Alaska War Games HUMILIATE Pentagon

Aerial view of the Pentagon building and surrounding area

The U.S. military’s latest drone war games in Alaska ended not with a show of strength, but with a harsh reality check: our cutting-edge drone forces are lagging behind China and Russia, and the Pentagon is only now waking up to the bureaucratic mess that got us here.

At a Glance

Alaska drone exercise exposed glaring capability gaps between U.S. and adversaries like China and Russia.
Pentagon launches sweeping reforms, fast-tracking drone procurement and sidelining red tape—years overdue.
Executive Order 14307 and new DoD policies aim for “drone dominance” by 2027, prioritizing American-made systems.
U.S. units to treat drones as consumables, giving frontline commanders real purchasing power for the first time.

Alaska Drone War Games: A Wake-Up Call

During a four-day drone exercise in the wilds of Alaska, U.S. troops and defense tech start-ups put their latest uncrewed aerial systems through their paces. The results did not inspire confidence. While our soldiers struggled with slow, cumbersome tech—often outclassed by commercial drones you could buy online—analysts watching from Washington to Beijing saw a clear message: the U.S. has fallen behind in the drone arms race. China and Russia are cranking out swarms of cheap, expendable drones by the millions, pairing them with advanced AI and electronic warfare tools. Meanwhile, our own procurement process was so tangled in red tape that it took months or years to field what our adversaries can deploy in weeks. This is the kind of failure that demands a reckoning.

American service members have done their duty, but the system has failed them. Every minute spent waiting on approvals is a minute lost to our adversaries, who are more than happy to exploit our hesitation. For years, the Pentagon talked a big game about innovation but delivered at the speed of a DMV line. In Alaska, the reality hit home: if a high-tech conflict started tomorrow, we’d be the ones catching up.

Pentagon Reforms: Bureaucracy Takes a Back Seat

After the Alaska debacle, the Pentagon finally pulled the emergency brake on its obsolete procurement playbook. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, channeling the urgency Trump supporters have begged for, announced reforms so sweeping they’d make a bureaucrat break out in hives. The new policy treats small drones as “consumables”—yes, like batteries or ammo—giving lower-level commanders the authority to buy what they need, when they need it. The days of waiting for Pentagon desk jockeys to approve every paperclip are over. These aren’t just tweaks; this is a bonfire of red tape that should have happened years ago.

Hegseth’s plan is to achieve “UAS domain dominance” by 2027. The Pentagon is now accelerating the approval of American-made drones, vowing to put low-cost, expendable units into the hands of every squad—especially those facing down China in the Indo-Pacific. Private industry is front and center, with U.S. start-ups given a seat at the table. For once, it’s not about endless studies and white papers; it’s about getting results that matter on the battlefield and defending our people, not some globalist agenda.

Executive Orders, American Jobs, and a New Arms Race

President Trump’s Executive Order 14307 is throwing fuel on the fire of domestic drone manufacturing, demanding that the U.S. military “Buy American” and integrate drones into every level of combat training. The order slams the door on foreign supply chains and woke procurement standards, focusing instead on speed, reliability, and sheer numbers. By 2026, every combat unit is supposed to have access to these new tools, and every training scenario will involve drone-on-drone warfare. This is how you rebuild deterrence—by putting American industry and ingenuity to work, not by pandering to international summits or chasing utopian green fantasies.

Of course, this shift isn’t just about the military. The new drone push is set to boost American manufacturing and create jobs, especially for tech start-ups and defense suppliers who’ve been sidelined by years of risk-averse, bureaucratic nonsense. While some pointy-headed academics warn about “unintended consequences,” the real danger is doing nothing and letting America’s enemies set the terms of battle. The reforms also put a premium on rapid fielding and innovation, finally giving frontline troops the tools they need to win—not just participate. And yes, it’s about time.

Expert Reaction and the Road Ahead

Experts across the defense world admit what patriots have said for years: drones are the most transformative battlefield innovation in a generation, and the U.S. has been asleep at the wheel. The Ukraine conflict exposed this for the world to see, with mass-produced drones inflicting casualties and shifting the very nature of modern war. The new Pentagon policies are widely credited as a necessary and overdue course correction, but the proof will be in the follow-through. If the reforms stick, America could regain its edge and deter adversaries bent on exploiting our past complacency.

There’s still plenty of work to do. The U.S. must invest not only in new drones but also in counter-drone technology and electronic warfare, ensuring we stay ahead of the next threat. Critics worry about quality control and interoperability, but for once, the Pentagon seems to have realized that paralysis by analysis is a losing strategy. The message from Alaska is clear: America can’t afford to let bureaucracy and weak leadership get our sons and daughters killed. The era of slow-walking innovation is over, and not a moment too soon.