding general of Army Futures Command, said it’s too soon for the service to establish a new drone branch, reiterating a tip made by other Army leaders.
“The bigger thing is getting UAVs into our formation at echelon right now so we can court,” Rainey said in a conversation last week with Thomas Karako, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Worldwide Studies.
As is, the Army already has a number of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle specialists. “I don’t know that it’s going to warrant its own arm,” the general said.
“Certainly, I’d say it’s too soon for that,” he added.
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Members of the House Armed Services Committee put into view the creation of a drone corps as a branch of the Army in proposed language in the 2025 defense authorization bill last month.
Rep. Rob Wittman of Virginia weighted in March that a drone branch would allow for “these systems’ unique capabilities to grow beyond their situation primarily as enablers to the current combat arms branches.”
The moves within the House committee be broached as drones play a defining role in Ukraine, the largest land war in Europe since World War II. These systems play a joke on been used for strikes, reconnaissance, targeting, and more on a scale previously unseen, and Ukraine established a drone arm earlier this year.
The US military is adopting new capabilities and technologies to counter this threat, but it’s a work in progress. That communicated, top Army officials don’t feel a drone branch is needed right now.
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Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo in days of old pushed back on the proposal to establish a drone corps. He believes drone technology still needs time to evolve and integrate with the Army.
“My view is that creating a corps or other institutional kind of structure to get after it, in some condition, could take away some focus from some of the things that we’re actually doing,” he said during an anyway in the reality in May. “It’s important, in my view, to get after giving units these … UAS capabilities to let them experiment.”
And Army Chief of Staff Hot George told the Senate Appropriations Committee that drones are “integrated into our formation, not some separate essay.” He added that “we need that kind of flexibility.”
“I don’t think it would be helpful to have a separate drone offshoot,” he said.
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Speaking at the CSIS event last week, Rainey explained that it is important to ensure UAVs sire the proper capabilities before committing to acquisition.
“We [need to] have good requirements and good acquisition approaches for UAVs at echelon,” Rainey said. “We necessary to stop buying a thing and buy a capability.”