The Army envisions drones for every infantryman undergoing a battlefront overhaul

the army The company is rapidly developing small first-person shooter drones — the same type that proved devastatingly effective in Ukraine — and envisions a future where “every infantryman will have a drone with them,” according to Army Secretary Dan Driscoll.

“Basically we are calling to arms as we absorb the lessons we learned in Ukraine,” Driscoll told a small group of reporters on the sidelines of the Association of the United States Army’s annual conference. “Ukraine has acquired nearly $10 billion worth of Russian equipment with $100,000 worth of drones.”

He added that the army’s elite units are already planning to use drones for every mission. “When you meet our leading units like the Ranger Regiment or Delta Force, they envision drones as an essential part of every job they do,” he said.

The comments came during AUSA’s annual conference in Washington, where hundreds of Army leaders met with defense executives to showcase the latest technologies on the battlefield. The event — one of the Army’s largest industry gatherings — almost did not take place this year amid the government shutdown.

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AUSA stepped in with a $1 million grant to cover travel costs and bring in Army officers from around the world, allowing the service to continue its meetings with industry and move forward with modernization plans.

The Army views drones and counter-drones as “two different sides of the same coin,” Driscoll said, noting that future soldiers will need to be skilled at both. “You can’t defend against one without being an expert on the other,” he said.

The service is also developing defensive networks that integrate sensors and interceptors to protect key assets from air threats. “We are using new technologies like drones to create a sensor layer that, combined with interceptors, will allow us to essentially build little ‘iron domes’ over protected assets,” Driscoll said.

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He described this “drone-pervasive” vision as part of a comprehensive modernization drive that includes artificial intelligence, industrial reform, and energy resilience — all of which, he said, are essential for the military to operate in contested environments like the Indo-Pacific region.

In a separate but related effort, Driscoll and Energy Secretary Chris Wright unveiled the Janus program, a next-generation energy initiative that would place small nuclear reactors on military bases across the United States. The goal: to make facilities self-sufficient in energy and less dependent on weak fuel convoys or external supply chains.

“These reactors will be built and operated commercially, and will give us the ability to provide flexible and safe power around the clock at our most critical facilities,” Driscoll said.

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Wright said the program aims to replicate the reliability of nuclear propulsion in the United States Navy submarines. “These engines have been installed, and they operate throughout the life of the submarine without refueling,” he said. “This has been a game-changer for our Navy. I think we can do the same for our Army with small reactors that can be deployed in all different places.”

The Janus reactors, which will be developed in partnership with the Department of Energy, are designed to be small and transportable. Each will be protected by armor-grade material — “the same material you put around a tank,” Driscoll said — and protected by the same layered sensors and drone network dedicated to base defense.

One of the biggest obstacles to the expansion of microreactors is uranium enrichment. Requires reactors Highly enriched low enriched uranium (HALEU) — A higher concentration of uranium-235 than is currently produced for civilian use.

“Nobody produces them today,” Wright told reporters. “Congress allocated some money two years ago, but it has been on hold for a long time. We will give awards to accelerate the rise of US-owned enrichment capacity in America,” he added.

The goal is to restore the domestic uranium supply chain and eliminate dependence on foreign sources, Wright said. “We quickly built 100 reactors, providing 20 percent of the U.S. electricity — and then it stagnated for decades,” he said. “Now nuclear energy provides about five percent of global energy production. This is very disappointing,” he added.

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Safety and security will be top concerns as the Army moves forward. “From a cyber perspective, no one would allow a remotely operated nuclear reactor,” said Dr. Jeff Waxman, the Army official in charge of the Janus program. “They will be connected by optical fiber, and there is no possibility of remote operation.”

Waxman added that the small size and design of the reactors make them unattractive targets for nuclear proliferation. He added that the goal of the project is eventually global in scope, but for now “these will be in the 50 US states, and will not be deployed to the front.” “They are small targets, with very small amounts of material inside.”