Pentagon’s drone policy changes expected to help soldiers fly through red tape

WASHINGTON – Recent changes to Pentagon drone policies are expected to make soldiers less hesitant to use small UAVs, according to the Army officer who previously warned the onerous bureaucracy surrounding lost drones was stifling their use in the field.

“Army-wide fielding of advanced UAS technologies was hindered by slow bureaucratic processes, overly restrictive policies, risk averse acquisition oversight, and sluggish budget debates that stifled innovation,” Col. Nick Ryan, director of the Army Capability Manager for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, told Breaking Defense. “This new Secretary of Defense guidance cuts through that to expedite lethal UAS directly to our Soldiers.”

“UAS are no longer optional. Our ability to proliferate, adapt, upgrade, and innovate our UAS technology and TTP’s [tactics, techniques, and procedures] faster than our adversary is essential to maintaining our dominance,” he added. 

For years, the Pentagon deemed every unmanned aerial system (UAS) as “nonexpendable property,” meaning each and every one had to be strictly accounted for and tracked. If a soldier lost a small drone, even in combat, it would oftentrigger a time-consuming Financial Liability Investigation of Property Loss, or FLIPL. And if the soldier was found liable for the loss, their pay could be docked.

In October2024,Ryan revealed to Breaking Defense that the process became such a hassle that some soldiers and units were hesitant to even fly the smaller drones meant to give them an edge in combat. One drone in particular, he explained at the time, had become so problematic, soldiers referred to it as the “flying FLIPL” and preferred to house it on a shelf. 

“If they lost it or crashed it, they either had to do a ‘Hands Across America’ to go find it, [or] they had to do this FLIPL process, even in a combat zone,” Ryan said at the time.That prospect, however, flew in the face of modern-day combat at a time when small, first-person view drones are shaping the battlefield in Ukraine and beyond.

Army officials later attempted to explain that policies surrounding small drones were actually more flexible than soldiers believed and worked on craftinga new edition of the accountability policy manual designed to better detail all of the non-liability actions that can be taken before a FLIPL investigation.

But more help was needed from the top. Itcame, in part, in the form of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recently signed “Unleashing US Military Drone Dominance” memo.

In it, he calls for every Army squad to be armed with small, one-way attack drones by the end of fiscal 2026. And in an attempt to get soldiers to actually use those drones, Hegseth rolled back the blanket non-expendiable, or “durable,” policy placed on all drones. Instead, he directs that all Group 1 and 2 drones (those weighing less than 55lbs) now be accounted for as “consumable commodities” and not durable property.

“Small UAS resemble munitions more than high-end airplanes,” Hegseth wrote. “They should be cheap, rapidly replaceable, and categorized as consumable.”

Hegseth also directs the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, to revise the Joint Unmanned Aircraft Systems Minimum Training Standards (3255.01) so that it excludes Group 1 and 2 drones, while also revising just what drones fit into the Group 3 — a weight that spans 56lbs all the way up to 1,319lbs.

Guidance sprinkled throughout that memo, Ryan explained, is intended to cut through any property accountability policy constraining an operational unit’s ability to rapidly procure and realistically train with drones, while also directing services to change any policy that “overregulates” UAS with burdensome and unnecessarily bureaucratic procedures.

As Army spokesperson Steve Warren told reporters recently,“Our intent is to make these drones, [and] in many cases, to treat them the same way we would treat other expendable [items like]…artillery shells, ammunition.”

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